Groceryshop 2022: Reaching Health-Conscious Consumers
As a result of the pandemic, the wellness category is continuing to grow across the board, making reaching health-conscious consumers a very important goal for retailers and their private brands.
At Groceryshop 2022, held Sept.19-22 in Las Vegas, NV, Sally Lyons Wyatt, EVP & practice leader of Client Insights at IRI, discussed growing segments in the wellness category, and what consumers are looking for out of wellness products.
In a presentation, Wyatt pointed to IRI data that showed several key categories have grown rapidly over the past two years. Since 2020, the essential vitamins category rose 157%, products containing health claims about metabolism rose 66%, and products touting liver support rose 55%, just to name a few.
“In general, what we’re seeing is consumers are really looking for ways to stay healthy so they don’t have to go to the doctor,” said Wyatt. “All consumers are trying to find ways to eat and drink to feel better. We’ve seen a big uptick in products that contain vitamins. Vitamin D, things that will boost your immunity… event choline for brain health. These types of claims are really driving certain segment growth, whether it’s in food or supplement [categories].”
Wyatt added that convenience is playing a role in new wellness-oriented products as well, with brands rolling out protein-on-the-go, multi-pack products and more. And when it comes to where consumers purchase these healthy products, many are opting for several different retailers. Wyatt said that health-conscious consumers shop anywhere from six to 12 channels to get their food & beverage and health & beauty needs, making for a competitive retail and CPG marketplace.
“There’s many touchpoints for that consumer that you have to zero-in on in order to interrupt them to either come into your store if you’re a retailer, or to go and buy the different products in the channels that they shop,” she added. “It’s definitely hard, so you want to find a way to attract, engage and retain.”
In closing, Wyatt noted three things retailers can think about when it comes to attracting health-conscious consumers: gaining or retaining trust, agile innovation and accelerating digital marketing.
“You want to be able to get to them [health-conscious consumers] and have them embrace your product,” she said. “You need to be able to understand what consumers are leaning into. You’ve gotta be able to innovate and communicate about that… being able to talk to that ‘fit and healthy’ [consumer] differently than you would talk to those that are on the ‘unhealthy’ side."