Top 7 from 7: The key global food industry news of the past 7 days (Oct 29 – Nov 5)

USA​

1. Kellogg’s novel product for ‘deskfast’​

Kellogg is hoping jumpstart breakfast eating with its new joyböl smoothie bowls designed for the busiest of consumers.

The new smoothie bowls made their official debut at the NACS show in Baltimore, Maryland, last month with a range of flavors including chocolate hazelnut with granola clusters, mango coconut chia with black rice and pecans, strawberry almond quinoa crunch, matcha berry, and ‘superberries & acai’.

With millennials as a target audience, Kellogg’s has been building up its e-commerce business currently available through Amazon, Boxed.com, Walmart.com, Target.com, and Kroger.com, in addition to select cafés, offices, co-working spaces, some convenience stores, and 125 college campuses with further distribution plans in the works.

The products are the result of an internal Kellogg’s experiment to create breakfast that is easier to eat on the go or at work for the ‘deskfast’, John King, senior director of global breakfast innovation at Kellogg, told our US edition​.

“We noticed that especially in big cities and colleges people are living a very on-the-go lifestyle and changing their eating habits, turning snacks into meals and their desks into diners,” ​he said.

According to Technomic’s Consumer Breakfast Trends Report (1,500 consumers surveyed) one-third of consumers – and 45% of millennials – are interested in food products that can they can pack with them on transport with 32% of consumers reporting they would likely order a breakfast bowl to go. The time window of when breakfast foods are consumed has expanded beyond morning hours as Technomic’s research shows 32% of consumers are eating breakfast foods as a mid-morning or afternoon snack.

2. PepsiCo’s first HIVE investment ​

Food and beverage giant PepsiCo announced its acquisition of Health Warrior, Inc.​, a plant-based protein company specializing in 100-calorie snack nutrition bars.

Founded in 2011 by Dan Gluck and Nick Morris, Health Warrior built a strong e-commerce business through its own website and also gained brick & mortar distribution with big retailers such as Target, Giant, and Whole Foods along with independent natural health food stores.

The acquisition is the PepsiCo’ first brand investment of its newly-formed entity, The PepsiCo HIVE, which was described as a “business within a business” by former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi.

“With a shared mission to help create healthy relationships between people and food, PepsiCo is the ideal partner to bring our nutrient-dense, plant-forward offerings to even more consumers and considerably accelerate Health Warrior's growth. This is the whole reason we started the company,” ​said Health Warrior CEO Shane Emmett.

Europe​

3. Novozymes’ Q3 sales growth​

Food & Beverage continued to drive positive results for Novozymes, the world’s largest industrial biotechnology company.

Novozymes announced that sales grew 4% during the first nine months of 2018​, with solutions for low-lactose dairy, trans fat reduction and acrylamide reduction continuing good momentum in the market.

Net profit growth increased to 1-3%, while organic sales growth is more likely to be toward the lower part of the 4-6% range, despite challenging markets in the Middle East.

There was 7% organic sales growth in emerging markets compared to 2% in developed markets.

4. The expanding health benefits of fermented diary products  ​

Fermented products have been attracting a lot of attention over the past few years, and new study from Finland adds to that body of potential health benefits.  

A new study, published in the British Journal of Nutrition​, indicated that consumption of fermented dairy products such as cheese, yogurt, quark and kefir could lower the risk of coronary heart disease​.

On the flip side, scientists from the University of Eastern Finland also report that “very high” consumption of non-fermented dairy products is linked to an increased risk of heart disease.

“The fermentation process adds, for example, probiotics and vitamin K2 in the products, which both may have beneficial health effects. For example, vitamin K2 has been linked to lower risk of cardiovascular diseases,” ​said Jyrki Virtanen, adjunct professor in nutrition epidemiology and lead researcher.

The Kuopio Ischaemic Heart Disease Risk Factor Study included approximately 2,000 Finnish men and lasted two decades. Their dietary habits were assessed at the beginning of the research period in 1984–1989.

5. Health chocolate launch in German​

A new brand in Germany aims to cheer consumers up and improve their health through a tasty treat. Dr Jurgen Hower and Niels Hower are father and son, and their Doctor Chococo brand have been available to buy since September 2018 in two large German retailer chains and Amazon

Each 30g chocolate bar provides 50% of the RDA of vitamin D as well as 50% pure cocoa and reduced sugar. Each 200ml drink provides 100% of RDA of vitamin D, over 50% RDA of vitamin K and 32% RDA of calcium as well as 80mg of omega-3.

The products appeal to health-conscious sweet-toothed consumers of all ages but a key target audience is mothers, the product is already making waves in Germany and expanding its reach elsewhere. The entrepreneurs have received their first pilot order of 40,000 bottles from Saudi Arabia to be shipped early next year and they are in discussions with importers and distributors in Scandinavia, Hong Kong, China and Australia.

They eventually hope to extend their range into ice cream, yogurts and puddings and bring their products to schools through catering services.

For more information on this, please click HERE​​.

Asia​

6. What you need to know about cross-border e-commerce selling to China ​

Many foreign firms are increasingly attracted by the huge volume of transactions and ease of selling via China's cross-border e-commerce (CBEC) sector, which saw a turnover of US$13.08m (RMB 90.24bn) last year. This was an increase of 80.6% compared to 2016.

Nearly 30% of the CBEC sales was contributed by food products in year 2016.

According to our Asian edition​, Tmall global and JD worldwide are the well-known e-commerce platforms, however, one should not miss Kaola when it comes to CBEC.

As of 2018Q1, Kaola was the biggest CBEC player, enjoying a market share of 26%, says iiMedia Research Group’s August 2018 report. NetEase Inc, which operates Kaola, also pledged to source $11 billion worth of goods from key overseas markets into China, local media China Daily reported.

7. Coca-Cola Australia’s new cola-coffee combo for adults​

The coffee-cola combination called Batch Blends is designed for the 'adult palate', and is fully in line with its sugar reduction health targets: The new products contain zero sugar and contains aspartame and acesulphame-K.

“In Australia, we have joined with other beverage companies to commit to reducing sugar across our portfolios by 20% by 2025,”​ a spokesman for Coca-Cola South Pacific to told our Asian edition​.

Further to this, Coca-Cola Australia added via the official press release that this product will be ‘exclusive’, ‘sophisticated’, and ‘designed to appeal to discerning adult palates’.

“[We’ve only] chosen a limited selection of venues where Batch Blends will be ranged,”​ said Coca-Cola Australia Marketing Director Lucie Austin.

Caffeine-wise, this coffee-cola combination contains 35mg of caffeine per 250mL, as compared to 24mg/250mL in Coca-Cola Classic.