A boost for health claims
As probiotics lose their selling power, health claims give other ingredients a fighting chance, Julian Mellentin says
With the dairy industry’s ability to make digestive health claims for products containing probiotics at an end, thanks to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), many people are justifiably concerned. The market for probiotic yogurts for digestive health market has been one of the greatest success stories of the last 15 years, driven in large part by the activity of market leader Danone Activia. Now, it seems, the period of growth may be coming to an end.
Things to know
However, the dairy industry need not despair. There are still a few things a processor can do to make a success of a dairy product with a digestive health benefit:
1. Use a bacteria with good science so that people can “feel the benefit.” This is in fact the basis of success of many brands, such as Activia. If people can feel that your product is making a difference they will become loyal consumers.
Sure, you can’t use a health claim, but that’s not the point, it’s word of mouth and the experience of the consumer from sampling the product that will convince them. Suppliers such as Chr Hansen have lots of know-how to help dairy companies who want to use this approach.
2. Use the calcium claim. Arla, one of Europe’s biggest dairy groups, markets its Balance brand of dairy drinks and yogurts with the message, “helps keep your stomach in balance.” The product is based on a combination of three active bacteria, but because health claims based on probiotics are not accepted by EFSA, the digestive health benefit is instead communicated as a benefit of calcium, not as a benefit of the probiotics.
One of the generic Article 13.1 claims approved by EFSA reads:
“Calcium contributes to the normal function of digestive enzymes”
In order to use this claim a product needs to deliver only 15 per cent of the RDA per 100g – a target that isn’t too difficult for dairy products to achieve with a small amount of fortification at very little cost.
3. Use one of the many other ingredients that can make a digestive health claim. The reality is, consumers are motivated by the benefit of digestive health. The fact that the benefit comes from probiotics is something they can accept and believe, thanks to 20 years of dairy industry marketing – but they are open to digestive health benefits from other sources, provided they make a logical fit to your dairy product.
Breakfast first
The dairy industry has a good opportunity to do utilise available health claims. It’s a trend at the moment, and one that is under-developed to offer breakfast-type products, which combine dairy with grains.
Produce such a product, and you can base your health claim on a grain such as rye or wheat bran. Makers of grain with dairy products will have the advantage of being able to make a digestive health claim at the time when such claims are vanishing from the dairy aisle.
Plan to succeed
A digestive health claim from grains is one that’s credible to consumers, as US cereal manufacturer Kellogg found to its benefit in the UK market in 2012. Kellogg harnessed two of Europe’s Article 13.1 health claims to one of its oldest brands, thus giving its 90-year-old All-Bran, a high-fibre brand long established as “a digestive health remedy for older people” – a new lease of life.
Kellogg was explicit in early 2012 in stating that it planned to capitalize on the approval by EFSA of two Article 13.1 health claims linking wheat bran fibre with digestive health. The claims, which are to be included on the EU’s generic list of structure-function claims that anybody can use, are:
“Wheat bran fibre contributes to an acceleration of intestinal transit”
and
“Wheat bran fibre contributes to an increase in faecal bulk”
Considering the claims are not the most consumer-friendly use of language it is understandable that the digestive health benefits are instead expressed on-pack as:
“Introducing a new way to feel All-Bran new! New Kellogg All-Bran Golden Crunch is a light and crunchy multi-grain cereal made with wheat bran, oven baked into delicious clusters so it’s not only good for your digestive health, but tastes great too.”
Kellogg threw its marketing muscle behind the new positioning, investing £5 million (€5.5 million) in a multi-media campaign under the strapline “Feel All-Bran New.”
The marketing strategy made sense, because although digestive health is consumers’ biggest need and has been one of the two biggest trends driving the overall food and dairy industry for the past decade, only the probiotic yogurt category has responded to this trend.
Activia from Danone is the brand that has done most to educate consumers about the issue of digestive health, preparing the ground for brands such as All-Bran to leverage the claims that have been approved in Europe.
Kellogg’s strategy has paid dividends. All-Bran sales were up by a healthy 17 per cent in 2012, to £48.5 million (€59.7 million), making it the UK’s ninth-biggest cereal brand. Of Kellogg’s largest 10 brands in the UK market, All-Bran was by far the fastest growing of 2012.
That’s a particularly good performance in the context of a breakfast cereal category that is under assault from other categories and in which total category volume fell by 1.4 per cent last year.
As a strategy it requires neither a great deal of risk nor does it require much innovation nor much demanding technical know-how. All it requires is a little imagination and courage from the marketing team.
