05 Dec Clean labels decoded

The food processing industry is one of the most versatile industry worldwide. It goes through a series of trends every few years which ranges from different flavours, different types of foods, launch of ‘newly discovered’ foods, new food habits and increasing levels of consumer awareness. Thus, the food industry professionals have to keep themselves updated on a daily basis to integrate and incorporate new trends in their food products or in their new product development process.

The rules and regulations of ingredients that can and cannot be used by the food processing industry have constantly evolved over the last few decades. There are a variety of ingredients which were used generously in the 70s and 80s which have been banned in the new millennium.

Due to various factors like education, social media, higher per capita income, focus on personal health, retail consumers have become extremely aware of what they are eating in their day to day life. Except fresh fruits and vegetables, they are reading all the labels of all types of processed foods that they are consuming. The rise in organic food awareness is a major contributing factor behind this. The main thing which consumers look for are ‘clean ingredients’.

So, what exactly is a clean label?

A label which has all ingredients that are easily readable and understood by the consumer. It also includes terms like ‘FREE FROM ARTIFICAL PRESERVATIVES/ADDITIVES’, ‘NATURAL/ORGANIC’, ‘NO PESTICIDES’. A clean label also has minimum number of ingredients and does not have any ingredients with numbers. Eg. E224, E250 etc. This helps the consumer understand what exactly is inside the product that they are going to consume and whether it is healthy for them or not.

Example of what could be written on a clean label

Prominence and adoption

Clean label products have been gaining prominence, especially in the US. People in the age group of 30 years and above are the ones who are most concerned about the what’s inside the package that they are eating. The big MNCs of chocolate, beverages and dairy industry have modified their products to a certain extent to make their products ‘cleaner’ but there still remains large work to be done. But, there are many new age brands and startups that have launched a variety of products that are 100% clean label products ranging from energy bars to cereals and gluten-free ingedients to plant based proteins.

As the world moves towards a more conscious approach towards the food that they eat, there is going to be a definite positive upward trend in clean food labels.

#cleanlabel #cleanfood #cleaneating #healthylifestyle