SILVER SPRING, Md. -- The products on convenience-store shelves might have gotten healthier without anyone even knowing about it.
Global consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers reduced sugar and salt in about 20% of their products in 2016—that's more than 180,000 products, according to a report from the Consumer Goods Forum. And that figure is double what it was the previous year.
"The big consumer companies are responding to competitive pressures," Peter Freedman, managing director of the Consumer Goods Forum, told Bloomberg. "The growth in the industry is coming from small startups with product portfolios that have a healthier angle."
The report includes a survey of 102 companies including Nestle SA and Procter & Gamble. Those and other large manufacturers are losing share to these smaller, more nimble brands that are riding current better-for-you trends. New data from SPINS, a Chicago-based provider of retail consumer insights, analytics and consulting for the natural, organic and specialty products industries, indicates that sales of natural products have grown $63 billion over the course of the last 10 years.
On a global scale, in addition to consumers' changing tastes, governments are clamping down via regulation on unhealthy products. This month, the United Kingdom, following in Mexico's footsteps, imposed a tax on sugary drinks. And the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is requiring that companies soon be required to label products with more detailed information about their sugar content, according to the Bloomberg report.
In response, Nestle has reduced sugar in chocolate by as much as 40% and will cut the amount of sugar in the candy it sells in the United Kingdom and Ireland by 10% next year. Ninety-nine percent of Mars products now contain less than 250 calories per serving.
"The forces of the market are pushing things in the right direction, and there will be more to come," Freedman told Bloomberg. "Products will have less salt, less sugar and fewer calories."
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