Nestlé has hailed its Nescafé Green Blend antioxidant-rich coffee as a success following an initial launch in Germany, Spain, France, the UK and Australia and is planning to introduce it in multiple markets. The brand is based on a patent-pending process that produces a coffee which contains 9% polyphenols compared with the 2-3% found in standard roasted coffee –- but marketing for the brand can use a “natural” message owing to the fact that the coffee uses beans in their raw state. Nescafé Green Blend antioxidant-rich coffee racked up sales of just over £1 million ($1.53 million/€1.15 million) in its first six months on the UK market. The instant coffee, launched in September 2009, is a blend of green and roasted coffee beans that is three to four times higher in polyphenol antioxidants than standard instant coffee. The product, which took 10 years to develop, was introduced by Nestlé in an effort to promote coffee as a healthy drink and shake off its image as a poor relation to tea in the well-being stakes.

Consumer research shows, over and again, in almost every country, that consumers want to get their health benefits from foods that are as natural as possible. But that's a finding that many have misinterpreted, over and again, as meaning that people want foods that are whole, unprocessed and fresh from the tree. Consumer behaviour reveals that this interpretation is far from the truth.

First published in New Nutrition Business May 2010 Newsletter

In fact, most successful natural foods are dependent on processing technologies to unleash their health benefits while keeping them palatable and above all, convenient.

As our lead story on Nescafé Green Blend illustrates [see sidebar for details], coffee beans in their natural state may have higher health benefits than roasted beans, but it needed a huge investment in science and technology to uncover those benefits and to make them available in a palatable product.

Consider the elements in creating a product with an all natural health benefit. First, the twenty years of scientific evolution since it first became apparent from large epidemiological studies that there seemed to be a link between coffee consumption and a reduction in the risk of conditions such as heart disease and type-2 diabetes. Initially it was thought caffeine might be responsible for this - but further analysis showed a similar effect for decaffeinated coffee. Because it was known that coffee contained polyphenol antioxidants it was concluded these were responsible for the perceived benefits.

Second, it took a decade creating a process that results in a product acceptable to consumers. It was understood that raw (or green) coffee beans were far higher in antioxidants than those which had been roasted, but coffee made from green beans tastes and smells a little like a breakfast cereal, not far removed from ersatz coffee made from chicory. The solution was a patented blending process that produces a coffee which contains 9% polyphenols compared with the 2-3% found in standard roasted coffee and which can still be marketed with a natural message owing to the fact that the coffee uses beans in their raw state.

The story of Green Blend is not an unusual one. Coconut water drinks, extracted from the fluid found inside young green coconuts, are marketed as all-natural, naturally-isotonic and naturally sweet with one company in Europe describing coconut water (pretty accurately) as the only beverage that's provided from nature apart from water.

Those all-natural benefits are fuelling the surge of interest in industry in coconut water and increasing retail sales, but those benefits could not be delivered without the development over the last few years or processing technologies (some patented or proprietary) and packaging technology (such as aseptic packaging) which have made it possible to extract, store and deliver to markets thousands of miles away a natural fluid with its all-natural health benefits intact which, without those technologies, would otherwise quickly become rancid, undrinkable and lose its health benefits.

The benefits food technology brings in terms of convenience and palatability should not be under-estimated - there's nothing convenient about a coconut and there's little that's palatable about unroasted coffee beans. It is convenience and palatability that people want most as well as health benefits and those are two elements that many foods cannot deliver in their raw and natural state.

Demand for smart food technology will, if anything, increase because natural foods with natural benefits will increasingly mean foods that are processed as little as possible often a hugely difficult task. As a result, it is companies who invest in technology, not hippy companies and not back-to-the-land sandal wearers, who will dominate the natural foods business in the years ahead, for only technology will be able to resolve the contradiction that sits firmly in consumers minds: that they want it natural and healthy and convenient and good-tasting.

About New Nutrition Business

New Nutrition Business is a London-based research, publishing and consulting company which specialises in researching, analysing and forecasting developments in the business of food, nutrition and health around the world.

The strategies and success factors it has identified in the 1990s have become the benchmarks for strategy development and brand positioning in the worldwide nutrition business. It works with companies all around the world, from the United States to Australia and from Sweden to South Africa.

New Nutrition Business is headed by executive director Julian Mellentin, one of the world's very few global specialists in the business of food, nutrition and health.

He is the editor-in-chief of New Nutrition Business and Kids Nutrition Report, the only industry journal in the world on the rapidly developing kids’ nutritional marketplace.

Julian is co-author of both The Functional Foods Revolution: Healthy people, healthy profits?, the first-ever book on the business of functional foods, now translated into Japanese, and Commercialising Innovation: The Food & Health Marketing Handbook.
See www.new-nutrition.com