Euromonitor has released new health and wellness research for 2016. According to the data, foods and beverages offering health benefits, such as free-from, and organic properties, drove value sales in 2016 with organic increasing by 6.8% to reach USD 36 billion and free-from increasing by 7.4% to reach USD 32 billion.
Ewa Hudson, head of health and wellness at Euromonitor International says, “Growth in organic and free-from food sales has boomed in 2016 as consumers are reading labels more carefully than ever, seeking natural ingredients and looking for foods that represents a ‘guilt-free’ purchase.”
The increasing demand for lactose-free and hypoallergenic options within foods and beverages has contributed to the growth of free-from, which is set to generate an additional US$9.5 billion sales by 2021 and will become the fastest growing category in Asia Pacific, Latin America, Europe and North America with an average of 5.4 percent growth.
“A clear statement that combines health, convenience, fashionable packaging and affordable price is the winning strategy behind health and wellness developments,” explains Hudson “Before the free-form boom, gluten and lactose free options were the opposite of convenience, meaning consumers were forced to either avoid or prepare almost every meal from scratch. Now, convenience has found its way into free-from and with that, growth opportunities abound. Organic is also in sync with the natural and clean label trend, and so unlikely to fall out of favour with consumers in the foreseeable future.”
Although, overall, 2015 and 2016 proved to be disappointing years for the Health and Wellness (HW) industry, facing the lowest levels of growth in over a decade, with developing markets, like China or Argentina, underperforming, and key developed countries such as the US not doing that well; the HW industry, valued at USD 707 billion in 2016, will continue to expand, expecting it to deliver 15% growth by 2021. Emerging countries will be the main contributors, with Morocco and Turkey leading the list.
Health and Wellness continues to outperform the wider Packaged Food and Soft Drinks industries. Free-from and organic foods and beverages will continue to contribute to the global health and wellness industry which is on the way to hit a record high of USD 833 billion by 2021.
