Despite good intentions and a deepening understanding of nutrition and wellness, I know I’m not as healthy as I could be. As it turns out, I’m not alone. According to a new report published by Delicious Living and iVillage, most women in the United States see themselves as being only “somewhat” healthy—or worse.
“Although it may not be literally true that these women are ‘unhealthy,’ it is certain that the vast majority see room for improvement,” write the authors of the report, For Women, Healthy Is Not What You Think. “Thus, healthy food is not only intended to help maintain health; it needs to move them ‘in the right direction’ relative to their current states. This is true of younger women as well as older women.”
Published in April, the report is based on the findings from a survey of nearly 5,000 U.S. consumers—91% of them women—conducted in February 2010. The survey was designed to gauge the health attitudes, beliefs, priorities and purchasing behavior of U.S. women of all ages. From this research emerged many interesting findings about how female consumers define health and wellness; what drives them to pursue healthier choices at different points in their lives; and how these definitions and motivations affect their interpretations of label claims and ingredient attributes and purchases of specific products and brands.
Not surprisingly, U.S. women view consuming healthy food as the most important way they can support their own health and the health of their families. As a result, the majority of women say they avoid food products that contain trans fats, saturated fats, high fructose corn syrup and MSG. A smaller, but still significant, percentage of women say they avoid genetically modified foods. When evaluating label claims, the survey found that products labeled as “high fiber” are most sought out by women, followed by “reduced fat or fat free” and “low sodium.” These three claims and numerous others were ranked higher than both “organic” and “natural” by women of all ages in the survey.
Although I learned a great deal about how age and health conditions affect the beliefs, attitudes and behaviors of U.S. women from reading For Women, Healthy Is Not What You Think, perhaps the most eye-opening findings from the report had to do with perceptions surrounding natural and organic. For example, 67% of the survey respondents said they believe “natural foods are better for me,” while only 57% reported believing that “organic foods are better for me.” That said, those women who purchase organic products are more active and informed consumers and generally feel better about their health than other consumers.
Nutrition Business Journal will present a deeper dive into this and other consumer research related to nutrition, health and wellness, natural & organic products, and dietary supplements in our September 2010 issue. If you’re not yet an NBJ subscriber, visit our website to learn more.
You can also purchase or read the table of contents and executive summary of For Women, Healthy Is Not What You Think via the NBJ site.
Related NBJ links:
March 2010: Organic Foods, Beverages and Personal Care
2009 Healthy Kids’ Market Report: Breaking the Entry Barrier
Marketing to Busy Moms Requires an Integrated Approach
I took a quick pulse of farmers’ markets this week to see how well they are holding up in our prolonged economic malaise. Quick answer? Better than most.
Like everything else in this modern world, the natural & organic market continues to get more and more complex as consumer interest in food sourcing continues to rise. I found evidence of this complexity in regional differences in sales performance, in buying patterns shifting from produce to meats, in the ongoing burdens of organic certification that drive farmers into the all-natural camp.
Here in Colorado, life seems pretty good. Natalie Condon of Isabelle Farm makes more on one Saturday in April at the Boulder Farmers’ Market than she would in a whole July at a host of smaller operations. Sales are strong year-over-year, and the waiting list for her farm’s CSA runs 60 deep. At Ela Family Farms, their farmers’ market business continues to grow at a strong pace. “The satisfaction for a consumer is extremely high at a farmers’ market,” says Lynea Shultz-Ela. This speaks volumes about the power of a direct-sales approach when it comes to farmers’ markets, co-ops and CSAs.
When a consumer (an eater) and a supplier (a grower) get to shake hands and swap questions before swapping money for food, a personal connection forms that colors every aspect of that sale. There is an immediacay to the transaction that eliminates so much of the cynicism that might enter into more conventional, mass-market sales transactions. Sure, the scale is smaller and choice is limited, but that’s the point. These are direct sales that trigger our impulses for a simpler, more traditional sort of commerce. It can be downright nostalgic. Very little about today’s economy has done as much to lift a consumer’s purchasing spirit as the dirt on a farmer’s fingernails as she hands you a fresh bunch of collards.
This is a small slice — the Organic Trade Association quantifies direct sales of organic foods through farmers’ markets, CSAs and co-ops at $719 million in 2009 — of a bigger and bigger pie, but an important one. The fact that sales seem to be holding steady and, in some cases, growing should make us all feel a little better about the road ahead.
For more detailed analysis of direct-to-consumer sales across the nutrition industry, don’t miss Nutrition Business Journal’s next issue, available in late May. You can always subscribe to the journal via the NBJ Website. We’d also love to hear your comments and stories below.
Related NBJ links:
2009 Direct-to-Consumer / Non-Retail Industry Sales Report
U.S. Total Food Sales, Organic Food Sales & Organic Penetration of Total Food Sales: 2000-2008
I cancel every paper catalog that is mailed to me and send promotional mailings straight to the recycle bin without reviewing them. I also do a lot of my shopping and research via the Web and never purchase anything via a 1-800 number, so I naturally assumed that direct mail was on its last, dying breath. Well, apparently I’ve been wrong. According to David Klein, CEO and president of Macromark Inc., direct mail is still very much alive—especially in the dietary supplement and nutrition market. “Direct mail advertising for nutritionals is booming,” said Klein, whose company specializes in direct marketing and mailing list management for nutrition products. “Every year we do more and more business in this space.”
Klein said two trends are currently boosting the direct mail business for supplements: The increase in the number of companies that are bringing new supplement products to market and the swelling population of consumers who are over age 50 and still prefer to learn about health-related products via print. “Many supplements are targeted to older consumers, and this demographic is still direct mail responsive and not as Internet savvy,” said Klein, who estimated that the United States is home to 15 million to 25 million consumers who are primed to respond to nutrition-related direct mail pieces.
Performing particularly well in the direct marketing arena for supplements are solo direct mail pieces that provide in-depth science-based information on one supplement product, Klein said. Although such pieces can utilize a wide range of formats, each is created with similar goals: to educate consumers about a health product’s proven benefits and then motivate those consumers to pick up the phone and order the product via a 1-800 number. Of course, to be successful, a solo direct mail piece must reach the right consumers—which is where Macromark’s expertise comes in. “The quality of the mailing list is very important,” Klein said.
Macromark works with supplement companies ranging in size from $25,000 to $400 million in annual sales, Klein noted. Many of these companies use direct mail to market supplement products targeted toward conditions that are particularly important to older consumers, such as digestive, prostate, cognitive, vision, cardiovascular and sexual health.
Nutrition Business Journal’s next issue will focus on direct-to-consumer sales of dietary supplements and other nutrition products and include a Q&A with Macromark’s Klein, who provides additional advice on how to create and conduct successful direct marketing campaigns for nutrition-related products. You subscribe to the journal via the NBJ Website.
Related NBJ link:
2009 Direct-to-Consumer / Non-Retail Industry Sales Report
Top U.S. Supplement Companies in Mail Order, Telemarketing and DRTV Channels, 2005 - Chart 225
Understanding Infomercials: The Science of Direct-Response Advertising Campaigns in the Nutrition Industry
Related Functional Ingredients Magazine link:
Marketing Insights: Integrating the Message
UPDATE: According to a press release issued April 27 by The Cornucopia Institute, the USDA’s National Organic Program released a memo today (after the original publication of this blog post) saying that it would ban synthetic “accessory nutrients” from use in organic infant formula or baby food. An April 28 Washington Post article reported that the USDA will provide guidelines for how companies must phase out the additives in their organic products. The process could take more than a year.
Kathleen Merrigan, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), is living up to promises that her agency, under the Obama Administration, will get tough on abuses involving the USDA organic seal. According to an April 26 Wall Street Journal article, Merrigan’s latest crackdown involves moving to ban synthetic versions of the fatty acids DHA and ARA from organic baby formula. Martek Biosciences Corp. is the largest supplier of synthetic fatty acids, and its DHA and ARA—sold under the life’sDHA and life’sARA brands—are found in more than 95% of all U.S. infant formulas, including organic formula sold under Abbott Lab’s Similac and The Hain Celestial Group’s Earth’s Best brands. 
The USDA’s actions are in response to a legal complaint filed by the organic watchdog group The Cornucopia Institute to enforce federal organic standards prohibiting the use of certain unapproved synthetic substances in organic infant formula and other organic products. “Consumers rightfully expect organic foods to be purer and safer than conventional foods—in part because federal regulations require that they be free from potentially harmful synthetic additives,” said Charlotte Vallaeys, farm and food policy analyst with The Cornucopia Institute. “But in the case of the synthetic, chemically extracted additives DHA and ARA, the system of federal regulations ensuring organic integrity was undermined by corporate lobbying and backroom deals during the Bush Administration.”
Although the USDA is not challenging the safety of synthetic fatty acids, the agency has decided that the organic regulators in 2006 should have sought public comment when they decided to include synthetic versions of DHA and ARA on a list of nonorganic ingredients that can be used in products carrying the USDA organic seal. “We don’t want an industry that acted in good faith to be harmed,” Merrigan told the Wall Street Journal. “On the other hand, we have a rule to uphold.”
Merrigan said the USDA will issue a draft guidance on the issue later this year that would provide food manufacturers a grace period to reformulate their organic food products. Once the draft guidance is issued, public comment will be collected for 60 days and then the USDA will issue a final ruling, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Martek’s life’sDHA is also found in other organic products, including WhiteWave’s Horizon Organic Milk Plus DHA. The company’s synthetic fatty acids, which have been on the market since 2002, are extracted from microorganisms using hexane, a non-organic chemical that is frequently used in the production of cooking oils but that has been banned from use in organic food products.
In its complaint to the USDA, the Cornucopia Institute cited reports of babies being sickened by the synthetic fatty acids added to infant formula. Martek spokeswoman Cassie France-Kelly told Nutraingredients-usa.com earlier this month that “there has been no statistical rise in the number of adverse events” since Martek’s ingredients were introduced into infant formulas in 2002. “The fact is babies get sick, some react to infant formula yes, but that could be milk proteins or other ingredients,” France-Kelly said. “To link these ailments with the presence of omega-3s and omega-6s is spurious at best.”
Numerous studies have demonstrated the health benefits of omega-3s and omega-6s for infants, although The Cornucopia Institute said it rejects such findings. “Two recently published comprehensive scientific review studies on the topic both substantiate Cornucopia’s findings that challenge these claims,” the watchdog group wrote in a April 21 press release. “These two meta-analysis studies collectively consider the results of 18 clinical trials, and conclude there are no proven benefits to DHA/ARA supplementation in infant formula.”
In 2009, U.S. consumer sales of organic formula totaled $64 million, according to Nutrition Business Journal estimates. France-Kelly told the Wall Street Journal that a ban of its synthetic ARA and DHA from organic products “wouldn’t have a material impact” on Martek’s financial results because the company primarily sells its ingredients for use in conventional products.
NBJ is interested in your thoughts on this issue. Should synthetic fatty acids be banned from organic baby formula? Does such a move strengthen the integrity of the USDA organic seal, or does it hurt consumers by forcing them to choose between buying organic formula and formula that has been supplemented with the fatty acids that many parents believe are important to their babies’ health?
Related NBJ links:
2010 Organic Foods, Beverages and Personal Care
Martek Strengthens its Hold on Baby Formula Supply Market
2009 Raw Material & Ingredient Supply Report
When it comes to dietary supplement sales, receiving the nod of approval from doctors and other healthcare practitioners can mean all the difference in the world. In fact, 44% of supplement companies rated the importance of healthcare practitioner recommendations as either “critical” or “very important” to the success of their sales in Nutrition Business Journal’s recent survey of 137 companies selling directly to consumers. Earning the trust of healthcare professionals is viewed as so important that numerous supplement companies have built businesses around solely selling through these individuals—and, as NBJ explores in our 2010 MLM and Practitioner Sales issue, the practitioner channel performed particularly well in 2009, even in the face of the economic downturn. “I believe the healthcare practitioner channel is going to be one of the most vibrant and fastest-growing sales channels in the nutrition industry over the next 10 years,” said Kyle Bliffert, president of Pure Encapsulations, which sells its 350 hypoallergenic supplement products only through practitioners.
In an effort to better understand the practitioner sales channel for supplements and other nutrition products, NBJ surveyed 600 naturopathic physicians, nutritionists, chiropractors, medical doctors and other healthcare practitioners regarding their attitudes and practices related to dietary supplement recommendations and sales. The survey ran in March 2010 and received distribution support from the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians, Pure Encapsulations, Emerson Ecologics and others.
Among other things, the survey found that 76% of the practitioners surveyed sell supplements in their offices. In addition, nearly 70% of NBJ’s survey respondents reported being “very knowledgeable” about supplements and how they can be used to support their patients’ health. Said one MD who participated in the survey: “My patients want supplements, and I want to give them high-quality professional supplements that I know and trust. Selling supplements also helps augment my income.”
A full analysis of our practitioner survey results is available to NBJ subscribers and will publish in our next issue (which will hit mailboxes later this week). Order a copy of the issue or subscribe to the journal via the NBJ Website.
NBJ will also present the findings from the survey and a sales and growth analysis of the healthcare practitioner channel during our 2010 Practitioner Supplement Sales Web Seminar on May 27.
Related NBJ links:
2010 Practitioner Supplement Sales Web Seminar
2009 Direct Selling in the Nutrition Industry
Fitzgibbon: Research Bar Being Raised for Supplements
