Wellbeing-minded consumers expect more from packaged goods — recognisable ingredients, gentler processing, and no compromise on the sensory experience.
Naturality is no longer a niche claim. According to the
Tate & Lyle Clean Label Report 2024, 54% of European consumers
buy clean-label products specifically for health reasons — and they expect "more natural" to also mean "more delicious".
Influencer kitchens have raised the benchmark: home-made versions of mainstream foods, made with natural and whole ingredients, are setting new standards for taste, mouthfeel and visual appeal.
Why R&D and Marketing should care
Two themes dominate next-gen naturality:
clean-label substitutes
and
naturally better-for-you ingredients.
Both are commercial accelerators. Clean-label drives trust; naturality drives premium pricing. The real challenge is balance — today, clean-label foods often demand trade-offs between taste, mouthfeel, convenience, shelf life and price. Tomorrow, consumers expect all of these to align. Whoever cracks this equation leads the category.
Today vs. Tomorrow
Today
| Tomorrow
|
|---|---|
Naturality often means
removing unwanted ingredients
from mainstream foods — cleaner labels and simpler formulations. Reformulation is mostly subtractive.
| Consumers expect more natural products to be
just as convenient and accessible
as today's packaged options — without sacrificing taste or texture. Reformulation becomes additive too: removing additives while adding functional naturals.
|
Spotted on shelf
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