Healthier Choices: Yili on clean label, Freshcourt on health trends, Nestle on healthy ageing and more feature in our round-up
Beyond fortification: Yili highlights clean label and high-protein demands from Chinese consumers
Dairy giant Yili says that clean label and high protein content are now just as important to Chinese consumers as fortification.
Yoghurts are generally recognised as a nutritious food in China and manufacturers have long been fortifying these with various nutrients and minerals to boost marketability.
But according to Yili, fortifying with protein or calcium is no longer acceptable as an added benefit for Chinese consumers, who have much more specific expectations.
“Consumers are attaching greater importance to the nutritional value of yogurt as demands for nutrition have also evolved, which means they are no longer satisfied with yoghurts that are traditionally fortified using things like protein and calcium supplements,” Yili Group Yoghurt Business Unit Product R&D Manager Yin Xiaojing told FoodNavigator-Asia.
Smashing it: How Freshcourt is tapping health and RTE trends for avocado boom in Asia and Middle East
Increasing demand for heathier products coupled with manufacturing advances is giving pre-packaged avocado firm Freshcourt optimism to expand across Asia and the Middle East.
Freshcourt prides itself on its pre-packaged avocado portfolio, which brings both sweet and savoury products to shelves, while maintaining its colour without the use of any artificial chemicals or preservatives.
“We have perfected the use of the high pressure processing (HPP) technology to kill bacteria but not alter the flavour or colour of the avocadoes in any way, so the end products are 100% natural with no preservatives,” Freshcourt Marketing Director Eddie Garcia told FoodNavigator-Asia.
Pushing past pricing: Nestle targets premium and healthy ageing innovations to boost performance
Global food and beverage giant Nestle has its eye on expanding its premium and healthy ageing product portfolios as it seeks to return to ‘normalised’ growth.
In the firm’s financial results press conference which FoodNavigator-Asia attended, Nestle CFO Francois-Xavier Roger highlighted that overall organic growth for the company has been estimated at a 7.2% growth year-on-year – but that this was made up of 7.5% pricing growth and -0.3% of what the company calls Real Internal Growth (RIG), which is a measurement of growth generated by volume and mix/innovation.
“The food sector softness that has been seen over past two years globally has come from a food price increase spike that is the highest we have seen in some 50 years since 1973 to 1974, coming in at a 14.7% spike which is the highest since the 16.3% we saw back then,” Schneider told us.
Crocetin creation: Meiji launching functional milk beverage that supports vision and sleep
Japanese dairy giant Meiji is set to release a new Foods with Function Claims (FFC) product that it says would support eye accommodation and improve sleep quality.
The milk beverage, called Meiji Eye and Sleep W Support, contains 7.5mg of functional ingredient crocetin, a carotenoid derived from gardenia fruit and saffron. Due to its small molecular weight, it can be easily absorbed into the body.
Kirin FY23 results: Health functional drinks revenue up 30%, driven by immune and small bottle offerings
Kirin has reported strong revenue growth for its non-alcoholic beverage business, driven by demand for health functional drinks and especially those in small-volume PET bottles, the company said in its FY2023 financial results.
A breakdown showed continual revenue growth from its health science-related products, including non-alcoholic beverages containing its proprietary immune health postbiotic Lactococcus lactis strain Plasma, also known as LC-plasma.
A key revenue driver was the Kirin Oishii Immune Care series, which saw sales volume of its small-volume PET bottled products, which comes in 100ml each, went up by 3.4 times year-on-year. The series includes products such as Kirin Oishii Immune Care Calorie-Off and Kirin Oishii Immune Care Sleep.
