As an all natural product, Truvia is well placed for further success in the sweetener market

Until recently, sugar substitutes were a flat-to-declining market segment. Concerns over taste, limited range of uses and potential health impacts from artificial sweeteners had apparently set a ceiling on the number of consumers ready to make the switch.

However, in the past couple of years the sector has grown again, and this growth has largely coincided with the US Food and Drug Administration’s approval of stevia-based products. The Truvia brand is a big part of that growth, accounting for more than half of all the stevia-based increase.

How big a potential does a product like Truvia sweetener have to attract new customers into the sugar substitute market? Truvia is certainly targeting these customers, with its recent advertising campaign telling stories of everyday people tempted by their favourite sugary snacks – such as doughnuts or chocolate – and discovering Truvia as the guilt-free “natural” choice.

If real inroads could be made into the sugar market, it would imply massive growth, particularly in the US where consumers’ use of sugar is double the global average, according to Datamonitor. Although US consumers have tended to concentrate more on cutting fat from their diet than sugar, the focus is increasingly sharpening.

Intake guidelines

The US Department of Agriculture has just released its dietary guidelines which, for the first time, include a recommended maximum intake of added sugar. These are 100 calories per day for women and 150 for men, compared with 355 calories per day currently consumed by the average American via sugar.

This move comes on the back of the heightened profile of obesity brought about by the first lady Michelle Obama’s initiative, and a big debate around the impact of high fructose corn syrup.

In the UK, there is less initial resistance to focusing on sugar. The Datamonitor report finds that 37% of UK consumers say that they pay attention to the amount of sugar that they eat or drink.

Time for change?

David Jago, Mintel’s director of innovation and insight, urges caution in believing that there will be a big shift. “The fight is really for market share within the sugar substitute market,” he says. “There are no indications at the moment of a big shift of customers who currently use sugar to switch to stevia products.”

Jago does believe, however, that the time is right for products such as Truvia, based on the experience in the US. He says: “The natural labelling was there right from the start, and they have hit the market at a time when US consumers are questioning what they eat to a greater degree than any other time in history.”

The “natural” label is important. There has been a steady trend towards the rise of more natural products as consumers increasingly turn away from highly processed foods, or foods containing chemical additives.

Jago believes this isn’t just the growth of a niche, but that it is a longer-term trend that sees mainstream food suppliers building the need for simpler, more natural, profiles into their range.

Since Truvia can be incorporated into products as a sweetener while still enabling that product to be all-natural, it has great potential as an ingredient in a wide range of foods. It is already used in a number of low calorie drinks and frozen desserts.

Is there any danger in being seen as a “natural” product? Does it bring a challenge that Cargill would need to overcome for Truvia to meet its full potential? Perhaps only that some consumers intuitively believe that such features come as part of a trade-off. The more natural something is, the more its taste is compromised.

That may be a counter-intuitive perception when you consider that sugar is itself a natural product. But it may well be one that needs to be addressed in the marketing battle ahead.

Market reshaper?

Cargill’s dream would be that popular perception sees Truvia as having the zero calorie benefits of a non-sugar sweetener while avoiding the downside of the artificial sweeteners – the health concerns and the lower quality taste.

If that dream should come true, could Truvia completely reshape the sugar substitute market – wiping out aspartame and saccharine altogether? It’s not impossible, although there are a lot of barriers. For instance, the big companies that currently sell reduced calorie soft drinks will be unwilling to mess with the existing taste profile of their products which customers have come to know. You only have to mutter the words “new Coke” to understand how badly that can go wrong.

But in the meantime, there is a fair wind behind Truvia and every likelihood that when European approval is achieved, it will become a mainstream phenomenon in that market as well.

This story is part of a special corporate focus written and produced by Ethical Corporation and supported by Cargill. For more information about Ethical Corporation’s occasional corporate focus series or other publishing opportunities please contact andrew.bold@ethicalcorp.com.



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