Health reigns supreme

FPMJ: What trends will influence the industry?
Many of today’s consumers are going for a healthier diet. They are looking for healthy food and beverages fitting their active and busy lifestyle. Especially offerings contributing to a healthy nutrition in a convenient way are gaining interest. At the same time consumers are looking for natural solutions providing added functional benefits such as balanced energy release, digestive health benefits, weight management or a low glycaemic response while containing less fat and sugar. This drives the ‘free-from’ movement, resulting in an entirely elimination or reduction of ingredients, such as fat, sugar, gluten, lactose, preservatives or artificial colours. Consumers are however, not interested in compromising on taste or convenience despite choosing ‘free-from’. They generally prefer convenient food that is healthy and tasty.

Additionally, it will become even more important to guarantee food safety and quality considering the recent food scares in the region.

FPMJ: What are the priorities of your markets in Asia?
Having a look into the APAC region, no market is the same. They all have regional and local needs that must be considered. For BENEO, in particular China and India will continue to play a major role in 2015 due to their growing potential. Manufacturers in these two regions are focusing on new products -translating innovative ideas into offerings meeting the local requirements in terms of taste, structure/texture and packaging. With BENEO’s worldwide network of sales partners we ensure that we are close to our customers with local experts supporting customers according to their needs. Additionally, products providing added benefits while being affordable are important to both markets. The general outlook for 2015 is favourable but very competitive. Indeed, the ASEAN market is a fast growing region with strong competition but BENEO is well set to respond to future challenges and match today’s and tomorrow’s expectations.

FPMJ: What steps have you been taking to meet market needs?
BENEO offers an integrated chain of expertise supporting customers along the process of development and production: The BENEO-Institute invests significantly in research and development to offer substantiated science supporting the health and nutritional benefits of our ingredients. Experts at the BENEO-Technology Centre support our partners and customers with application know-how to create successful food products which address the changing consumer trends. BENEO’s Market Intelligence and Consumer Insights department is constantly up to date on market and consumer trends in Asia.

FPMJ: What will product development focus on in 2015?
BENEO is clear in its commitment to science as the basis of nutritional/physiological benefits and therefore continues its investments in nutrition science; gaining more insight into how nutrition contributes to health for the long term benefit of consumers. BENEO is a founding member of the APCN – a network of scientists and food manufacturers working together to improve nutrition for the consumers’ benefit.

BENEO will continue to offer ingredients from natural sources, sound scientific substantiation of their benefits and the expertise on how to use them best. Together, we can do so and see interest from food manufacturers increasing in this direction. We trust that we can inspire our customers to improve the physiological characteristics of their products to gain consumer trust and trigger demand of products that help to follow a balanced diet.

Christian Philippsen, Managing Director, BENEO Asia Pacific