Why is this significant? The wellness megatrend is one of the biggest potential influences on the Future of Food and the Waitrose report demonstrates its increasing importance. It also highlights the food megatrend of personalisation and the continuing rise of personalised nutrition as an industry gamechanger.
“Welcome to the era of the mindful consumer.” says Waitrose MD Rob Collins of their 2018 Food and Drink Report. “Being mindful of how we live and eat has become a priority in today’s world. As we become increasingly mindful of our own health, the wellbeing of our family and that of the planet, we’re reshaping how we shop, cook and eat.”
This speaks to the megatrend of wellness, which consumers are increasingly applying to all of their purchasing decisions. In food, personal wellness is all about highly personalised food choices to optimise a consumer’s physical, mental and psychological health. Advances in genomics and the microbiome are just scratching the surface of how food affects our mind and bodies. The day of one size fits all diets is dead and gone, but many practitioners haven’t realised it yet! Once mainstream consumers realise how individual our response are to food the whole game will change.
Indeed Waitrose are seeing increasing signs of this trend. “Views of healthy recipes on waitrose.com have risen by 158%, and visits to the retailers online BMI calculator have increased by 104% over the past year, Waitrose revealed. Meanwhile, searches for advice and products including the word ‘healthy’ have risen by 87%.”
Manufacturers and food service operators will need to find innovative ways to address this new reality. Those that do will thrive, the rest….????
I wonder if the keto diet fad will be the last tilt at the “one size fits all” diet plan?
