Fast Facts on Food Processing: Product and branding trends

Food and beverage manufacturers continuously navigate a changing food landscape, always on the lookout for profitable niches in which they can grow and prosper. Many attempt to capitalize on current and growing trends such as organic or natural products. Others go after high-quality markets, promoting premium brands; still others position themselves as value providers, offering good quality at low prices.

Grant Thornton LLP is once again collaborating with Food Processing magazine on a series of three industry surveys — Fast Facts on Food Processing — to offer a perspective on performance trends, challenges and opportunities in the food industry. The second survey in this series, Product and branding trends,examines how food and beverage manufacturers are distributing their goods, how they are attempting to differentiate their products and brands, and which emerging trends are affecting their businesses. Here are some key findings:

• More than three-quarters (78%) of food and beverage manufacturers label at least some of their products as natural.
• More than one-quarter (27%) of respondents view healthy, organic or fresh/natural products and ingredients as their competitive differentiator.
• Nearly three-quarters (73%) of respondents distribute some of their products outside of the United States, and 27% distribute more than one-half of their products outside of the United States.
• Seventy-four percent of food and beverage manufacturers report producing products that carry private-label/store branding.
• Three-quarters (75%) of respondents report that the number of SKUs their company produces has increased over the past three years.
• Nearly half (46%) of survey participants compete against five or more brands for shelf space.