The Top Ten Functional Food Trends

A. Elizabeth Sloan

April 1, 2000

If you’ve got your health, you’ve got just about everything. That’s the most lucrative and challenging brass ring that consumers have ever dangled before the American food industry. Check it out.

The Top Ten Functional Food Trends

Last year, 158 million Americans—85%—used a dietary supplement (Prevention, 2000). Whether to simply maintain health, or manage/treat a condition, nine out of ten shoppers prefer naturally nutritious foods to supplements (FMI/Prevention, 1999; HealthFocus, 1999a). Nearly two-thirds of grocery shoppers re… Fig. 1—What motivates healthy food purchase decisions. From FMI/Prevention (1999) Table 1 What shoppers are purchasing to manage or reduce risk of specific conditions (percent). From FMI/Prevention (1999)

Fig. 2—What shoppers are using to treat or prevent colds. From FMI/Prevention (1999)

Table 2 Size of subcategories of the healthy foods market. Based on Data Monitor (1999), Packaged Facts (1999), Hartman Group (1999a), and AC Nielsen/SPINS (1999)

Fig. 3—Medical research and consumer market activity on beta-carotene. Medical counts are the number of major research studies conducted, and consumer counts are the number of major media reports. From TrendSense (2000)

Fig. 4—Percent of general population stating that they or members of their household are actively managing or treating various health conditions. From NMI (1999)