Ingredients Under Scrutiny

For consumers worldwide, a healthy and natural diet is increasingly important. This already becomes apparent in the supermarket: more than half of all Europeans (53 percent) and 64 percent of US-Americans take a critical look at the label of food and beverages before they put them in their shopping trolley.

In Asia and South America, consumers are even more sensitive. Here, 84 and 75 percent respectively want to know what is in a product before they buy it. These are findings of a recent consumer study, which has been commissioned by GNT, leading global provider of Colouring Foods. For the study, the market research institute TNS surveyed more than 5,000 consumers from ten countries in Asia, America and Europe on their shopping and eating habits.

The results prove: if consumers discover unwanted ingredients on a label, the product is put back onto the shelves. However, they do not evaluate every component individually. Especially when the given information is excessive and hard to understand, they scan the label for certain ingredients they personally avoid. In doing so, they pay special
attention to colourings: for 60 percent of consumers worldwide, the absence of artificial colourants is critical for their purchase decision.

«The study’s results clearly show that natural ingredients determine the choice of food products. Many manufacturers already comply with consumers’ wishes by, for example, using Colouring Foods exclusively made from natural raw materials and clearly indicating that on the label. This development will continue to gather momentum in the upcoming years, « says Dr. Hendrik Hoeck, Managing Director of GNT Group. GNT supplies more than 1,200 companies in the world with Colouring Foods made exclusively from fruits, vegetables and
edible plants.