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Against a backdrop of poor sales, functional foods suppliers remain on tenterhooks as they wait for the final EFSA verdict. Nick Hughes looks at a market struggling with its identity. The functional foods market is approaching a critical moment in its development.
With just one health claim in five having received a positive verdict from the European Food Standards Agency to date, a host of food and drink products are in danger of being outlawed in their current state under new European law….
“There has been a big move away from claiming how a product can improve health in some way to just stating product contents and leaving consumers to read into the implied benefits,” says Natalie Reed, Strategy Partner at integrated brand agency Reach. Reed cites Gatorade, Kellogg’s Optivita and Danone Activia as examples of brands that are moving away from making explicit claims about the product’s health benefits, preferring instead to use visual devices and suggestive language to imply wellbeing and health. “There are ways of making claims without stating them explicitly,” she says. “For consumers a lot of the benefits are emotional rather than rational.”
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