Food-tech companies with breakthrough science and innovative technologies that deliver ingredients that are more sustainable, affordable, healthier and better-performing or -tasting often are eager to explain their achievements, but to what extent is hyping the creation process helpful versus harmful?
In an era where many consumers are championing ‘clean label,’ ‘minimally processed’ and ‘natural’ ingredients, suppliers and food manufacturers that explain the science behind their products risk alienating a public fearful of ‘ultra-processing.’ But if companies quietly downplay the science behind their products, consumers could accuse them of deception.
So, what is the best path forward?
Skip the science and focus on the benefits?
While food-tech startup Savor is proud of its innovative approach of creating novel fats and oils directly from carbon, hydrogen and oxygen and without animal- or plant-inputs, the company downplays the science behind its creation in favor of highlighting the flavor, function and other benefits, including improved sustainability.
“Don’t explain the science,” Chiara Cecchini, VP of commercialization at Savor Foods, told attendees at Future Food-Tech in Chicago.
“We are so proud about our science that we can’t wait to tell it to everybody, but nobody from the meat industry is showing how they butcher animals. Nobody from the cheese industry is showing every single piece of it,” she explained. “The assumption that we have to explain every single thing about our ingredient, despite how proud we can be about the ingredient itself and the science, is just overkill and not really serving us.”
Cecchini acknowledged that there are cons to this approach – including consumers who are “totally detached from the food system,” but she added “there are a lot of dirty things in the food system that we just learned as an industry not to show to consumers and consumers really don’t want to know.”
Shara Ticku, co-founder and CEO of C16 Biosciences, countered that while selectively sharing parts or holding back details about how an ingredient or product is made may make for a better initial story, it can also lead to consumer distrust if they learn something they don’t like from another source.
“There is often resistance to new things, and so there will be groups looking for” potential problems they can expose, she said.
“An example was when Impossible Foods had some challenges getting GRAS the first time around, Friends of the Earth came out and tried to uncover it as this exposé. And by not being straightforward about the process, it created this lack of trust” and fear of Frankenfood, she said.
‘Bring the story around the benefits that the consumer can get’
A better approach, she said, is to explain innovations in terms of safety and link it to something that is familiar or emphasize the consumer benefits.
For example, she advocates for sharing the long history of fermentation as a production method in food that can enhance safety and clearly showing consumers how they can identify ingredients or processes by looking at labeling.
“There is a balance of needing to come forward with a little bit of trust, because as the new kid on the block, they are not going to trust you – you have to prove yourself,” she said.
“The challenge is real. How do you explain a new technology or ingredient coming out of new sources to a consumer?,” agreed Sarah Lieder, director of future bio-based ingredients at Unilever. “What we see is fear. We see confusion and really being an active role in education, but also finding the right words and the right positioning of how you can bring the story around the benefits that the consumer can get from it is really important.”
Start with consumer research to reach early-adopters with open minds
She also advocated for introducing new ingredients or processes first to markets or consumers who are “ready for it … rather than forcing it into regions where we could actually face backlash.”
She added: “A really important part of this is consumer research and learning about the kind of positioning and target groups” that will make something new more acceptable.