Although protein remains a key nutrition focus for U.S. consumers, a new report spotlights some warning signs on how the meat industry develops and markets its products.<\/p>\n
Created by NielsenIQ and presented last week at the Protein Solutions Summit in New Orleans, the report shared a number of encouraging signs for meat processors, including: 60% of consumers make an intentional effort to consume more protein every day; 71% agree that protein is very\/extremely important in their diet; and 48% saw \u201cprotein\u201d on packaging and purchased the product.<\/p>\n
Dollar sales of products with stated protein claims are up 15.6% from two years ago, more than double the 6.9% of food and beverage overall.<\/p>\n
However, amidst those positive trends, NielsenIQ uncovered a fatigue among Americans when it comes to protein products and their marketing. Notable stats included:<\/p>\n
34% of Americans think the industry over-hypes protein in its products.
\n37% think products have too much protein.
\n16% are \u201coverwhelmed\u201d at the number of protein-laden items available, while 29% are \u201cskeptical\u201d and 27% \u201cindifferent.\u201d
\nCurrently, there are more than 34,000 products with stated protein claims, a 55.4% increase from 2017.<\/p>\n
Opportunities for education, building trust<\/p>\n
Despite those sentiments, NielsenIQ pinpointed a number of opportunities for the meat industry.<\/p>\n
For starters, there is space to better educate consumers about their protein needs. A full 27% \u201cdon\u2019t know\u201d how many grams of protein they need each day, and 68% do not track their protein consumption.<\/p>\n
Moreover, the industry has room to build trust. In terms of protein claims, 32% of consumers consider such claims \u201cneither\u201d trustworthy or untrustworthy, and 45% chose \u201csomewhat trustworthy.\u201d Added protein, too, arouses suspicion \u2014 33% trust naturally occurring protein more, and 27% are \u201cnot sure\u201d of which they more trust.<\/p>\n
Such a trend, NielsenIQ continued, means the industry should \u201cthink beyond protein\u201d and consider other desired characteristics in food. For instance, in high-protein products, 37% of Americans want low sugar, while 29% want high fiber and 27% want low sodium.<\/p>\n
The report stressed that companies need to seriously consider the impact of health\/nutrition apps. Not only do 22% of shoppers use third-party apps to scan products, but 63% trust their app as much as a product\u2019s label, and 35% are \u201cvery likely\u201d to not buy a product that scores poorly in an app\u2019s system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Although protein remains a key nutrition focus for U.S. consumers, a new report spotlights some warning signs on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":885873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[97,269,6318],"class_list":["post-885872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-health","tag-nutrition","tag-saturday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/885873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}