We bring you the top 10 most-read trends stories from the food and beverage industry in 2020, with trends such as e-commerce, sustainability, food safety and security and dairy trends coming up on top.
Click through the gallery to see them all.
We bring you the top 10 most-read trends stories from the food and beverage industry in 2020, with trends such as e-commerce, sustainability and reformulation coming up on top.
Click through the gallery to see them all.
Trend: Dairy trends
Four major dairy industry associations in China formed a set of guidelines for dairy and dairy product consumption for local residents in March in the hope of strengthening the public's immune health amid the COVID-19 novel coronavirus outbreak.
Dubbed the ‘Milk and milk-related products consumption guidelines for Chinese residents’, the guidelines were formulated jointly by the National Association of Health Industry and Enterprise Management, Chinese Nutrition Society, Dairy Association of China, and China Dairy Industry Association.
Government bodies and private companies were also involved in the crafting of these guidelines, namely the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Institute for Nutrition and Health, the Chinese Medical Doctor Association and Mengniu.
“With epidemic prevention, control and treatment at a critical stage in the country currently, science has shown that a balanced diet can help to improve nutritional health, enhance immune resistance and provide important nutritional support to combat diseases,” said the associations via a formal statement.
“Milk and other dairy products are an excellent source of high-quality protein and can also provide a source of Vitamin B2, Vitamin A, calcium and other nutrients essential for the human body. So a higher intake of these products for those low in protein, especially when higher immune resistance is required to fight the novel coronavirus, will be very beneficial.”
Read the full story here.
Trend: E-commerce
Many Singaporean consumers have shifted their purchasing behavior from offline to online shopping as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and experts have predicted that this shift will be a long-lasting one with effects long past the outbreak.
According to data from data analytics firm Nielsen, 37% of Singaporean consumers have increased online shopping activities since the COVID-19 outbreak, and over three-quarters (76%) have already indicated that they will not return to pre-outbreak online shopping levels.
Some 70% of consumers opted to shop online to stock pantries with FMCG items such as packaged foods and beverages, and 69% of those who had bought these goods online for the first time during COVID-19 are already planning to do so again within the next 12 months.
“The convenience and accessibility to products online, especially during COVID-19, have not only increased existing online shoppers' spend but also converted many offline shoppers to online. This trend is unlikely to return to pre-COVID status,” Nielsen Executive Director of Consumer Insights Garick Kea told FoodNavigator-Asia.
“Consumers have already changed their lifestyle habits due to COVID-19, changing what, when and how they buy, and started making adaptations to how they shop - these adjustments may have established new and lasting habits.
“Hence, even when people return to their daily routines after the crisis passes, they may continue to be cautious about their health and want to enjoy the convenience of e-commerce.”
Read the full story here.
Trend: Sustainability
Single-use, disposable food packaging has made a comeback rising on the coattails of the COVID-19 pandemic, as many consumers believe this to be safer and/or more hygienic – but are these beliefs truly warranted?
For some years now, sustainability has been a key trend and driver in the business and marketing strategies for many food and beverage companies in the Asia Pacific region such as Coca-Cola and Nestle especially after China banned plastic waste imports in 2018.
One of the main initiatives across many of these that have this focus has generally been to cut down on the use of single-use plastic bottles and packaging – but experts say it is likely that ‘companies may resort to plastic packaging to combat the spread of the pandemic, putting the sustainability aspect in the back seat’ again.
“Single-use packaging, which has faced lots of criticism in recent years because of environmental concerns, might be seen as a better packaging alternative from a ‘hygiene’ point of view because of limited handling/access of the inner products,” said insights firm GlobalData’s Practice Head of Consumer Beverages Arvind Kaila.
“[This] may hurt sustainability goals sustainability goals set forth by governing bodies and businesses alike.”
Read the full story here.
Trend: Sustainability
In May, Australian researchers announced that they had found a way to use the tropical fruits durian and jackfruit to develop a new form of energy storage that is both cost-effective and double-sustainable, from both waste management and environmental perspectives.
The study was conducted at the University of Sydney and was centred on the cores of both durian and jackfruit, which are generally discarded as food waste because only the flesh of both fruits, which surround large inedible seeds, are consumable.
The secret to this lay in the naturally-occurring carbon structures of the fruit cores, described as ‘fibrous’ and fleshy’, and which properties allowed for the effective storage of energy with some engineering.
“Using durian and jackfruit purchased from a market, we converted the fruits’ waste portions (biomass) into super-capacitors that can be used to store electricity efficiently,” said study co-author Associate Professor Vincent Gomes.
“[The fruit biomass was] heated in water and freeze-dried [to be] transformed into stable carbon aerogels — an extremely light and porous synthetic material used for a range of applications [including as] super-capacitors.”
Read the full story here.
Trend: Food safety and security concerns
Around the March to April period earlier this year, lockdowns and trade barriers across Asia due to the COVID-19 pandemic thrust rice - one of the region’s largest agricultural commodities – firmly into the spotlight potential volatility in both supply and cost.
Rice is a staple not only for countries in Asia, but also in Australia and Africa as well. This meant that it was a general prime target of any panic-buying or hoarding when the public wanted to stock up on shelf-stable foods, according to Food South Australia CEO Catherine Sayer
“Rice was one of the major food products that Australians were panic-buying when tighter control measures were announced in Australia,” Sayer told FoodNavigator-Asia.
“It’s shelf-stable, it’s filling and everyone has it in their pantry. So [although it’s] hard to quantify actual impacts that [export bans and supply drops] from Vietnam, Cambodia and China had on purchasing, [it is for sure that] many people bought a lot more than they needed as it is a staple item here.”
Vietnam, the world’s third-largest rice exporter, decided in March to implement a rice export ban to ensure local supply, and Cambodia followed suit to stop all rice exports except for fragrant rice.
Read the full story here.
Trend: Sustainability
In January, South Korea enforced regulations banning the usage of plastic materials that are difficult to recycle such as PVC and coloured PET bottles for the packaging of food and beverage items.
This was part of the country’s objective to reduce its plastic waste production by half, as well as more than double recycling rates from 34% to 70% by 2030.
"The comprehensive countermeasures focus on enhancing public management and stabilizing the recycling market,” South Korean Ministry of Environment (MoE) Minister Kim Eun-kyung said.
“The government will be involved in the life cycle of the products, starting from production to the recycling process.”
The ban was implemented by the MoE under the Act on the Promotion of Saving and Recycling of Resources, focusing on PVC (Polyvinyl chloride) and coloured PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) plastic bottles, as these are known to be more difficult to recycle as compared to transparent PET plastic bottles.
In addition to this, MoE stated in the original statement announcing this change that even PET bottle labels that are hard to recycle would be prohibited.
“[The] use of PVC, coloured PET bottles and general adhesive PET bottle labels that cause problems or are difficult to recycle during the recycling process are prohibited from use,” said the ministry.
Read the full story here.
Trend: Food supply and security concerns
Palm oil trade between Malaysia and India was seen to be moving back on track as of August, with the latter running low on local stock and the former relaxing export tariffs as both countries move to repair a trade relationship wrecked by previous political clashing.
The Indian government issued a boycott order on Malaysian palm oil to all its traders in January this year after then-Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad criticised India’s move to strip Kashmir of its special status and ‘invading and occupying’ it.
Tun Mahathir was ousted by successor and current Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin in March, and since then both countries have been trying to repair ties, although the progress for this is ‘taking time’.
“For the first few months of 2020, Malaysian palm oil exports to India were hit pretty badly, they were only taking some 10% to 12% of their normal monthly intake,” Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) CEO Datuk Dr Kalyana Sundram told FoodNavigator-Asia.
“One of the primary reasons for this was also due to the shutdown of the Hotel, Restaurants and Cafes (HORECA) industry in the country, as palm oil is mostly used by this industry and it could not function under lockdowns.
“Demand seems to be back on the rise now. Also domestic stocks they had left were running out and they need to replenish, so are importing more palm oil again – At the end of the day, palm oil is a crucial part of the country’s food security so they have to replenish.”
Read the full story here.
Trend: Non-alcoholic beverage trends
Both the APAC soft drinks and energy drinks markets are amongst the largest worldwide, but rising health and sugar reduction trends within the industry have dealt mighty blows to both beverage categories. In the June edition of the FNA Deep Dive, we took a closer look at how beverage firms are innovating to survive these changes - or risk getting overtaken by newer players.
Asia has always been a major consumer market for soft drinks, and the traditional energy drinks market has been a very dominant player in Australia and also China which has seen rapid growth in the category over the past decade.
But as consumer awareness about health and sugar reduction rises in the region, both these drink categories were found to face major challenges in their traditional product offerings which mostly need to be high in sugar to taste good.
“The soft drink market in particular is a very, very mature category here in the APAC region, and has been on end-decline when it comes to consumption-per-capita for years now,” then-Kanguru Asia Pacific President David Westall, who also used to bed the CEO of Coca-Cola Korea Bottling and Pepsi Cola Bottling Central Asia, told FoodNavigator-Asia.
“It’s managed to remain hidden behind things like price increases and package size changes, but the number of consumption occasions, which is what we in the industry use to measure consumption, is actually significantly lower now than it has ever been in history.”
Read the full story here.
Trend: Snacking trends
Snacking has evolved from being a convenient and comforting experience before COVID-19 to a more food conscious and healthy activity during the pandemic, according to two experts.
Before the pandemic, consumers looked at snacks as a comfort food with a convenience purpose, according to food technology platform Ai Palette and research firm Frost and Sullivan.
Nadiah Ghazalli, APAC consulting analyst of chemicals, materials & food at Frost and Sullivan said: “Before COVID-19, snacking kept us full between meals, and was also a meal replacement for busy professionals.”
Somsubhra Gan Choudhuri, co-founder and CEO at Ai Palette, said the early days of the pandemic saw consumers gravitate towards comfort snacks.
However, consumer preferences towards snacking changed, the longer lockdowns were enforced.
“We observed that people still continue snacking but were now more conscious about their diet and are moving towards healthy snacking,” he said.
Read the full story here.
Trend: Reformulation and fortification
The Food Safety and Standards Authority India (FSSAI) has revealed plans to make fortification mandatory for edible oil and milk over the next few months, in addition to intensifying its focus on local staples such as rice, wheat and salt.
According to FSSAI Director (Food Fortification Resource Centre/FFRC) Inoshi Sharma, the mandatory regulations will apply to all food and beverage companies dealing in edible oil and milk within India’s organised food sector.
“At present it is not mandatory to fortify these foods, but we will be issuing regulations in about three or four months that will make it compulsory for all edible oil and milk from any manufacturer in the open market to be fortified,” Sharma told FoodNavigator-Asia.
“This applies to all companies within the relevant organized sectors in India, so the big food firms and SMEs alike – but of course if the producer is not part of the organized sector and is just selling milk from the two cows in his backyard, then this will not apply.
The new FSSAI new regulations will allow for higher levels of fortification to be achieved by permitting fortificants to be added up till amounts that will translate to provide between 30% to 50% of the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA).
Read the full story here.
