Early Life Nutrition

Early Life Nutrition in the UK: Health, Convenience, and Cost

Introduction

Across the next year, a significant proportion of parents will be altering their diets and lifestyles, in line with rising costs. This will have an impact on their child’s health and wellness. Additionally, parents will be increasingly conscious of the long-lasting implications of COVID-19 on their children’s physical and emotional health. As a result, many parents recognize the impact that the cost-of-living crisis and the pandemic have had and continue to have on the wellness of their children. To cater to parents' need states, brands must ensure they stay up to date with early life trends in the food and drink industry.

Proactive Approach

Following the pandemic, a large proportion of consumers have integrated a proactive, prevention-over-cure approach to their child’s health and wellness. For instance, FMCG Gurus’ consumer insights highlight that 65% of UK parents stated that they have been more proactive in addressing their child’s health due to COVID-19. This demonstrates that for a significant number of parents, their child’s health and wellness is at the forefront before symptoms or health complications occur. Instead, parents are looking to boost multiple areas of their child’s health.

Convenient vs Natural

The appeal of quick, efficient, and on-the-go snacks and ready meals are decreasing in demand among parents in the UK. For example, FMCG Gurus’ market research reveals that of UK parents who have changed their dietary habits to address health problems, 42% increased their child’s consumption of fruit and vegetables. Also, 36% of UK parents reduced their child’s sugar intake. This suggests that many parents in the UK are seeking out a back-to-basics approach to their child’s nutrition. This is because parents are looking for fresh fruit and vegetables, with natural ingredients. Additionally, many parents are moving away from artificial ingredients and dietary evils such as sugar and GMOs.

Multifunctional Health Claims

Despite this turn away from ready-made meals and on-the-go food and drink, parents are still looking for convenience in other forms. For instance, when asked about the most appealing claims and factors in food and drink, 75% of UK parents said they like to see food and drink that helps promote a healthy diet, followed by products that enhance nutritional levels and strengthen immunity. This highlights how parents want products that have high nutritional value, to ensure that their child is getting sufficient nutrients and vitamins.

However, the reality for many parents is that they do not have the time to seek out various products that target specific areas of health. Instead, they are more likely to be drawn to multifunctional health-boosting claims. As a result, brands should consider developing products with multiple health benefits to appeal to parents' busy lifestyles. If these claims are backed up with clear and concise scientific evidence, many parents will deem these products as having maximum efficacy, value, and convenience.

Additionally, brands must make sure to avoid complex nutritional labeling. Instead, keeping labeling simple and concise will provide ease for parents when checking this.

Rising Prices

Brands should position food and drink products as being good value for money. This is particularly important during today’s recessionary climate. For instance, 41% of parents in the UK are concerned that rising prices will impact their child’s health over the next twelve months. Our findings illustrate how parents have become increasingly conscious of rising prices. As a result, this will have an impact on the health and wellness of their children. Parents will be cost-cutting on healthier products, which are often deemed more expensive. Brands must respond to this by expressing to consumers the value of their products. Rather than choosing the cheapest option, consumers are searching for products they deem good value for money. As a result, if brands can communicate value, consumers will be more likely to purchase during today’s cost of living crisis.

This article is based on FMCG Gurus: Early Life in the UK – Country Report 2023. For more information, please click here.

Attitudes and Challenges Towards Early Life Nutrition

Introduction

COVID-19 has influenced early life nutrition and parents’ attitudes towards health in the long-term. FMCG Gurus' consumer insights finds that 60% of parents agree that they have become more conscious of their child’s health as a result of COVID-19, a 16% decrease since the height of the pandemic in 2021. This is something which many adults are also feeling with regards to their health, which is reflected in their attitudes towards their child’s health.

Attitudes to Health

Our research finds that consumers feel satisfied with their child’s overall health. Parents demonstrate varying levels of satisfaction towards their child’s health and wellness, overall feeling that their child’s health and wellness could be improved.

Parents are most likely to feel satisfied that their child is not overweight, with three quarters of parents stating this. Following this, parents are satisfied with their child’s dental health (73%), height (71%) and eyesight (70%). On the other hand, parents are least satisfied with their child’s brain development, with 60% of parents saying this, followed by weight (59%).

Parents are taking a prevention over cure approach to wellness issues and do not feel their kids have symptoms. Parents are especially likely to be taking a proactive approach to their child’s mental wellbeing, with 74% of parents saying they are concerned about this issue. Addressing children’s emotional and mental wellness will be a major priority for parents in an era of uncertainty.

Improving Health

Our research finds that parents prefer to address and improve their child’s health by general rather than specialist means. The most common step parents take is changing their child’s diet (37%), whereas only 16% of parents concerned about their child’s health chose to seek medical advice. This implies that parents see their child’s health issues as being self-inflicted as they can be addressed by making lifestyle changes, rather than seeking out specialist help.

As mentioned, parents are looking to make changes to their child’s eating and drinking habits. The most common step taken when addressing diet is to increase the intake of vitamins and minerals, followed by increasing their consumption of fruit and vegetables. These steps indicate a back-to-basics approach to nutrition, whereby parents encourage their children to consume a diet deemed natural, healthy and free-from ingredients deemed unhealthy, such as sugar, salt, and fat.

Challenges to Health

Rising living costs are affecting all areas of consumers lives and is something which does not appear to be short term. The current cost-of-living crisis is something which parents see as having a direct impact on their child’s health, with 42% of parents saying this. The top reason parents are concerned is as they think healthy food and drink is expensive and they will have to compromise on nutrition. Furthermore, parents think that their child will have to eat more processed food.

Another major challenge parents see when trying to maintain their child’s health is hidden sugars in food and drink, with 51% of parents saying this. Over the last couple of decades, there have been high profile media cases of hidden sugar in food and drink products, resulting in parents feeling that brands can use unnecessarily complex and confusing labelling to disguise certain ingredients. As such, it is important that nutritional labelling is as simple and transparent as possible so that parents feel they can make an informed decision about the nutritional profile of products in a matter of seconds.

This article is based on FMCG Gurus: Early Life Nutrition: Challenges & Recommendations Ahead – Global Report – 2023. For more information, please click here.