Taste first, think second: Consumers in Europe like experimental food and drink

Natural blueprint: European consumers want reassurance that ingredients are real and authentic

As consumers become more health-orientated and risk averse, they are being more attentive to the ingredients used in the products that they purchase. This means that they want more transparency over formulation, especially as some believe that nutritional labelling can be made deliberately misleading in order to disguise the use of certain ingredients in products.

Consumers want ingredients that they deem to be real and authentic. They want ingredients that they know and trust and associate with nutrition. In addition, consumers want to avoid chemicals deemed to be detrimental to them as well as the wider environment. As a result, products that contain fewer ingredients and have simple nutritional labelling will be of high appeal.

Natural products are associated with a variety of benefits. For instance, consumers deem these products to be healthier, better quality, local, and more sustainable. These need states have all become more important to consumers in Europe as a result of the pandemic, meaning that any products labelled as natural will be of high appeal.

As mentioned earlier in the report, consumers are becoming more sceptical of brands than ever before, believing that they can make misleading claims in order to charge a premium price. This is especially true given that phrases such as natural, locality, and sustainability are subjective in nature. Brands must therefore look to validate claims and highlight why they have been made, using story-based marketing to highlight the origins of the product.

Nutritional labelling also needs to be as simple as possible so that consumers do not feel that there are any hidden ingredients within the product.

Proportion of consumers who say that they have become more attentive to natural claims as a result of COVID-19 (February 2021)

Denmark 72%

France 80%

Germany 74%

Italy 66%

Poland 60%

Spain 70%

UK 64%

Proportion of consumers who say that they have become more attentive to locality claims as a result of COVID-19 (February 2021)

Denmark 61%

France 55%

Germany 69%

Italy 63%

Poland 36%

Spain 44%

UK 51%

Proportion of consumers who say that they have become more attentive to sustainability claims as a result of COVID-19 (February 2021)

Denmark 40%

France 52%

Germany 43%

Italy 40%

Source: COVID-19 survey 2021 (7,000 respondents)

Poland 22%

Spain 40%