US-based Sunsweet Ingredients has a lot of business interest coming from international markets like Japan, Latin America and Northern Europe, according to Tom Leahy, president of Sunsweet’s global sales agent CropSource International.
“Awareness level is quite high and prunes can be found in every retail store across Japan. That’s why we see the opportunity on the ingredients side – we know people eat them, they understand them and have the awareness level and it’s something new for the bakery and confectionery channels to try,” he said.
Leahy said the ingredient offered bakeries in Japan the chance to liven up a flat market and offer something different to consumers while also hitting on health points.
The fruit can be found in dried snack form, but prune concentrate and plum juice are also popular in the country.
“Prunes in Japan are considered a young woman’s food, which is actually the opposite to the US. They are really fashionable in Japan,” he said.
While use of prunes as a bakery ingredient in the country remains a fairly new concept, Leahy said the potential is huge because of these connotations among a younger generation.
Prune has a “negative image” in the US, particularly among the older generations.
Bakers using prune as an ingredient even list it as plum because of this, he added.
“Everywhere else in the world it is acknowledged as ‘prune’ and is a highly regarded food. But here, there’s still a perception that it has an image problem,” he said.
Use of the ingredient is more of a challenge in the US, he said, because a majority of the developers in the baking industry were of the age that viewed prunes with scepticism. “It would be more successful if all the developers were 30 years old,” he said.
For the US market, use of prunes (or plums) in bakery are used predominantly for their functional aspects – in reducing calories, fat and sugar, Leahy said.
