• by Karlene Lukovitz , August 2, 2010

With health and benefits claims having reached bewildering proportions in recent years, major food and beverage marketers are taking a cue from niche companies and succeeding with a growing number of products positioned as "simple," both in ingredients and messaging.

More than half (56%) of food/beverage product categories in the U.S. showed decreases in the average number of ingredients per product between 2008 and 2009, with an average ingredients decrease across categories of 2.4%, according to Mintel International CPG trend insight directors Lynn Dornblaser and David Jago, who detailed the simplicity trend during the recent IFT 2010 annual meeting and food expo. 

This is a response to consumers increasingly shifting their nutritional health/wellness focus toward "natural," "real" and additive-free foods, meaning those offering inherent goodness, freshness, wholesomeness and balanced nutrition, they pointed out.  These days, a "simple" message is often perceived more positively than didactic or vague "good for you/healthy" messaging.

While most "simple" offerings are still coming from smaller companies, often as offshoots of organics, large companies are also jumping on the trend, sometimes by introducing "simple" extensions of well-established brands (e.g., "Simply Heinz" tomato ketchup).

"Inherently" simple product success stories include Yoplait Greek yogurt (three best-selling varieties have cumulatively sold $9 million since January 2010), and the refrigerated, packaged smoothies category (which, while impacted during the recession, logged 82% growth between 2005 and 2007 and is forecast to reach $250 million by 2011).

Other successful new offerings from majors include Pillsbury's Simply...Chocolate Chip Cookies (ready-to-bake dough free of trans fats, high fructose corn syrup/HFCS, and artificial colors, flavors and preservatives), with sales of $10.3 million since its May '09 launch; and Haagen-Dazs's Five ice cream line (just five, all-natural ingredients), with sales of $21 million in its first year.