Plant protein powder is no longer exclusive to vegans and athletes, with significant numbers of mainstream consumers now shopping the category, according to new research commissioned by MycoTechnology, Inc., the mushroom mycelial fermentation specialist.
The survey of 725 plant protein powder users, carried out by Brightfield Group in Q1 2023, found that just 17 % of them identified as vegan. Furthermore, 38 % of the respondents in the survey who declared that they purchase only plant-based protein powders said they mixed them with dairy milk, indicating that they buy such products for reasons other than dietary lifestyle choices.
Meanwhile, fewer than half of the respondents in the survey (46 %) identified as athletes, even though as many as 77 % of them said they exercised at least three times a week. The vast majority (93 %) stated that they exercise to support their mental health.
When asked to describe themselves, 34 % of respondents were identified as ‘early adopter’ consumers. Another 31 % were ‘early majority’ shoppers, indicating a shift for plant protein powder into a more mainstream demographic.
When it comes to product quality, plant-based protein powder consumers are in broad agreement. Nearly all of them (92 %) said they would find a product more appealing if it offered higher quality protein, with 91 % attracted by a protein that is more complete. Beyond nutritional factors, 91 % of respondents said they favour products that promise a better taste.
MycoTechnology’s Marketing Director, Jonas Feliciano, commented: “These findings demonstrate that plant protein is smashing apart outdated stereotypes and is now earning strong support among mainstream consumers. The fact that so many blend their plant protein powder with milk is a strong sign that non-vegans consider plant protein to be a conventional product and a key part of a healthy diet. Most notably, all but a few of the respondents to our survey said that they considered protein quality and flavour to be of the utmost importance. The successful plant proteins of the future will be those which are able to tap into the needs and preferences of these highly discerning consumers.”
Bethany Gomez, Managing Director at Brightfield Group, added: “Plant-based protein users are a young, affluent group that prefers cleaner eating–no sugar added, all natural, preservative free–and they’re willing to pay for high quality products with that strong health profile. This group is also more likely to be using functional ingredients, like mushrooms and adaptogens, so we know they’re open to new and alternative ways to get the types of sustenance and nutrition they’re looking for. Brands that strive to offer high quality products, using cutting edge ingredients, will find a group of users ready and willing to dig in.”
A trailblazer in the development of next-generation plant proteins, MycoTechnology offers a line of plant proteins including FermentIQ™ PTP – a pea and rice protein blend fermented by mushroom mycelia to deliver superior performance and nutrition. Providing all essential amino acids, it has a PDCAAS (Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score) of 1.0 for ages 3 and above. Its unique fermentation process also enhances digestibility, enabling 99.9 % of the protein consumed to be easily digested. As a result, FermentIQ™ PTP offers a nutritional value competitive with animal and soy proteins.
MycoTechnology’s proprietary process also deodorises and de-flavours the plant proteins, offering better tasting, more neutral solutions with superior functionality in a range of applications. For those looking to take the taste of their products to the next level, MycoTechnology also offers ClearIQ™ – a natural, clean-label bitter blocker and flavour clarifier.
HUM Nutrition has launched the world’s first Celery Juice Gummies to support gut health, regularity, and the body’s natural detoxification while nurturing the gut microbiome.
Created to provide the health benefits of celery juice while saving consumers the hassle (and mess) of juicing, the vegan gummies utilise clinically studied FOS prebiotic fiber to improve regularity and nurture the gut, while Vitamins A, C, B6, K1, Folate, and Chlorophyll support the immune system and healthy cell function. Celery juice + prebiotic fiber + chlorophyll nurture the gut while naturally cleansing the digestive tract, providing a daily green boost.
HUM’s Celery Juice Gummies provide 5 grams of fiber per serving. Consumers should begin to see improvements in regularity in about 14 days.
HUM’s Head of Scientific Affairs and Education, Dr. Jennifer Martin-Biggers explains: “We formulated the first of its kind Celery Juice Gummies to provide the vitamins found in a serving of celery juice without messy juicing, plus we added clinically studied FOS prebiotic fiber that helps to nurture our gut microbiome and natural detoxification processes. Fiber often gets lost in juicing, so these gummies provide additional benefits and taste absolutely delicious.”
Retailing for $20 now available at www.HumNutrition.com.
The Frankfurt Future Institute called fusion “the culinary globalization of daily life” in its Food Report 2023. Fusion food combines influences from different international cuisines. Ginger and turmeric refine fruit smoothies, coconut milk and kaffir lime leaves lend a special flavour to kale curries. Whether soups, curries or desserts, fresh-made or convenience, coconut milk gives many foods and beverages an exotic touch. This has made it a firm part of fusion food. And not just that – as a plant product, it’s perfect for the booming plant-based trend.
Today, consumers expect natural foods to taste good and support their wellbeing. Vegan coconut milk powder is excellent for making purely plant-based drinks and desserts, as a functional alternative to traditional milk products. With coconut milk powder from the SternCream series, Sternchemie has the appropriate product for every application, whether conventional, vegan or organic dishes, for industrial customers as well as the out-of-home market.
The new SternCream Vegan is versatile and simple to work with. Its very high coconut milk content gives it a natural, authentic coconut flavour and a light sweetness. The creamy mouthfeel is especially noticeable in ice cream, praline and wafer fillings, and sweet and hearty snacks. SternCream Vegan also improves the consistency of soups, sauces, creams and dips. Thanks to its very good instant and flow properties, this coconut milk powder quickly dissolves in lukewarm water to attain a smooth consistency. Another plus point is that as a natural product, unlike coconut flavourings and extracts it is very declaration-friendly, either as coconut cream or coconut milk powder. It’s also easier to dose and keeps longer than regular coconut milk.
Gentle manufacture brings product benefits
SternCream products are made exclusively from selected ripe coconuts, whose meat is first washed, then minced and pressed. To ensure the highest purity of the final product, the extracted coconut milk is doubled-filtered. It is then pasteurized and spray-dried for consistently high quality, which is confirmed by sensory panel testing. With its low water content and oxidation stability, SternCream powder has a shelf life of at least 24 months. It also has higher microbiological stability than coconut milk or grated coconut. Another advantage is that due to the gentle drying process, all of its valuable ingredients are retained. Furthermore, SternCream needs no preservatives, colourings or flavourings.
“Together with our customers, we work to refine our products and adapt them to current and future market requirements,” explains Katrin Baumann, SternCream Technical Product Manager. “The focus is on nutritional, trend and ethical considerations, with protein enrichment, fat reduction and added fibre, as well as organic products and plant-based alternatives to dairy.” This coconut milk powder offers manufacturers across the food industry a way to improve existing products, and develop highly attractive new ones for growth markets like the plant-based category.
Longstanding relationships with raw materials suppliers
With the current bottlenecks in raw material supplies and the general economic situation, factors like cost control, dependable suppliers and raw materials availability play a central role. Here, Sternchemie customers benefit from longstanding relationships with suppliers in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. “Close coordination and detailed information exchange with our partners in the source countries are the basis for our ability to proactively meet the rising quality demands of the market,” says Svea Rahlf, Sternchemie Quality Manager. “Sensitized consumers, improved analysis methods and ever-stricter regulatory requirements are driving an increased focus on raw materials quality and process control.” With SternCream, Sternchemie offers a versatile natural product that combines functionality with dependable quality.
For many consumers, the desire to nurture and protect the environment has motivated the decision to follow a vegan diet. However, the ‘low carbon’ diet could potentially attract a greater following than veganism due its relatively more flexible approach to reducing the greenhouse gas emissions associated with our diets, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.
In fact, when asked what they find to be an appealing food and drink claim, 60 %* of global consumers answered ‘low carbon footprint’, compared with 39 %* of global consumers who answered ‘vegan’.
Lia Neophytou, Consumer Analyst at GlobalData, says: “Whereas veganism does not permit the consumption of any animal or animal-derived products, the low carbon diet allows for the consumption of any food/drink items as long as they align with the broader goal of reducing the carbon emissions of one’s overall diet. This could include reducing meat and dairy consumption, increasing one’s intake of local foods, and reducing food and packaging waste.”
This diet also recognizes that not all vegan foods have a low carbon footprint. For example, exotic fruits which require importation from abroad. It is for this reason that Lele’s vegan café in London recently announced that it will no longer include avocado in its dishes to avoid ‘indirectly fuelling illegal deforestation and environmental degradation’.
The appeal of a low carbon diet therefore spans consumers who are already vegan and those who simply want to reduce their carbon footprint, hence its broader appeal.
Neophytou concludes: “In future, ‘low carbon’ certifications could become mainstream and serve as a way of verifying the environmental impact of food and drink. This goes beyond simply indicating the absence of animal or animal-derived products which vegan certifications signal.”
*GlobalData’s 2019 Q3 global consumer survey
Sales revenues of organic foods in Europe continue to rise. In addition to traditional drivers like the dry foods category, which includes cereals, trend categories like protein bars and shakes are also growing. “The growing demand for organic products is becoming more and more obvious in health and fitness-related categories,” reports Marc van Essen, Sales Director at SternLife. “So we offer a large part of our range in organic versions as well. From vegan protein bars and protein shakes to breakfast and fitness shakes to smoothie powders, we provide high-quality functional food made with organically grown raw materials, with a difference you can taste.”
SternLife is one of the leading suppliers of functional lifestyle and sports nutrition products. From an extensive range of organic raw materials, the company also develops exclusive organic product lines for major brands. The raw materials can be from animal or plant sources as desired. For example, protein sources can be pea, rice, hemp, sunflower and pumpkin, or milk and whey. “Continuous consumer and market research is fundamental to the successful development of our product concepts. We have a very good knowledge of which organic raw materials are in demand at any given time,” notes SternLife Product Manager Lüder Holsten, adding, “That means we can always implement the latest product trends for our customers.” The proper combination of raw materials is at least as important in order to achieve high bioavailability and thus high product functionality. SternLife developers and technologists examine these aspects very carefully in applications testing.
With regard to the organic market, functional bars are of special interest. Few organic offerings exist, and demand is rising rapidly. SternLife has therefore developed a wide selection of exciting concepts for the entire range of bars, from Pure to Deluxe. Whether chocolate coated or uncoated, with sprinkled bits or filling, whether vegan or conventional, SternLife has many possibilities for individual product lines with protein content up to 30 % (vegan) or more (conventional).
In the powder category, customers can have SternLife create custom organic shakes for different target groups and occasions, working from a wide portfolio of raw materials. Powders can be conventional or vegan; the vegan powders can contain up to 60 % protein while meeting all sensory requirements. In additional to raw materials from organic agriculture, SternLife naturally also offers UTZ and RSPO-certified raw materials, combined individually to customer order.
DuPont Nutrition & Biosciences announced the debut of naturally sourced GRINDSTED® Gellan VEG 200 stabilizer, enabling high performance results of innovative plant-based and vegan beverages.
Since 2014, the number of new vegan products increased by 35 percent, with beverages as one of the highest growing categories globally. With 6 out of 10 U.S. consumers increasing their consumption of plant-based foods and beverages in their daily diet, so called “alternatives” are becoming mainstream.
Dietary preferences shifting towards plant-based options is becoming more prevalent, and personal health is the key driver of change. In the DuPont-sponsored study conducted by HealthFocus, 42 percent of respondents said that they prefer more plant-based foods in their daily diet and more than half of all consumers said that it “makes me feel healthier.” Also, the environmental component of this dietary shift is not negligible, as 3 out of 4 Millennials are willing to spend more on ethical products.
GRINDSTED® Gellan VEG 200 – advances plant-based and vegan beverages to fit the most demanding consumer expectations. Plant-based/vegan claim, health profile, clean label, premium taste and texture are the most desired features of innovative products in this category.
“Produced by bacteria during fermentation of renewable, bio-based raw materials, Gellan VEG 200 is a purely natural solution. It provides excellent stability and particle suspension and minimal contribution to mouthfeel,” said Lise Stouby, Senior Scientist, DuPont Nutrition & Biosciences.
GRINDSTED® Gellan VEG 200 is suitable for a wide range of plant-sourced raw materials, has low protein reactivity and high performance across a broad pH range. Added directly into the mix, Gellan VEG 200 delivers a stabilizing network throughout the shelf life to maintain a homogenous and stable final product.
“We are proud to launch a product that answers critical manufacturers’ needs – ease of formulation and production. Starting today, it’s available worldwide,” said Kirsten Braüner Nygaard, Business Development Manager, DuPont Nutrition & Biosciences.
Vegan ingredients, functional concepts and a CBD-free painkiller: Taiyo’s new developments attracted a lot of attention at Vitafoods in Geneva.
Taiyo, the health-promoting natural ingredients expert, used Vitafoods Europe, in Geneva, to debut innovative concepts that were particularly well received by manufacturers of sports nutrition and functional products. The most surprising innovation was a concept developed by Taiyo GmbH in Germany and partners for the European market: A legal cannabidiol (CBD) alternative that promises legal and safe consumption with a CBD effect. Also among the sought-after new products were a vegan protein shake concept based on chia protein and bean fibre, which contains green coffee beans, along with new prototypes for functional, clear, instant soups offering increased saturation and regeneration, with protein and fibre enrichment.
At the meeting point for the dietary supplement industry, Taiyo caused a sensation with its cannabis alternative CPT. The additive, which can be legitimately distributed and consumed worldwide, has nerve-protecting properties and acts systemically on the central nervous system. Managing Director Dr. Stefan Siebrecht: “CPT is by no means a synthetic cannabinoid, nor does it contain real cannabis. CPT is a combination of three natural and legal extracts which complement each other in such a way that they have a similar effect to CBD. The components of CPT are long established and are already being used in America to reduce the side effects of therapeutic cannabis. This makes the almost comparable effect all the more interesting: CPT has an anti-inflammatory effect, relieves pain and reduces a number of stress-related symptoms. And although the ingredient improves sleep quality, it does not make you tired, but instead regulates the natural day-night rhythm. Improved concentration and learning ability are further positive effects.”
Taiyo’s innovations in the weight management segment also attracted plenty of interest. One novelty, a vegan satiating protein shake, is part of an extensive range of chia products and concepts. The allergen-free organic shake concept combines all the benefits that health and weight-conscious consumers value: high-quality micro and macro nutrients, a performance-enhancing Q10 source, a creamy cappuccino taste and easily digestible fibre. In addition, the formulation contains green coffee beans that release caffeine slowly over 6-8 hours, increasing calorie consumption and reducing diet-related fatigue.
Another highlight at the stand was functional instant soups, which could well change the negative image of an infusion meal: The recipes consist exclusively of nutritionally sensible ingredients and are free from flavour enhancers such as glutamate or yeast; they contain neither starch nor palm oil, or other declarable additives. Each portion contains 66 per cent vegetables, over 5g vegetable protein and Taiyo’s natural fibre Sunfiber® from the guar bean. A variant with a higher content of collagen peptides appeals to target groups such as athletes, the elderly or infirm who want or need to do something to care for or maintain muscle strength.
WILD Flavors & Specialty Ingredients (WFSI), a business unit of Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM), will be at this year’s SIAL trade fair in Paris, where they will present appealing vegan soy drinks and Fruit&Veggie concepts, to name only a few. They will also be featuring contemporary carbotanicals as well as new cider mixes and still drinks. All of these product ideas have one thing in common: they are based on WFSI’s great-taste expertise, and they satisfy consumer demand for natural products.
Vegan products: new concepts that drive developments in the beverage market
The growth rate for new launches among vegan foods and drinks reached 400 % between 2011 and 2015.1 This shows that vegan diets have established themselves in society around the world, and there are no signs of the trend reversing. Manufacturers who want to take advantage of these developments can sample the new soy drink concepts by WFSI in Paris. This generation of vegan power drinks is vegan and lactose-free, contains protein and important B vitamins, and is energizing. Last but not least, they will win people over with their tempting and aromatic flavor profiles, which are available in banana, chocolate and strawberry.
Cider: unfiltered, refreshing, different
To generate new impetus on the market for alcoholic flavored beverages, WFSI took the idea of unfiltered flavored beer concepts and transferred it to cider, thus creating a brand new kind of refreshment for adults. Tangy cider drinks with hints of popular citrus flavors like lemon and grapefruit contain 5 % fruit juice and 2 % alcohol. They are fruitier and less sweet than classic cider beverages, making them an attractive alternative to flavored beers.
Botanicals: fruity refreshment with a spicy and aromatic note
Carbonated soft drinks are the second-largest beverage category after water. The market is largely saturated, however, which means new inspiration is needed. At SIAL, WFSI is presenting a new concept which incorporates popular flavors while also creating buzz with unexpected flavor accents. The Carbotanicals which WFSI has developed with popular kinds of fruit will draw in new customers, and these drinks also offer a pleasant surprise with a spicy-aromatic hint that comes from natural extracts of well- known kinds of herbs. Trade-fair visitors are welcome to come to the booth in Paris and try an elegantly-balanc
ed combination of red berries with basil.
Fruit & veggie: juicy, fruity, refreshing
Eating vegetables of all kinds is more popular than ever, and it corresponds to people’s desire for a healthy lifestyle. This is the perfect market opportunity for juices and still drinks with an added touch of vegetables. In response to the current demand for health and wellness products, WFSI’s portfolio includes fruit&veggie still drinks such as orange- pumpkin-ginger or beet-strawberry. They contain a harmonious blend of fruit and vegetable juices and are also available as a low-calorie option with steviol glycosides. At SIAL, those who like their drinks “juicier” can turn to WFSI’s concepts with a high juice content, including beverages with 50 % each fruit and vegetable juices, products enhanced with blossoms, or not-from-concentrate (NFC) juices.
1Mintel GNPD, 2016
