Researcher identifies middle ground for functional food success

Essentially, manufacturers should be focusing on adding extra benefits to foods already considered to be ‘inherently functional’, states US researcher The Hartman Group.

“Unfortunately for marketers, most food categories are not seen as culturally accepted mediums for strong functional benefits. Therefore, the actionability of enhanced functional food design is not guaranteed for just any food or beverage brand,”​ writes the report, Opportunities in Functional Foods.​

Non-medicinal​

According to Hartman, consumers embrace foods with health benefits but not if these appear as if they emerged entirely from a laboratory.

“The more scientific and opaque the formulation and the more potent the health benefit, the more consumers would rather just have a pill and a doctor involved,”​ says the group.

This, it says, has led consumers to differentiate products along a continuum from scientifically functional (e.g. cholesterol reducing butter substitutes) at one end to inherently functional foods (e.g. yogurt) at the other.

The most promising land lies in the middle, suggests the market researcher.

Inherent functionality​

Hartman dubs this category ‘enhanced functional foods’, which it describes as base products with inherent health functionality (such as orange juice) with another targeted functional nutrient added (for example orange juice fortified with calcium).

“We believe there is an opportunity for developing products that have inherent functionality yet are enhanced through minimal food processing to have an added health benefit,”​ states Hartman.

This could involve enhancing the naturally occurring power of the base food, for example adding probiotics to yogurt, or extra fiber to a granola bar. It could also involve adding a complementary functional ingredient that does not leave a negative aftertaste, for example cranberry juice with added B vitamins for energy, or yogurt with high antioxidant berries.

The strength of this approach, according to the market researcher, is a higher ability to have ownable brand-level distinctions in a category since a proprietary ingredient can be the added nutrient.

A possible weakness highlighted is that a poorly researched nutrient choice (e.g. omega fatty acids in milk) could trigger a bad taste, or a perception of the product as a medicine or ‘frankenfood’.