The sales of these label-claim foods are increasing. "Products labeled antibiotic free saw growth rates of nearly 20 percent, followed by soyfree at 19 percent and hormone and antibiotic-free at 15 percent."
As food scientists, we recognize that these claims may have little to no impact on health, and where there is a health impact, such as with gluten, there is a very limited number of people affected. According to one report, 1 in five consumers are avoiding or reducing gluten in their diet, but more than a 1/3 of them have no reason for doing it, while only 8% are gluten sensitive with another 9% claiming inflammation from gluten. The rest do it because they view it as healthy...more or less.
Regardless of whether we agree on the need for these label-claim items, people are increasingly purchasing them.
For manufacturer's of these types of foods, there are challenges. The first is having transparency. People know want to know where their food is from, and if they are concerned about GMOs, they want to know the manufacturer is making their food without GMOs...saying so is not enough.
Sourcing is an issue for many of these producing. Securing a steady source of antibiotic chickens in massive quantities can be difficult. Chickens will get sick. Farmers risk loosing a lot of chickens if illness is passed through the flock. GMO free is difficult. Grains for example can be hard not to have small amounts of GMO product getting mixed in when you consider the long supply chain from the field to processor with numerous silos and trucks all along the way.
For companies that handle 'free from' and traditional ingredients, managing inventories of numerous ingredients and applying controls to prevent cross contact can be difficult. Then managing production to make sure there is proper handling of in-process materials, proper clean-out of equipment between production runs, and then labeling.
The positive is the added margin that goes along with these products. If one is willing to put in the extra controls, there are people willing to pay a premium.
Bloomburg
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-09/-free-from-foods-are-changing-the-way-your-meals-are-produced
‘Free-From’ Foods Are Changing the Way Your Meals Are Produced
By Jen Skerritt, Megan Durisin, and Craig Giammona
September 09, 2018 5:00 AM Updated on September 10, 2018 6:00 AM
General Mills Inc. spent five years and built a special eight-story sorting facility to get rid of an ingredient that wasn’t in its cereal.
To ensure that that some varieties of Cheerios -- made from oats and thus naturally gluten-free -- didn’t contain even tiny particles of the protein that may have blown in from neighboring fields, the company dispatched a team of engineers to retool machines to sort 1 billion pounds of oats a year.
“It was not easy,” said Mike Siemienas, a spokesman for the Minneapolis-based food company, who declined to say what was spent on the effort. “We knew if we wanted to take our Cheerios gluten-free we needed to create our own system.”
The increasing demand for food "free from" certain items -- including gluten, antibiotics, pesticides or genetic modification -- is changing the way companies procure, process and package your food. Sales of such foods are poised to grow 15 percent, or $1.4 billion, in the U.S. between 2017 and 2022, according to Euromonitor data. The U.S. is the largest global growth market for the free-from trend as consumers seek to curb certain ingredients or additives from their diets.
Risking Obsolescence
Sales growth for North American packaged-food companies has slowed sharply since mid-2011, reflecting the shift in demand toward fresh and organic foods, Bloomberg Intelligence’s Kenneth Shea said in a July report . The S&P 500 Packaged Foods Sub Industry Index has tumbled 9
percent this year as industry stalwarts struggle to find the right formula for growth.
“We know that we have to continue to evolve,” said Kyle Lock, senior director of retail marketing at Garner, North Carolina-based Butterball LLC, the largest U.S. turkey producer. Without changing for consumers seeking other options “we risk some obsolescence, or at least some decline.”
While the food and beverage sector has grown 1.9 percent over the past year, “free-from” versions are growing faster, according to data from Nielsen. Products labeled antibiotic-free saw growth rates of nearly 20 percent, followed by soy-free at 19 percent and hormone and antibiotic-free at 15 percent.
“The health trend has been going for a while, but the challenge big packaged food companies have is how to make money out of it,” said Bloomberg’sShea. “A lot of companies are facing that identity crisis right now.”
Some of the largest food companies have taken steps to serve more discriminating customers. McDonald’s Corp., one of the world’s largest buyers of beef, plans to source more than 20 million of its Angus burgers in Canada over the next year from farms and ranches that have been certified sustainable. Tyson Foods Inc., the nation’s largest meat company, bought organic chicken producer Tecumseh Poultry LLC earlier this year. Ardent Mills LLC, the top US. wheat miller, has created “The Annex,” a unit that’s trying to find the future of specialty grains and plant-based ingredients.
The shift is not always easy -- General Mills faced an embarrassing early setback when it was forced recall gluten-free Cheerios because wheat flour got into a facility in California.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture approves antibiotic-free goods, whereas gluten-free is a Food & Drug Administration standard.
Dannon Cows
“Americans increasingly want to know what’s in the products they buy and how they’re made,” said Sergio Fuster, president of the U.S. yogurt division for Danone’s North American unit.
The maker of Dannon yogurt began reaching out to farmers eight years ago to identify ways to source non-genetically modified feed for cows. Since then, more than 65,000 acres of farmland have been converted to source the feed needed by the dairies, including grass and alfalfa, said Fuster.
The company’s Danimals brand, almost entirely transitioned to non-GMO, is among its best performers. Dannon’s market share in the kids segment grew by a third in the past three years to reach 41 percent in 2017.
Butterball sells organic and antibiotic-free products and recently expanded its all-natural products including turkey bacon, sausage and burgers to lure customers outside of the holidays, when demand for its poultry usually peaks.
Sales of the company’s antibiotic-free ground turkey in the 13-week period ending Aug. 12 were up 71 percent from the prior year, and now make up 17 percent of the total. Achieving this is a logistical juggling act -- its plant in Mount Olive, North Carolina, handles organic and antibiotic-free birds first thing in the day to ensure they don’t come into contact with the conventional products. There’s also different colored bins to store each type of meat to prevent mix-ups, said Jay Jandrain, the company’s chief operating officer.
“It’s a matter of storing and managing those materials -- that’s the tricky part, just as far as keeping them segregated,” Jandrain said. “If you’ve got a raw breast meat, you now have three different types of raw breast meat that you have to manage through the facility.”
more - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-09/-free-from-foods-are-changing-the-way-your-meals-are-produced
Risking Obsolescence
Sales growth for North American packaged-food companies has slowed sharply since mid-2011, reflecting the shift in demand toward fresh and organic foods, Bloomberg Intelligence’s Kenneth Shea said in a July report . The S&P 500 Packaged Foods Sub Industry Index has tumbled 9
percent this year as industry stalwarts struggle to find the right formula for growth.
“We know that we have to continue to evolve,” said Kyle Lock, senior director of retail marketing at Garner, North Carolina-based Butterball LLC, the largest U.S. turkey producer. Without changing for consumers seeking other options “we risk some obsolescence, or at least some decline.”
While the food and beverage sector has grown 1.9 percent over the past year, “free-from” versions are growing faster, according to data from Nielsen. Products labeled antibiotic-free saw growth rates of nearly 20 percent, followed by soy-free at 19 percent and hormone and antibiotic-free at 15 percent.
“The health trend has been going for a while, but the challenge big packaged food companies have is how to make money out of it,” said Bloomberg’sShea. “A lot of companies are facing that identity crisis right now.”
Some of the largest food companies have taken steps to serve more discriminating customers. McDonald’s Corp., one of the world’s largest buyers of beef, plans to source more than 20 million of its Angus burgers in Canada over the next year from farms and ranches that have been certified sustainable. Tyson Foods Inc., the nation’s largest meat company, bought organic chicken producer Tecumseh Poultry LLC earlier this year. Ardent Mills LLC, the top US. wheat miller, has created “The Annex,” a unit that’s trying to find the future of specialty grains and plant-based ingredients.
The shift is not always easy -- General Mills faced an embarrassing early setback when it was forced recall gluten-free Cheerios because wheat flour got into a facility in California.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture approves antibiotic-free goods, whereas gluten-free is a Food & Drug Administration standard.
Dannon Cows
“Americans increasingly want to know what’s in the products they buy and how they’re made,” said Sergio Fuster, president of the U.S. yogurt division for Danone’s North American unit.
The maker of Dannon yogurt began reaching out to farmers eight years ago to identify ways to source non-genetically modified feed for cows. Since then, more than 65,000 acres of farmland have been converted to source the feed needed by the dairies, including grass and alfalfa, said Fuster.
The company’s Danimals brand, almost entirely transitioned to non-GMO, is among its best performers. Dannon’s market share in the kids segment grew by a third in the past three years to reach 41 percent in 2017.
Butterball sells organic and antibiotic-free products and recently expanded its all-natural products including turkey bacon, sausage and burgers to lure customers outside of the holidays, when demand for its poultry usually peaks.
Sales of the company’s antibiotic-free ground turkey in the 13-week period ending Aug. 12 were up 71 percent from the prior year, and now make up 17 percent of the total. Achieving this is a logistical juggling act -- its plant in Mount Olive, North Carolina, handles organic and antibiotic-free birds first thing in the day to ensure they don’t come into contact with the conventional products. There’s also different colored bins to store each type of meat to prevent mix-ups, said Jay Jandrain, the company’s chief operating officer.
“It’s a matter of storing and managing those materials -- that’s the tricky part, just as far as keeping them segregated,” Jandrain said. “If you’ve got a raw breast meat, you now have three different types of raw breast meat that you have to manage through the facility.”
more - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-09/-free-from-foods-are-changing-the-way-your-meals-are-produced
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