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Insight by Gama Compass
MANCHESTER – 16th September 2024: Honey is hitting a sweet spot, the latest Insight by Gama Compass can reveal, with an increasing number of food and drink brands choosing to make honey the centrepiece of their innovation and branding efforts, as well as including it as a key ingredient within product formulations.
Mentioned nearly 50% more often in new product launches recorded on Gama Compass since 2023 than in 2021 / 22, honey is undoubtedly having a moment, underscoring a central trend within the food and drink industry for ‘natural’, ‘real’ and ‘ancient’ ingredients, especially those with supposed therapeutic properties. The rise of honey also underlines consumers’ increasing aversion to table sugar, viewed by many as being overly processed or artificial and thus especially bad for health (even if, at a basic nutritional level, honey is in fact more calorific than sugar on a gram per gram basis).
Read the full Insight By Gama Compass in the latest issue of Gama News
Honey is not alone in benefitting from consumers’ shunning of sugar; especially since 2017/18, a select few ‘natural’ sweeteners have started to emerge to challenge the dominance of sugar (and for that matter conventional artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, acesulfame potassium and sucralose too). Chief among these has been stevia, which, like honey, has enjoyed renewed popularity since 2023 following an initial wave of interest in 2019 / 20: as an ingredient, stevia increased from 4.1% of food and drink launches in 2021 / 22 to 4.8% in 2023 / 24.
“The rise of honey as a natural sweetener hints at something tantalising about consumer attitudes to sugar: if a sweetener is deemed to be natural and also less processed, they are willing to accept, as a trade-off, product formulations that are not wholly sugar-free”, commented Gama insights director Tom Warden. “Honey’s new-found success is also testament to the value consumers place on the ‘real’ and ‘recognisable’ when it comes to ingredients with natural positioning, as well as qualities such as taste and functionality”.
Source: Gama Compass
About Gama Compass
Take a more informed approach to product strategy, increase profitability and reduce costly mistakes with Gama Compass, Gama’s premium subscription service for the FMCG sector.
Developed with the industry’s leading names, Gama Compass offers powerful insights that allow you to unlock new opportunities and streamline your innovation pipeline.
To learn more about Gama Compass, contact Tom Warden, Gama insights director, at info@gamaconsumer.com.
About Gama
Gama is a global provider of business information and services specializing in product innovation and international trade. Through our worldwide network of over 100 experts in more than 50 countries, we offer high-quality news, research, analysis and partnering services. We deliver actionable insights, enabling you to make more informed decisions and supporting you to unlock new business opportunities.
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