Three Ways Food Brands Can Influence the Healthy Eating ‘Revolution’

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Research shows that consumers are seeking brand guidance on how they can eat better. From social media strategies to product redesign and more, here’s how companies can provide them what they need. 

Our culture may be embarking on what Suzy’s President Avi Savar recently described as a healthy eating “revolution.”

“You would think that healthy eating is everywhere,” Savar said, during a recent consumer trends webinar, Industry Superpowers: Redefining Consumers’ Healthy Eating Habits. “At the end of the day, there are more and more options available to consumers.”

2020 was a record year for the natural and organic products industry. According to the New Hope Network — a digital information hub dedicated to products that facilitate healthy living, which partnered with Suzy to produce the webinar — the natural and organic products category grew 12.7% last year, reaching $259 billion in revenue across all channels.

“But despite all that hype, when you dive into consumer behavior, people are still struggling,” Savar said. “There is a little bit of a paradox.”

For consumers, Savar explained, there is a “tension” between “What is good for me?” and “What am I craving?” This tension turned up in a June market research study of 1,000 Americans, conducted by Suzy and the New Hope Network, where resulting data indicates that, when it comes to eating healthy, people do have good intentions. 

More than a third of respondents — 38% — said they set healthy eating goals for themselves, while 52% of them reported doing so around important events, like New Year’s celebrations, summer vacations, and birthdays.

But further data reveals that consumers still make plenty of room in their diets for indulgences. Though two-thirds of our survey’s respondents said they follow a healthy diet for at least half of their meals, less than 10% of them said they follow a healthy diet for every meal. 

Food brands today must find their place somewhere between this paradox’s poles. During the webinar, Savar talked with Eric Pierce, Vice President of Insights at the New Hope Network, about the ways they can.

Work With Influencers To Offer Healthy Eating Guidance on Social Media

Nearly a third of consumers — 31% — in the market research survey said they look to social media to motivate their healthy eating, and 28% said they trust dieticians the most for information related to health and wellness.

“This appears to create an opportunity for brands working with dieticians in the social media space to play a positive role in educating and motivating diet and lifestyle changes,” said Pierce.

Perhaps a dietician influencer can explain in a post precisely where a product fits into their daily eating routine. Maybe they’ll divulge how the offering either promotes healthy living or works as a guilt-free indulgence. 

Along with generating publicity for brand offerings, Pierce also noted that such an initiative would negate some of the effects of the unreasonable beauty expectations often established on social media.

Update the Brand’s Website With Recipes and Develop An App

Clearly, people rely on modern scientific and technological advancement to improve their lives and eating habits, through social media as well as other innovations.

40% of consumers told Suzy and the New Hope Network that they consume healthy eating content on the web; 39% look up food brands on their browsers. Nearly two-thirds — 63% — of respondents also said they use the internet for recipes and cooking ideas.

Posting recipes on a food brand’s website is a no-brainer, but there’s another level of technological guidance a brand can offer in the form of its own health-based app. 

Almost half of the respondents — 47% — said they use online tools to help them achieve their health goals. The MyFitnessPal app, which helps users track calorie intake and exercise, for example, has over 50 million downloads in the Google Play app store.

Pierce pointed out brands should be mindful of how their products might appear in this space. He also said that, with 53% of consumers not using these apps, there’s still tons more room for brands to build within it — a “sizable opportunity to create better tools, to engage more deeply those that are using these tools and those who are not.”

Make Healthy Food Feel Like Comfort Food

Nearly half of the surveyed consumers — 47% — said they consider healthy foods a part of self-care; however, 58% of them also consider comfort food as part of self-care.

“This can help us explain the paradox of consumers both seeking healthy food and comfort or indulgent food at the same time, in the same meal, definitely on the same day,” Pierce said. 

One way a food brand can generate both of these consumer impulses is to make healthy foods as enjoyable to eat as comfort foods, said Pierce, offering such brand examples as Wilde Chips, and other snacks which are low in sugar and keto- and paleo-friendly.

For more information on how your food brand can toe the line between healthy and indulgent eating, check out the entire webinar. Visit Suzy.com to learn how to use Suzy to gather customer feedback and understand your target market.