In the first in a two-part series on the development of the health food market, FoodNavigator looks at how this lucrative sector has developed, and what food companies today need to do to succeed.
"2005 was the tipping point for health," said Peter Wennstrom from Health Focus Europe.
"We've seen the consequences for companies that have adapted late to this trend. Consumers are trading better food for bad food, and retailers are seeing this in every category."
He told delegates at this week's Vitafoods conference in Geneva that health has hit the mass market - and what's more, this market is becoming highly segmented.
Food companies must therefore know exactly who their target audience is if they are to capture lucrative niches.
Wennstrom's findings are based on what he claims is the first global trend study of consumer attitudes and actions towards healthy choices.
"It is clear that consumers are becoming more interested about what is inside," he said. "People also have more confidence in their own health knowledge."
This has lead to a great deal of segmentation - and Wennstrom says that it is those companies that react fastest who will get the niches.
"Targeted brands will get strong positions in these markets," he said. "And that can mean nice margins across a lot of countries."
Wennstrom took the example of Danone, which has supported and enhanced this idea that specific sectors of the population have specific needs. The company has formulated and market its products accordingly.
"When competition gets fierce you need to go one step further and get closer to the consumer," he said. "One example is adding soy to milk. By doing this, you can target an added-value product to a certain life stage menopausal women."
A successful product must first however be accepted by what Wennstrom calls technological stakeholders, such as scientists, technology institutes or universities. These people are only motivated by technology in other words, does this product have real functional properties?The danger of course is that your product gets equated with medicine. So you then need to shift the concept of your product from being a medicine to being something that can add positively to your lifestyle.
This is vital if your product has any chance of being accepted by the mass market.
And soy-based drinks are a great example of this a product that has been accepted by technology stakeholders, and has been marketed within a lifestyle context. And where a product has been particularly successful such as Danone's actimel the emphasis has usually been on natural health protection.
"This product ahs been targeted at those with hectic working lives, but want to take care of their body. In addition, the product is perceived as natural. This is what it takes to reach mass market."
This is another trap identified by Wennstrom the fact that functional is not always perceived as being natural. A recent Danacol advert for example, which humorously showed a man eating a plant, went out of its way to try to convince consumers that sterols are natural.
"Your product must have a food in food idea," said Wennstrom.
"Other rules include developing the market stakeholder by stakeholder, and remember- there is no such thing as an average consumer. Develop benefits for specific segments."