Healthy Eating or Indulgence? Getting the Balance Right in Packaged Food
Consumers’ awareness of the importance of healthy eating increased during the pandemic. However, stress relief through eating indulgent food was also very important, thus looking for permissible indulgence to find a balance between healthy eating and stress relief became ever more important for players in packaged food.
Permissible drinking with healthy snacks
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing, including fewer visits to crowded places, became part of consumers’ daily lives. New lifestyles significantly changed alcohol drinking behaviours around the world, especially shifting drinking places from foodservice channels to the home. Global volume sales at bars/pubs plunged by more than 40% in 2020; on the other hand, off-trade sales of alcoholic drinks globally spiked by more than 20% in 2020, and increased further the following year, even as on-trade sales slightly recovered.Such an increase in at-home drinking naturally accelerated the consumption of snacks and finger foods to go with these drinks, which also contributed to the expansion of snacking occasions at home. Permissible indulgence has strong opportunities to develop further in the snacks category, as more and more consumers are seeking a balanced approach to ease the guilty feeling after snacking with drinks. As a result, consumers are becoming more conscious of calories and nutrition labels in their food choices compared with the pre-pandemic era. In this context, global snacks manufacturers are introducing offerings that tap into the permissible indulgence trend and that can be enjoyed during at-home drinking
The future of permissible indulgence
Consumers will increasingly look to find a balance between health and indulgence when making food choices. As part of healthy lifestyle goals, consumers will continue to look for healthy features in food products that do not fall under traditional health food categories, including snacks or ready meals. These will cater to consumers who are looking for an emotionally beneficial treat, but want to reduce feelings of guilt. For some consumers, instead of looking for more balanced food offerings, they will look to achieve a balance through their diet overall, having purely healthy foods most of the time, but having occasional moments of indulgence.
Source: