Food manufacturers have ‘huge’ opportunity in sustainable products
He said the impact of labelling foods as sustainable was 'incredible' and that buying decisions were being influenced by millennials and Gen Z who were 'hungry for it'.
HowGood, a SaaS data platform with the world's largest product sustainability database works with leading companies including Danone. It has just announced the integration of the EU’s Nutri-Score and French Eco-Score labelling systems into its sustainability intelligence software, Latis, for measuring product impact.
Scoring systems
Both Nutri-Score and Eco-Score are European scoring systems that award grades to food products on a scale of A to E.
Nutri-Score measures nutritional value and is calculated by measuring the amount of calories, fat, saturated fatty acids, carbohydrates, sugars, protein, salt, and fiber per 100g of a food product. Eco-Score measures a food product’s environmental footprint by summarizing 15 environmental impacts based on life cycle analysis.
“You can see with these rating systems significant changes in consumer behaviour,” he said. “There is a huge business opportunity because the sales of sustainably marketed products are growing seven times the rate of non-sustainable products in the category. This is a business opportunity because of global trends towards sustainability.”
He said the platform, which has over 33,000 ingredients in its data base now wants to put this information into the 'hands of food manufacturers so they can understand their impact and make their products better'.
Consumer-facing labelling
Eco-Score and Nutri-Score provide a standardised measurement for brands and retailers to convey their products’ nutritional value and environmental impact through consumer-facing labelling.
By having this information readily available in Latis, HowGood customers can better understand how any changes made in the product development process can impact these scores to ensure their products are universally considered healthful and environmentally friendly.
Soloviev added: “Brands are taking big steps to improve their carbon footprint and reduce risk from their supply chains, and we’re excited to aid them in those goals by aligning those insights with marketing considerations, bringing front-of-pack labeling insights directly into the hands of product developers and procurement teams.”
