Marketing by life stage

Marketing functional and health-giving foods by targeting consumers at certain life stages could bring some structure to a fragmented market, according to a leading market researcher.

Targeting consumers at different life stages is currently restricted to petfood, cosmetics, haircare, babyfood and an emerging market for 'growing children' [calcium drinks and omega-3 milk etc], said Steve Rice, md of UK-based market researcher RTS Resource.

He added: "But this approach - for example, focusing on maternal and infant nutrition, growing children, the middle aged and the elderly - could bring some order and cohesion to the health-giving food market, which is currently very fragmented and very diverse."

However, in many cases, the science was not strong enough to support such a tailored approach as scientists were still not sure of precisely when in life certain nutrients were critical, and what optimal dosages were, he conceded.

The fact that manufacturers wishing to make claims about children's health now have to submit detailed scientific dossiers to the European Food Safety Authority for approval, is forcing firms to adopt more generic marketing, he added.

Many of the discussions at the conference addressed the fundamental problem facing an industry that did not have the margins to support the kind of research needed to substantiate the claims it wanted to make.

If, however, research was funded by public money or through huge industrial collaborations, individual manufacturers would not be able to gain any competitive advantage because everyone would benefit, said Unilever scientist Dr Mark Cobain.

Dr Kirsten Brandt, senior lecturer at Newcastle University, said: "We can't give consumers a coherent message because there isn't one to give."