Food for thought: What we learnt at Food Matters Live

By David Burrows

- Last updated on GMT

Related tags Nutrition Food

Food for thought: What we learnt at Food Matters Live
After three days of debates, seminars and demonstrations at Food Matters Live, there are major challenges and themes the industry needs to reflect upon - we've rounded up some of the most compelling.

Bitter pill

Sugar is unquestionably the demon ingredient, but it’s hell trying to reduce and replace it, according to manufacturers. As one industry leader put it: trying to remove sugar from chocolate will inevitably result in it tasting like crap. There are also the major functional properties of sugar to consider. As Sue Davies, executive director at consumer group Which? noted, progress on sugar has been “patchy​” compared to trans fats and salt. This presents a headache when sugar intake has got out of control.

Collaboration on sugar solution? Fat chance

Could the industry work together on a solution to the sugar reformulation conundrum, pooling resources and expertise to head off regulatory interventions? No chance, was the reply from the likes of Simon Hazlett, Boulder Brands UK managing director. “We can’t [do that] because of competition​,” he said, adding that the financial gains from successful innovation are “huge​” so no company in its right mind would share information.

No deal on responsibility

Much was made of the (UK) food industry’s collective influence – the Food & Drink Federation’s director-general Ian Wright highlighted the 400,000 people employed in food manufacturing and sales of £77 billion. And yet the message to government was clear​: it’s your job to clear up the obesity crisis. Public campaigns to change behaviour must be funded by government, he said, before noting the failures of past attempts that ended in “slagging off​” some members’ brands.

Trick or treat?

The Government’s deputy chief medical officer, Dr Gina Radford, believes the odds of eating healthily are “stacked against​” children. Plenty of speakers noted how the public is being “hit hard” with marketing messages for foods high in sugar, fat and salt, but industry isn’t helping itself. High-profile moves to remove confectionery from tills, for example, have come unstuck for some retailers – most recently Marks and Spencer. The fact that food manufacturers are all fighting to find the “magic solution​” has also left shoppers confused and nowhere near a balanced diet, said Lu Ann Williams from Innova Market Research.

21st​ century messaging

The regulatory spotlight is certainly on how brands market their products, especially to children. UK manufacturers can expect a tightening of the laws relating to non-broadcast advertising in the New Year; this will consider tactics such as gamification and marketing through social media. Equally, campaigns to change purchasing behaviour and swing the balance towards healthier lifestyles need to be digital-savvy, FDF’s Wright noted – and that costs money.

Perfect (marketing) storm

For any brand looking to resonate with customers, content will be king. With marketing budgets restricted, impending clampdowns on advertising and the media after horror stories rather than healthy products, there’s a perfect storm brewing for brands to weather. Indeed, the message to eat healthily and exercise won’t attract headlines or coverage, so brands need to look at the “rewards​” available from content marketing, said Sandra McDowell, MD at Amaze Communications, which works with the Saucy Fish Co. Brands testing the water in social media also need to harness the heritage of those with similar values – for Saucy Fish it was Innocent, which has 216,000 followers on Twitter.

Lean better than green

Look around the new products on offer – many admittedly from smaller brands – and health messages abound – milk with certain proteins removed, water from bamboo and meat alternatives. But very few come with ‘green’ messaging. For all the consumer surveys in which people say they want to buy foods traded fairly, lower in carbon or from the local area, NPD is very much focused on the health boosting potential of a product.

But a word of warning…

In the push for healthier products – free-from, natural additives and the like – have manufacturers and their customers got carried away? “We need to look at whether [those kinds of attributes] are healthier for people,​” said Professor Colin Dennis from the Institute of Food Technology. “As a scientist I would question whether they are eating more healthily … in an emotional sense, perhaps [they are] … but physiologically there are questions to be answered​.” Dennis felt the industry needs to better understand the interaction between food, food composition, food structure and people’s physiology.

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1 comment

general comments

Posted by Sian Cocks,

Is this article written by someone who know much about food science? When sugar is replace in chocolate it is as much the texture and mouthfeel that is affected as the flavour. There was a surfeit of stevia at Food Matters which deserved a mention. The milk that was much in evidence for allergen sufferers was A2 milk which your reporter is probably referring to at one point. This does not have protein removed, it is produced from cows who do not produce the allergenic protein in their milk. There were also waters from other plants such as maple .....

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