Probiotic with your peanut butter
Since Covid, Kiwis have been spending up on daily shots of powdered fruit and veg, brain food drinks, and probiotic spreads. Tina Morrison reports.
Angus Brown’s natural health drink to improve brain function, A¯ repa, has seen a surge in sales since Covid-19 as the virus raised awareness of health and wellbeing, and it’s not the only product that’s benefiting. A¯ repa had a 250% spike in sales in the month after lockdown and it has become the fastest-selling health drink in supermarkets.
‘‘We’ve been doubling revenue year-on-year since Covid began,’’ says Brown, A¯ repa’s cofounder and chief executive. ‘‘Everyone just seems to want it more and more now. With the rates of people with cognitive-related concerns coupled with Covid-related immunity concerns, we got a double-pronged benefit.’’
Brown’s drink, made from blackcurrants, pinebark extract and L-theanine, an amino acid found in green tea, is benefiting from a global trend towards convenient, natural foods with health benefits, a move that’s been accelerated by Covid.
A¯ repa expanded to Australia last year, and is fielding inquiries from further afield, including Singapore, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and the United States. It raised $2.5 million last year to fund its Australian expansion and is eyeing a bigger raising within the next year to fund a push into the US.
The company has brought in some heavy hitters to help, including former Zespri chief Lain Jager who has become an investor and joined the board, and Allbirds branding guru Simon Endres, who is refreshing the brand for global expansion.
Other nutritional brands have also experienced a sales boost since Covid.
Nutrient Rescue, which produces fruit and vegepowdered sachet ‘‘shots’’, had double the average number of daily new customers in the last quarter of 2021 compared to the equivalent pre-Covid period in 2019, and growth has continued this year.
Chief executive Andrew Simcock says the rise shows how the pandemic threw the spotlight on health and immunity.
A survey prepared by NZ Trade and Enterprise, Te Taurapa Tu¯ hono, for the company’s expansion into Australia, showed that following the outbreak of Covid-19, many more Australians saw healthy food and drink as a priority.
The trends were also seen in other markets, including Singapore, the UK and US, suggesting a global movement towards health, the report said.
‘‘People are much more aware of how important their general health is,’’ Simcock says. ‘‘We are a young business that’s in growth mode, but we are definitely seeing a pickup.’’
While the company’s products were initially sought out by people with specific health concerns, Simcock says demand is now coming from consumers in the mainstream who are seeking better nutrition from natural products, and moving away from supplements and energy drinks.
He says it can be hard to eat properly with enough diversity in your diet for good nutrition, and Nutrient Rescue makes it easier by providing a daily dose of eight types of fruit and veges.
‘‘We have a number of these wonderful, nutrient-dense superfoods that we can produce and take overseas, as well as feeding our own requirements,’’ Simcock says.
Lincoln University agribusiness and food marketing programme director Dr Nic Lees says companies are responding to a desire among consumers for products that are perceived to be more healthy, a trend that has accelerated since Covid.
‘‘In the current environment, things are changing very rapidly,’’ he says. ‘‘These things have been simmering along, but all of a sudden there is a real focus around food that is providing health benefits.’’
Still, Lees says that although people want their food to be healthy, they don’t want to go to a lot of trouble. And they’re increasingly aware that taking supplements in a capsule form isn’t necessarily providing the same benefit as nutrients contained within food.
Lees is following the trend in his own life, taking a vege snack box to work every day.
He notes Asian cultures are more attuned to the impact of food on health but says it’s a growing trend among European New Zealanders, given extra momentum from Covid.
Mainstream companies are also jumping on the trend – niche peanut butter brand Nut Brothers recently added a new probiotic and cranberry range.
‘‘You need to always be innovating and coming forward with new things,’’ says co-founder Jono Wood. ‘‘If you look at what’s happening around the world, you see companies in America have done it, and we thought that’s clever, we’ll give it a go.’’
He says it’s a neat way for families to add healthy food into their kids’ diets.
‘‘Probiotics is a good thing and it’s an easy way to get it into your family,’’ he says. ‘‘You are what you eat, so everyone needs to supplement all the good stuff somehow.’’
Lincoln University’s Lees says people are increasingly wanting their food products to be healthy, and to feel that they are giving some benefit to them.
‘‘The thing that is always quite interesting is how much of it is an actual benefit versus a perceived benefit,’’ he says.
While there is good evidence for the use of ma¯ nuka honey for wound care, there is zero evidence that consuming ma¯ nuka honey has any health benefits, he says.
Very few consumers are actually going to look at the evidence for a product and they don’t always behave rationally, he says.
Most products do have some degree of scientific backing linking them to health benefits, and that is enough for most consumers, he says.
‘‘As long as you’ve got enough indication that that’s the case, people then perceive it as being healthier and better for you and a whole bunch of things [and] probably there’s not much evidence whether it is or not,’’ he says.
Still, some companies are spending up big on science to back their nutritional claims.
New Zealand’s largest food company, dairy giant Fonterra, is increasing its innovation spending by 50% to about $160m a year by 2030 as it delves deeper into the properties of milk, so it can produce high-value nutritional products.
Fonterra discovered and commercialised two of the world’s top probiotic strains, which address digestive issues and immunity, and it holds more than 40,000 dairy culture strains at its Palmerston North research and development centre, one of the largest dairy culture libraries in the world. Most have yet to be tested for their potential as probiotics and may have health benefits never seen before.
In December last year, Fonterra partnered with world-renowned scientist Dr Robert Langer, cofounder of vaccine-maker Moderna, and his US biotechnology company VitaKey which specialises in the precision delivery of nutrition.
Langer says people may not realise that many nutrients are destroyed before they are eaten and his company has developed technology to stabilise nutrients and ensure they survive and are bioavailable for the consumer.
The first stage in the collaboration focused on stabilising Fonterra’s two probiotics for digestive issues and immunity to enable them to be delivered to parts of the body where they are needed most for optimal nutrition. The venture has since expanded to include other micronutrients such as vitamin D.
Langer is hopeful VitaKey will be revolutionary for the US$8 trillion (NZ$12t) a year global food industry.
‘‘Nutrition is so important,’’ he says. ‘‘I’m just trying to do what I can with science to hopefully make the world a happier, healthier place. Our goal is to see as many people benefit worldwide as possible.’’
‘‘All of a sudden there is a real focus around food that is providing health benefits.’’ Dr Nic Lees Lincoln University agribusiness and food marketing programme director