The 2022 food and drink industry trends presented by Aurora Ceres a few weeks ago described two macro trends driving the food and beverage industry into 2022: Personal Health and Planet Health, and their key components. The “Clean Conscience-Beyond clean label” element is complex and includes plant-based foods, and is examined here more fully as it transcends the personal- and planet-health concepts.
The consumers’ requirement for Clean Labels was just the beginning; an expectation that consumers wanted to know more about the ingredients in their food products and the conditions in which these products were made and transported. To this end, provenance, transparency in supply chain, and sustainability became baseline expectations for the mindful consumer. Clean Conscience has added another layer, building on the desire for holistic transparency to such a degree that the mindful consumers need for their food products to be ‘clean’ for the planet as well as for their own personal health. This is driving the growth in plant-based foods sector.
The increasing body of evidence, that a higher proportion of plant-based foods in the diet has more health benefits, coupled with concern for the environment and the relatively lower carbon footprint associated with plant-based diets compared to animal-derived diets, means that the market for plant-based foods is now increasingly acceptable and no longer just for vegans and vegetarians. The rate of adoption of the flexitarian lifestyle is therefore set to increase.
Taste, texture and functionality
However, one of the biggest hurdles to overcome is how the industry actually enables these trends. This will only be achieved through innovation and the application of the right technologies. To help address this Univar Solutions Food Ingredients is looking to meet this challenge head-on through its new flexFOWARD range of plant-based ingredients and the supporting plant-based foods webinar series. In these webinars Univar Solutions invites new as well as established manufacturers and producers of plant-based products to join the conversation with experts across key applications and access the knowledge of the latest customer needs, market trends, technical functionality of ingredients and processing conditions required to create the perfect product on the shelf.
Essential Nutrition
One of the key challenges that producers of meat- and dairy-free products face is ensuring nutrition is balanced, and in particular that adequate protein levels are achieved. The success of the range of ingredients is reflected in the popularity of veganism amongst sports professionals, where protein intake has to be a priority.
Market Opportunity
The biggest markets for plant-based diets are the UK and Germany and there is recognition across Europe that innovation and promotion of alternative proteins is a necessary step to promote planet health. For example, the new German coalition government is actively promoting the alt-meat agenda. In the UK, Tescos is making price reductions in its plant-chef range to overcome affordability barriers, and Asda trialled a vegan butcher counter (Veelicious) in 2021.
Plant-Based Innovation
For the producer of meat- and dairy-free foods there is an astonishing amount of choice of plant-based ingredients, and navigating the right technology and the right development options can be challenging.
Univar Solutions Food Ingredients is responding to this through its flexFOWARD range in order to simplify the development process and provide solutions from plant-based sources that deliver on taste, texture and functionality. The plant-based foods webinar on the 8th December, with industry-leading creative chefs, will showcase what is truly possible with plant-based ingredients using the flexFORWARD range.
