Consumers feel less reassured on the nutritional content of F&B products
Only 39% of consumers feel well-informed about what products are best for them.
With the recent announcement from the Public Health England to tackle overall calorie content in other foods, many food categories are likely to come under scrutiny in the coming months.
Impact Research, which has surveyed 1,449 consumers in the UK, found that there’s a clear gap in trust that still exists between the consumer and manufacturer, and the work that food and drink brands still have to do before consumers will feel sufficiently reassured about the nutritional content of the products they are consuming.
In the UK, only 39% of consumers feel well-informed about what food and drink products are best for them. 45% of consumers who buy yoghurt feel well-informed compared to just 29% in the Ready Meals category.
There is reportedly a general feeling across the nation that manufacturers still aren’t doing everything they can to improve the nutritional content of their products, with only 17% of them feel that manufacturers care about improving the nutritional content of their products to make them healthier.
Whilst only 39% feel there are healthier options available giving consumers a choice of which product to buy.
In the absence of trust with manufacturers themselves, consumers are attaching value to the opinion of those in their “circle of trust”.
Impact Research head of consumer research, Stuart Grant, believes the solution lies in greater clarity, “The food and drink industry needs to be more transparent in its messaging, otherwise it will remain outside consumers’ "circle of trust", creating a barrier to brands moving towards healthier products and thereby meeting shoppers’ changing needs and expectations”.
