Desire for healthy lifestyle connected to healthier choices.
Where does this sit in your strategic plan and mission?
By Bob Wheatley
Yesterday 16 top food and beverage makers announced they have met their goal to cut 1.5 trillion calories from their products, as part of their collective involvement in the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation.
In the same story a Hudson Institute report states that better-for-you products contributed $1.25 billion of sales increases for the 16 companies involved from 2007 to 2011 (just $300 million in sales growth attributed to high calorie options in their portfolios). So clearly better-for-you is better for business.
Pundits have weighed in on whether or not the calorie reductions amount to serious movement in solving the obesity crisis. And indeed perhaps other channels, segments and sources of calorie consumption, including out-of-home options, would need to chime in with a goal of trimming waistlines on a massive scale.
Whatever you may believe the news is important. Admirable. A significant step that must be appreciated and applauded. However, slightly obscured in the language and text of this reporting is an even larger agenda and opportunity for businesses.
Higher quality, better-for-you food and beverage options only make good business sense. Why? As a strategic response that coincides with exploding consumer interest in a higher quality and more healthful lifestyle.
Obesity is not a small problem. It’s a major issue for the nation and around the globe. But even more broadly we are experiencing a change generally in how consumers view their food and beverage brand decisions. For too long the subject of calories and fat has just been a weight management conversation.
More significantly we feel is the overwhelming evidence that consumers want and aspire to contribute to their health and wellbeing by how they live. What they ingest – as they now have connected dots between the quality of what they eat or drink and other impacts good and bad.
The guidance – this isn’t just a calorie issue.
The strategic focus inside your organization should be how you build meaning and relevance across the business for consumers who wish to live happier, healthier, longer — and see food and beverage choices as intentional tools in that quest.
The opportunities are just enormous. The business potential is significant and game changing. This requires a more holistic strategic view of the opportunity from a business strategy standpoint, and efforts to approach this in integrated fashion across all aspects of the organization.
And in a nutshell, this is why Emergent exists.
You agree? What’s your take on the future path and opportunity?