09 Dec 2015 “Salad” juices push vegetables to the front of bottles
Mintel research finds that almost two in five French 16-24 year olds and three in 10 German and Polish consumers in the same age group say that they limit how many juice drinks they buy due to their high sugar content.
Placing greater emphasis on vegetable content has enabled some juice manufacturers to mitigate concerns over sugar, while also increasing consumers’ vegetable consumption.
Mintel’s Fruit Juice, Juice Drinks and Smoothies UK 2014 report reveals that 45% of juice drinkers say that adding vegetables to juice is a good way of cutting sugar levels. Similar sentiment exists throughout Europe, with two out of five Italian, German and Polish consumers agreeing with this statement.
Many Europeans also believe that fruit and vegetable juice blends are generally healthier than pure fruit juice, suggesting further opportunities for brands to benefit from these positive associations, particularly when targeting younger consumers.
As a result, 13% of all juice drink launches in Europe during the first eight months of 2015 were “vegetable-flavoured”, and this figure has been increasing steadily over the last five years.
Development of vegetable juices has been primarily centred on the German and UK markets, which have accounted for 40% of launches so far this year. However, there is great potential to extend this trend throughout Europe, particularly in Mediterranean countries like Spain and Italy, where vegetables have traditionally had an important role in local diets, but vegetable juice innovations have declined in recent years.
According to Mintel analysis of flavour trends, sweeter, coloured vegetables such as carrots and tomatoes still dominate, but there has been a clear shift toward green juices in the last few years.
Spinach appeared as a flavour on 10% of European vegetable juice launches so far this year, up from just 1% in 2011. Mintel data shows a similar development for other trendy flavours such as kale, cucumber and celery.
Recent examples include Innocent’s Easy Green Fruit and Vegetable Juice, a blend of cucumber, celery and spinach launched in Ireland in July 2015; Green Shoot’s Kale, Broccoli & Kiwi Smoothie, unveiled in France in June; and True Fruits Green Smoothie with Rocket, Mint & Chlorella, which was launched in Germany in May…..