Redmart insights: Searches for healthier options soar on major South East Asian e-commerce site

The event kicked off with an opening InnovAGE session, which assessed the region’s latest health and wellness innovations and trends.

Sam Strang Steel, Redmart’s Director of Fresh & Frozen Categories at Lazada Singapore, said products with sugar-free claims, brown rice, kombucha, almond milk and goods with vegetarian claims were performing strongly in terms of customer searches.

“We are uniquely positioned to see what customers are searching for, and what is important to them,”​ he said, adding customers who sought healthier products tended to spend SG$40-50 more than those who did not.

One big area of growth has been in meat alternatives. Redmart has introduced more than 75 products since August 2015, including Quorn and Beyond Meat.

Likewise, sales of non-dairy milk products, such as almond and kefir, increased by 160% last year.

The session also heard from IGD’s Shirley Zhu who assessed some of the latest developments in the retail space.

She gave examples of how stores are devoting more space to dedicated health and wellness ranges, citing Lotte Mart, Taste and Rustan’s Marketplace as prime examples.

This is being mirrored in more active communication of such ranges, alongside upgraded in-store services with a focus on freshness.

Ready-to-eat

She said Tesco Lotus and Lawson were two stores offering enhanced ranges of fresh foods that be consumed in-store.

In terms of the ageing population, she said fruit and vegetables, fibre and wholegrains were three key trends to tap into.

Finally, the session heard from the Healthy Marketing Team’s Deepak Gunvante, who highlighted that 80% of all new product launches fail in the first 12 months.

He also added the healthy ageing had to be promoted across all life stages, including products for the young who are keen to ensure they lead a healthier older age, in addition to the seniors of today and those who view themselves as ‘ageless’.

Gunvante pointed out that new product development in the healthy ageing realm required four types of innovators, which he defined as ‘explorers’ who assess why they is a need, ‘developers’ who analyse how to meet it, ‘marketers’ who examine who should be targeted and ‘optimisers’ who enhance its success.

Delegates at the event took part in a pre-event survey, which revealed that 45% could be classed as ‘explorers’, 36% ‘developers’, 15% ‘marketers’ and 5% ‘optimisers’.