From vegetarian children's ready meals to eco-friendly dairy, palm oil-free bakery and botanical brews, FoodNavigator brings you a weekly round-up of hot products to hit the shelves in Europe.
©GettyImages-a_nameko
From vegetarian children's ready meals to eco-friendly dairy, palm oil-free bakery and botanical brews, FoodNavigator brings you a weekly round-up of hot products to hit the shelves in Europe.
©GettyImages-a_nameko
Botanical drinks maker Fentimans is launching a new ‘light’ range of soft drinks in the UK to meet growing demand from consumers looking for low calorie premium soft drinks.
The company’s recent market report indicated that 65% of British consumers are ‘proactively’ trying to lead ‘healthier lifestyles’. Fentimans has taken three of its top selling flavours and lowered the calories.
The ‘light’ range includes a lower calorie version of Rose Lemonade, Gently Sparkling Elderflower and Sparkling Raspberry.
The drinks have been created by adopting the same botanical brewing method Fentimans have been using for over 100 years, where milled ginger root and selected botanicals are fermented for seven days, the company said.
The recipe is free from artificial sweeteners. Each drink contains less than 60 calories per bottle, and sugar has been reduced to 4.8g per 100ml.
Fentimans Marketing Director, Andrew Jackson commented: “We know that a growing number of our audience are increasingly looking for great tasting ‘light’ drinks with fewer calories. At Fentimans, great flavour is our number one objective, so we have worked long and hard on the new recipes to ensure we can deliver a lighter option of our classic drinks, with absolutely no compromise on flavour.”
Ingredia, the ingredients arm of French dairy cooperative La Prospérité Fermière, has partnered with cooperative Eurial to supply milk to its butter brand Grand Fermage. This will enable them to launch what the companies describe as ‘the first eco-friendly butter from Via Lacta milk’.
Ingredia produces Via Lacta milk in-line with practices laid our under a series of commitments in its sustainable development charter. Via Lacta milk is GMO-free, cows are pasture-fed for ‘at least’ 170 days per year and are raised on straw in the winter.
The new brand will be available in soft butter and half-salt varieties from the second half of this year. It will initially be rolled out in Leclerc stores with further listings to follow.
Sandrine Delory, Ingredia general manager, said the arrangement came in recognition of the quality of Ingredia’s grass-fed and GMO-free milk.
Serge Capron, president of La Prospérité Fermière, added the innovation reflects the ‘increasingly important’ issue of ecologically responsible dairy, which he claimed is rising up the agenda of both supermarkets and French consumers.
UK baker Jackson’s Yorkshire’s Champion bread claims to be the first British bread brand to remove palm oil from its entire range.
The palm-free line of white, brown and seeded bloomers and rolls will hit the shelves in Waitrose this week. New packaging will announce the palm-free move.
Jackson’s Yorkshire’s Champion Bread today produces over 250,000 bloomers and bread rolls a week from its bakery in Hull.
In making this ‘ethically driven change’, it is believed the brand will become the first dedicated British bread brand to be completely palm-free.
Prior to this, Jackson’s only used palm oil products from a fully segregated sustainable source.
Managing director David Balmer commented: “While we’ve only ever used sustainable palm oil in our products, the people who buy our bread have demanded more. Our mission was to remove palm oil from all our products, without compromising the delicious taste and freshness of our much-loved bloomers and rolls. We’re thrilled that we’ve achieved what we set out to.”
Belgian chocolate brand Guylian, famous for its chocolate seashells, has launched a line of bars designed for ‘everyday indulgence’.
The company said the innovation comes in response to the ‘worldwide trend of portion control. One in three consumers care ‘a lot’ about portion size, the company said, citing recent consumer research.
Guylian’s single wrapped Belgian Chocolate bars will be rolled out across the 120 countries the company is present in.
The line includes individually wrapped 25g mini bars: creamy milk, premium dark 72%, hazelnut and salted caramel. An additional two flavours, milk and intense dark 84% are sugar-free and use stevia-based sweeteners. These bars are enriched with fibre.
“Our R&D and marketing team have identified more premium, more indulgent, more sustainable and more healthy chocolate products as the key chocolate category trends, and we have used this insight while developing for our 2019 brand strategy to grow our Guylian brand everyday," commented Mieke Callebaut, managing director of Guylian.
Marketing director Poeter De Pauw stressed that Guylian supports Project Seahorse and Project Cocoa. “More consumers are looking for brands that support social and environmental causes.
“Project Seahorse supports the conservation of coastal marine communities, while Project Cocoa is committed to improving the lives of the cocoa farmers, their productivity and reducing their environmental impact.”
Nestlé and Starbucks are launching Starbucks Creamers, a new line that will allow the Starbucks brand to enter the refrigerated creamer category for the first time.
The products combine Starbucks flavours with Nestlé expertise in the creamer category.
Earlier this year, as a part of the global coffee alliance between the two companies, Nestlé launched a range of 24 Starbucks products across various platforms. Nestlé’s licensing deal with Starbucks aims to bring a ‘premium coffee experience’ to consumers in grocery and foodservice.
David Rennie, Head of Beverages Strategic Business Unit, Nestlé said "The global coffee alliance has allowed us to develop and launch new Starbucks products at an unprecedented speed. We are very pleased to expand the Starbucks brand into the creamers category less than a year after we closed the deal. We will continue to move fast to deliver great Starbucks coffee experiences to our consumers around the world."
Starbucks Creamers will be available in three flavours: caramel, white chocolate and cinnamon dolce.
German frozen food group Schne-frost Ernst Schnetkamp is launching Avita Benjamin Blümchen crispy vegetable nuggets.
The company said that the ‘high quality’ of the Vita brand combined with ‘powerful’ characters that feature on the packaging under license help it to answer ‘growing demand’ for vegetarian children’s ready meals.
The launch has been timed to coincide with the cinematic release of the Benjamin Blümchen movie at the beginning of August.
The products consist of vegetable nuggets containing corn, carrots, parsnips, peas, onions and broccoli. These are coated in a cornflake crumb.
