Confectionery provides clean label choices

Whilst consumers are not particular about health qualities in confectionery, the rising level of interest  in naturalness as a whole has been making a growing impression in the confectionery sector and driving the move to “clean labeling” by the industry.

Nearly 9.5% of all confectionery launches recorded by Innova Market Insights in the 12 months to the end of September 2012 used either natural or additive-/preservative-free claims or both. This made it the  most  popular  health  claim overall, ahead of sugar-free/low-sugar/no-added-sugar, featured on just under 9% of introductions, organic on 3.3% and low  fat on just under 2%. Levels of interest in natural and additive-/preservative-free claims have been much higher in the  more  developed markets, particularly  the US and Western  Europe, where they accounted for 16% and 15% of total confectionery introductions, respectively.

Sugar confectionery and chocolate both featured a similar number of launches using natural and additive- or preservative-free claims, but their  influence was far more  significant for sugar confectionery, as they accounted for over 15% of total launches, compared with 9% for chocolate. 

A recent development that could also help in the drive for clean-label confectionery has been the growing  use of the natural  sweetener stevia, which finally gained EU approval in 2011, following  on  from 2008  approvals in the US and Australasia. Confectionery launches featuring stevia have risen sharply, more than quadrupling over a 1-year period. Germany has seen particular levels of activity, with 2012 introductions including a reformulation of Kalfany’s Pulmoll sugar-free throat sweets with vitamin C, using stevia as a sweetener rather than artificial  Kobe 11 ELite PE