Report Size and format: 381 slides with supporting data; report provided as PDF and PPT
According to the Mayo Clinic, “Functional foods are foods that have a potentially positive effect on health beyond basic nutrition. Proponents of functional foods say they promote optimal health and help reduce the risk of disease.”
When it comes to functional ingredients, common ubiquitous sources include fiber, protein, and certain kinds of fat, that is, core compositional nutrients that are often also present in added or sought after amounts for that effect ‘beyond basic nutrition’. For that reason, the terms ‘functional’ and ‘fortified’ are often confused and it becomes difficult to both quantitate and evaluate developments in the true functional food and beverage marketplace.
The functional food and beverage marketplace has been a difficult area for both ingredients and brands to pinpoint and understand as it quickly becomes murky and causes questions to be asked such as ‘is that ingredient being purchased for its nutritional or functional benefit’, and in fact, ‘is there a clear consumer perception difference’. This initial ITC (Ingredient Transparency Center) foray into that value system and supply chain delves into not only consumer demographics and beliefs, but also into their health attitudes, how consumers make their purchase decisions, their shopping behaviors and their approaches to transparency, trust and sustainability. Commencing with a broad range of ‘functional’ ingredients and perspectives, the report includes a deep dive into prebiotics, collagen-containing foods and beverages, turmeric-containing products and a short section on coconut as an ingredient and in several categories including coconut oil.
The rationale behind this report was to provide an understanding of drivers in key ingredient categories, benchmarked against more ubiquitous ingredient categories such as protein. Key categories of interest to ITC, such as prebiotics, collagen and turmeric were then compared against responses from the recently completed ITC 2021 Consumer Supplement survey to understand consumer usage of general and key ingredients across food, beverage and supplement applications and formats.
Click here to download the Executive Summary and Table of Contents.
