When Upscale and Nutrition Collide

Decadence doesn’t often create imagery of a healthy lifestyle. But when it comes to today’s foods, that image is changing.

The very idea of creating nourishing food products begs many questions: Does formulating with good-for-you ingredients upscale a product? Do wholesome products demand a premium price targeted to more-affluent consumers?

Powerful perceptions

John Matchuk, CRC, research and development manager, Grecian Delight, Elk Grove Village, IL, believes nutritional concerns are more easily addressed in upscale products, “because of the additional labor that they have, the additional care that they can take with their products, and also, to a degree, the demographics of their market.” He points out that, for example, in foodservice, “white tablecloth has a tremendous opportunity to enhance the nutrition of the products that they’re serving their guests because they have a lot more freedom to be creative and nutritional. At the same time, chefs are still more interested in their organoleptics than they are their nutrition. I think the chefs in that marketplace are hip enough or savvy enough to recognize that if they can kill two birds with one stone they would rather do that—this is a wow and that is really good for you.”

Today’s evolving cuisine also can contribute to increasing healthfulness. Since the introduction of nouvelle cuisine in the ’80s, chefs have been reducing the amount of butter and cream in their dishes, notes Guy Beardsmore, corporate chef, Sargento Foods, Inc., Plymouth, WI. Previously, food was “heavy and very rich,” he notes. “Nouvelle cuisine was born by chefs to break away from the old and classical ways of preparing dishes.”

But is this what consumers really want? Conflict often exists between what consumers think they should order and what they actually buy. “Research shows that the consumer who is dining out is requesting healthier and lighter options,” says Beardsmore. “The reality is this is not shown through sales.” However, in retail, sales of reduced-fat items are rising, especially cheese. “One of the best sellers is reduced-fat, four-cheese Mexican cheese blend,” he says.

Making nutrition a priority is more difficult as price points decrease and expectations for large portions increase. “It’s the same conundrum,” says Matchuk. “Everybody says they want great nutrition, and then they go out to dinner and they super-size.” Restaurants, he says, have to try to “walk both paths, try to be able to raise the bar in terms of the quality of the nutritional attributes of the foods they’re serving, but also be able to recognize that, at over $6 for lunch, people start to get sticker shock.”

Formulating healthy

While the majority of consumers speak of the importance of healthy foods, the perception still exists among some consumers that healthy food has less flavor. That’s particularly crucial for products that command a premium. Beardsmore notes that, “in product development, you have to now look very close at fat, sodium and calories. This is also affecting size, with companies reducing the size of servings to give a perceived healthier nutritional fact panel.”

But, practically speaking, trying to give it all to consumers presents a conundrum. Something has to give, and sometimes that something is price. For example, in the processed-foods sector, Matchuk notes, “if I’m going to choose the best format to make a product, it’s going to be a frozen product without preservatives, rather than worrying about new preservative alternatives or lowering the pH so low that it’s safe. The problem with the pH dilemma is that you’re really skewing the flavor profile by not using preservatives. Products could have a clean label but taste like hell, because they’ve had to acidify them so far that they’ve changed the nature. You won’t taste the sesame; you don’t taste the chickpea. You taste the lemon juice or the citric acid. I think the stumbling block comes up when there’s just not enough frozen-food space, or the manufacturer can’t afford the heavy tariff for the slotting fees.”

Flavor often goes hand-in-hand with often-unhealthy fat. When formulating with cheese, Beardsmore says the key is balance. To get a stronger profile while using less cheese for lower-fat products, he recommends looking at the age or sharpness of the cheese, as older cheeses tend to have more flavor than younger cheeses. “Also, look at boosting flavors with different types of cheese,” he says. “For example, a small amount of sharp Cheddar and blue will boost the flavor in a mac-and-cheese.” Luckily these will also be perceived as more-upscale options.

Careful flavor selection can generally help upscale a product. There’s plain vanilla—or vanillin—and then there’s Bourbon vanilla, which commands a premium. Or, “orange-flavored products are very popular, but tangerine and blood orange are perceived as upscale,” says Paulette Kerner, marketing and advertising manager, Virginia Dare, Brooklyn, NY. To increase desirability of desserts with lower fat or sugar content, designers might choose superfruit flavors with their healthy aura, like “pomegranate, açaí, goji berry, black currant, blueberry, raspberry, acerola, noni, lychee, pomelo and mangosteen,” she says.