This past February, New York Yankee Mark Teixeira announced intentions to hit 30 home runs and collect 100 RBIs during the then-upcoming Major League Baseball season. Prior to 2012, these numbers would have been lofty yet attainable goals for a superstar of Teixeira’s stature. But in recent years the two time all-star first baseman appeared snakebitten having missed extensive time due to injuries that tarnished his reputation as one of baseball’s most feared sluggers. Fast forward four months ...
June 18, 2015Nutritional bars have gained a prominent place in the pantheon of snacks revered by a nation of snackers. Nutritional bars are a handy way for consumers to stop eating three meals a day at set times and to start consuming smaller portions of food throughout the day, whether they are on the go or at home. Nutritional bars conform to a broad cultural shift toward healthier, good-for-you food products. Bars provide an attractive way for food marketers to offer bold, exciting flavors; ingredients ...
March 30, 2015That sound you (virtually) heard on January 26, when Pizza Hut debuted its Udi’s-crusted gluten-free pizza to 2,400 locations nationwide, was a collective cheer from the GF blogosphere. “The beautiful partnership of Pizza Hut and Udi’s,” said one blogger, is a celiac’s dream come true. “Excited” was the word du jour. Gluten free-ers are excited that the world’s largest pizza company is catering to their dietary needs. Excited that the move will spur other restaurants into GF action, and excited ...
February 9, 2015The last few years have not been kind to frozen foods. Overall sales have for the most part been flat or shrinking. Any increases have been minimal and short-lived. The recent damage to this once essential grocery segment can largely be traced to a growing consumer taste for fresh, natural, and organic foods. Like most food trends, the strength of this trend may be overstated but it is real and it is growing as can be seen from the double-digit sales increases for organic foods reported by the...
February 2, 2015Today’s consumers want and expect more than great taste and belly-filling from the foods and beverages they consume. Ninety percent of Americans believe that certain foods offer health benefits beyond basic nutrition, according to research published in Packaged Facts’ Functional Foods: Key Trends & Developments in Ingredients. Baby Boomers and Millennials are looking for products offering positive nutrition to help them optimize health and avoid chronic and, potentially, life-threatening illness...
January 14, 2015Recent research suggests that the upward trend in obesity that has vexed public health officials for decades may have leveled out, while the healthy eating movement remains on the upswing. Still, nearly 100 million Americans are watching their diet to lose weight or to maintain their current weight. Successful weight management remains a tough and never-ending battle for many Americans trying to stay on a traditional diet plan. The majority of overweight Americans find that the very idea of a st...
September 25, 2014Discussion of the merits of nutritional supplements can be tricky, in the same way topics such as politics and religion are sometimes best avoided. That’s because you have two very polarized types of people when it comes to supplements: the “true believers” who believe that the supplements they take help to keep them healthy, and may have personally experienced positive results from taking specific supplements, and the “unfaithful,” who may point to studies that prove (to them) that vitamins and...
September 4, 2014Our love-hate relationship with sugar and sweeteners is intensifying as concern about added sugars mounts and negative consumer sentiment related to zero calorie sweeteners is slow to wane. Sugar, especially white granulated sugar, is being compared to tobacco and cigarettes in terms of the serious danger it poses to health, even being called toxic by some public health advocates. Sugar is considered a culprit when it comes to obesity, rising rates of diabetes and, more recently, it is implicate...
August 6, 2014Consumers are looking for foods that provide health and wellness benefits and contain ingredients that address illness mitigation. Packaged Facts data from a January-February 2014 survey notes that 57% of consumers are looking for foods with nutrients that address health concerns. Among the nutrients consumers are keying in on is protein. Protein provides many benefits, including its support of weight management and proper growth, immune, heart and respiratory function. According to Packaged F...
July 9, 2014Unlike conventional supermarkets, Whole Foods Market and Trader Joe’s are destinations: places consumers seek out and travel to over long distances. The two chains’ retail strengths echo similar market strategies as they seek to capitalize on growing consumer interest in natural and organic products. In many ways, they also have very similar-and actually often the same-customers. Yet, the striking differences between the two chains are what keep the same consumers shopping at both. At Whole Food...
March 5, 2014