They say one size doesn’t fit all. But perhaps one ingredient certainly does. Global and US new product tracking suggest that the versatile almond is on-trend and in-demand in the most popular product categories. Moreover, this ingredient fits the latest product development claim needs (such as gluten free, clean label, etc.)
Innova Market Insights just released its Global New Product Introductions Report for 2017. This annual, worldwide tracking study uses Innova New Products Database reports of overall new product introductions as well as new product launches containing almonds and other nuts.
Broadly, research data shows that while overall numbers of global new product launches declined from 2016 to 2017, introductions for the majority of nut types actually increased by 5.6% during the same time. More specifically, almonds continue to dominate as the leading nut in new product introductions—outpacing the nut and total food introduction categories as a whole in 2017.
“It’s exciting that nut product introductions steadily increased in 2017, and almonds continue to lead this growth,” notes Molly Spence, Director of North America for the Almond Board of California (ABC).
“With the continued popularity of clean label and gluten-free snacking, which almonds work particularly well for, we’ve seen an impressive increase of 46% year-over-year in the use of almonds in bar products globally. In North America, bars lead almond introductions, up 17%.”
Crunch on These Facts
Innova Market Insights data show the five almond relevant categories—accounting for 83% of all almond introductions—are confections (22%), snacks (19%), bakery (17%), bars (16%) and cereals (8%). A more detailed look shows that almonds continue to lead global introductions in three of the five key categories (bakery, bars and cereals) and are top two in all five key categories.
Looking more closely at North American trends, Innova Market Insights data tracked 1,971 new products containing almonds. That represented an 11% year-over-year increase. More specifically, the US was the leading North American country for almond introductions with 1,748 related new product launches, which was up by 14% from 2016.
As mentioned, bars lead the charge when it comes to new North American products containing almonds. Moreover, almonds were the leading nut used in each of the top five application categories and almonds ranked first, ahead of peanuts.
Interestingly, Innova Market Insights also looked more closely at the types of products—including their claims—that include almond ingredients. When it came to those global new almond product introductions, 24.5% of those were gluten-free and Innova found “clean label” (including organic, no additives / preservatives) accounted for 15.6% of all new items including almonds.
Perhaps not surprisingly, “crunchy” was the leading texture claim associated with new products that include almonds—both at a global level and in the US market.
