Western consumers may be unfamiliar with eating seaweed outside of sushi or miso soup, but seaweed-flavoured food and drink are set to be the next big superfood trend in Europe.
New research from Mintel reveals that food and drink product launches with seaweed flavours, including kombu, nori/laver, and wakame seaweed flavours, have increased by 147%* in Europe between 2011 and 2015. This growth means Europe is now the second most innovative region globally when it comes to seaweed-flavoured food and drink launches.
Indeed, while the majority of seaweed-flavoured food and drink products are currently launched in the Asia Pacific region, accounting for 88% of global product launches between 2011 and 2015, Europe launched 7% of seaweed-flavoured foods and drinks globally in this time, outpacing both North America (4%) and Latin America (1%).
Seaweed’s health halo presents a big opportunity for manufacturers in the West, especially in the snack category. Indeed, around one third of consumers in Italy (30%), Poland (36%) and Spain (37%) would like to see a wider variety of healthier snacks.
Consumer demand is mirrored in recent launch activity, as 37% of seaweed-flavoured food and drink launches in Europe between 2011 and 2015 took place in the snack category, according to Mintel’s Global New Products Database (GNPD). Other top categories for new product development in Europe include sauces and seasonings (12%), bakery (9%), and soup (8%).
However, Mintel research shows it’s important that these products also tasty, as the majority of European snack consumers agree that taste is king: 56% of Italian, 57% of Spanish, 62% of French, 65% of Polish and seven out of ten (70%) German consumers** agree that flavour is more important than calorie content when indulging in a snack.
“The inherent health benefits in seaweed allow it to fit naturally into the healthy snack category. But even though consumers’ interest in health-enhancing food continues to increase, seaweed snacks will need to deliver on flavour in order to be successful with Western consumers.” Stephanie concludes.
* 0.07591% of all food and drink launches in Europe in 2015 contained seaweed flavour compared to 0.03077% in 2011.
** refers to consumer who have bought crisps, nuts or other salty snacks in the six months prior to the survey.