Food and health a business trend?

Recently I have been involved in a numer of inspiring projects which aim to create new business with food concepts that address health issues to consumers. What triggered me in those projects is that we are addressing Food & Health as a new business trend. Was food ever intended to be unhealthy by definition? And what on earth caused that health could become a business trend in food?

How did we get into this mess?
The public debate on health issues is often taken from the negative side, stating that unhealthy food, ingredients and habits have overcome our community. It indicates that the past decades food itself has taken an unhealthy path, as if the food itself has become unhealthy. To my opinion that is only partly true.

It is true that in Western civilizations convenience and pre-packed food solutions have taken the central position in our daily diet, not to mention the snacking alternatives we consume on frequent basis. And of course consumers have been manouvred into this position by strong marketing campaigns of the food industry. But is it really all to blame to this big bad food industry?

Sure they played a crucial role, but all they really did was address a consumer need (as good innovators do): cheap, convenient food for the fast living consumer. And with this trend picking up with massive speed, they have simply made the processes for production very efficient. All based on a solidly proven market need.

So the community of consumers and their influencers (education, governments) play at least an even part in the current health issues that quickly unbalance governmental budgets for healthcare. When did food lose the status of being a primary goal in life? A large part of the society has taken (enjoying) food from the list of ´quality time´. Food became a necessary thing to do. In a long process of centuries, humans slowly but surely lost touch with their biological strong need to hunt and harvest. And nobody felt the need to interfere with this process. Times change, don't they?

What is next?

The food industry, as ever before, anticipates trends and consumer needs. Nothing more. Nothing less. And those needs center around solving the consumers health concerns. Over 75% of the new product introductions in retail have a ´health focused background´. More problematic however is that a remaining important consumer need is convenience. And this is where solutions on the retail shelves are going towards a direction that can only further complicate our issues.

We can await arrival of a range of pre-packed convenience foods with health claims on or shouting other benefits from their packaging. Yes, they will be reduced in fat. Yes, they will be rebalanced on carbohydrates and fat composition. But they mightl also try to suppress your hunger through additions or to include 'healthy' ingredients which never ever existed in the material itself. Even though the EU legislation is strongly complicating the admission of these initiatives, the named products have already reach the marketplace. And this is exactly where things go further off track.

Consumers will further lose track with the natural balance we once created by a lifelong education in food selection. We lost our need to search and hunt for the joy of food and enjoy the real taste, and a natural selection of healthy or unhealthy sources.

Most western consumers seem to have lost their natural connection with food. With that we have lost our ambition to teach our children the origin of our nutrition. To show them feasible options for making a valid choice for food ingredients. On average parents, governments and education collectively fail to bring these key lessons to children.

The way forward
To be clear, the solution for a healthy life is not just captured in sensible nutrition. It is about a new healthy lifestyle combining physical and social activities, mental awareness, fun and good nutrition. But taken from the side of nutrition, how could we make a difference?

How to affect our daily choices in sourcing food? For our current generations we basically have 2 options:
- We make an effort to teach ourselves the basics of nature and nutrition in our daily life to support us in making healthy choices.
- We develop new innovations to support people to make healthy choices in food.

The prefered option for the human soul would be to go back to their root positioning in nature. It would bring them back into sensible decisions about sourcing and consuming food. But in all fairness, I don't expect a large group of the actual consumers can be convinced of this direction. All the food you need can be sourced fresh and nearby. That is why we expect many new opportunities can be created by innovations that make healthy decisions in food easy, no fuzz and implementable in their everchanging personal life.

But the real chance arrives with clear and efficient education of our youngest generations. Make them adopt the quality of food in the right tone of voice: fun, experimental, playful, always available.
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In the coming weeks I would like to address some of the elements that play a crucial role in treating food in a better way. All to be continued in this weblog. The issues I would at least like to cover:

- The costprice of food: People source their foods in the retail shop. All they need. No, much more then they really need. That's where marketing works.

- The logistics: People source everything in one place (the tragic one-stop-stop construction): the supermarket. People need to find new ways to continue.
- Time consumption: Can we overcome the convenience issue? Will the consumer decide to take more time for sourcing and preparing foods?

- Making food a central issue in education to children: Start where the impact works. Each child should learn the essences of food. Based on simple, fresh, well prepared ingredients. With fun. With taste. With passion.
- Getting back the basics : How can our western community come closer to food knowledge and sensibility in a low profile, accessible way?

- Innovations for health choices? What ideas can we generate for creating easy, accessible, transparent choices when buying and consuming food?