UK Taste Tomorrow Consumer Insights

Well, consumers now want to be informed about a whole range of other ingredients and characteristics in their food too. Increasingly, consumers perceive grains & seeds as ‘power ingredients’, which add both in terms of taste and health.

TASTE: As nutritional aspects of food continue to increase in importance, consumers want to strike the balance between tasteful and healthy or nutritional aspects of their food intake.

Most interesting are the ‘power-ingredients’ with a high contribution towards both the taste & health perception: the future looks bright for grains & seeds with 8 in 10 UK consumers ranking this as the top contributor to taste AND health aspects for bread.

6 out of 10 UK consumers score sourdough high on taste, with a relative good perception on the health axis too.

HEALTH: In the bread category, grains & seeds , are perceived as power ingredients to deliver on taste and health. As expected, the presence of fat, sugar and salt are seen as unhealthy.

TASTE: For pastry, cakes and sweet patisserie, fresh fruits, nuts and dried fruits have been identified as the power ingredients. Adding these into more indulgent bakery product will improve the nutritional profile. 

HEALTH: In patisserie, fresh fruits (84%), wholegrain (76%) & fibre (75%) are considered the most healthy additions. The least healthy perceived ingredients are sugar and fatty products such as sugar, margarine, creamfilling, butter & palm oil.

In chocolate products with cocoa as a key ingredient we have a great story to tell as it is obviously the key driver of taste according to 89% of UK consumers and has nutritional/healthy properties according to 65%. The awareness & presence of fruit filling, nuts and superfruits is much lower, but they have the potential of elevating the healthy properties of chocolate products according to 49%, 68% and 76% of consumers respectively.