Recently, McKinsey published a report on the relationship between Gen Z and wellness. This new generation is getting extremely relevant for all types of companies as it is now entering a stage where its “members” are earning enough money to spend significantly on discretionary items. One of the most interesting points of this report is the graph below, which displays how different generations intend to act (in the US at least) to improve their wellness.
From the point of view of food & innovation, two points are very striking:
1 – Gen Z and Millennials are very aligned on the fact that having better nutrition is key to wellness. However, the gap with the average is quite significant. This means that older generations quite disagree with this statement. And that’s a huge challenge for food brands. As brands want to move towards the healthy ageing trend, this represents quite a challenge. How to increase the healthiness of your products (notably by adding ingredients with benefits), communicate it to consumers without alienating the cohorts of older consumers, who are still the majority?
The logical conclusion is similar to our recent insight about ultra-processed foods: companies must expand their portfolios. For an overwhelming share of brands, addressing these diverging consumer demands with the same products won’t be possible.
2 – Appearance (through skin care, makeup…) is widely divergent, with more than 45% of US Gen Z respondents mentioning it, versus about an average of about 25%.
This space is not only an opportunity for cosmetic players. While there was a small trend a few years ago of companies trying to blend cosmetic benefits into food products, it didn’t take off. That’s mainly because most of these claims were vague and not proven. Nowadays, as consumers are increasingly aware of collagen’s effects and the connection between gut health and their skin, things could change quite rapidly. Alongside protein being included in (too) many foods and beverages, we observe a rising wave of products “with collagen inside”. Beyond the rise of prebiotics (think about Poppi’s $2B acquisition by Pepsico) and the related appetite for products with apple cider vinegar, there is also a growing consumer demand for healthy food and beverage products with combined positive gut/health/beauty effects.
A land of opportunity for the food industry
Without going too deep into generational trends, the rise of wellness concerns is a fascinating opportunity for the food industry to reinvent itself. Nowadays, most big players we talk to are only seeing it through the lenses of health, creating the hype around concepts such as “healthy ageing”.
However, ageing well is, as shown by the graph above, also a question of appearances, even more so for younger generations. Today, some cosmetic players are already starting to play around with this idea (see this Nivea serum reducing the effects of sugar on your skin). In a word, F&B leaders should start to explore how they could interact with “beauty” and find which benefits they want to bring to an audience that will be key to them very shortly.
