Healthier food and drink products an opportunity in Mexico

29-Nov-2019 - Germany

The pressure to make products healthier continues to grow, making this the right time to reformulate food and drink. Latin America countries have emphasized their focus on health, such as warning labels in Chile and sugar taxes in Mexico. Food and drink brands can seize on opportunities by including ingredients and launching products that are aimed at health without losing taste.

New warning labels will put more pressure to reduce sugar in Mexico

Nutrition warning labels, coupled with sugar taxes, will continue to put pressure on brands to offer healthier products in the region.

A new law in Mexico aims to bring warning labels to the front-of-pack on food and drink products that contain high levels of sugar, sodium, calories and saturated fat. The proposal in Mexico is modeled after the warning labels in Chile.

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Nutrition warning labels are sweeping across Latin America as part of a larger strategy to reduce obesity and improve public health. Black hexagon warning labels that tell consumers if a product is too high in fat, sugar, calories or sodium have been in place in Chile since 2016 and were recently introduced in both Uruguay and Peru. The United Nations has praised the Health Ministry in Peru for its “outstanding contribution” to prevent non-communicable diseases with the new labels.

Sugar reduction will need to move beyond beverages in Mexico

The new labeling scheme in Mexico has potential to add pressure on brands to reduce sugar content in more categories in order to avoid a high-sugar warning label.

Introduced in 2014, the sugar tax added one peso per liter on drinks with added sugar and has spurred low/reduced sugar beverage launches in Mexico, including carbonated soft drink category, although that category sees more sugar-free than low/reduced sugar claims.

Target sugar reduction in spoonable yogurts in Mexico

Mexico’s yogurt market can be a lucrative destination for dairy brands if they get their approach to sugar right. Over the past five years, the average sugar content in spoonable yogurt has stayed around 11g of sugar/100g product in Mexico. However, in Brazil and Colombia, the average sugar content in spoonable yogurts has started to decline.

Stevia and sucralose are common ingredients used for sugar reduction in spoonable yogurts across Latin America.

Lactase holds promise for sugar reduction in yogurts

Using lactase to reduce the sugar content in spoonable yogurt is one strategy for brands to pursue. Lactase is an enzyme that breaks down the disaccharide lactose into its sweeter monosaccharides, glucose and galactose, and is useful for delivering subtle added-sugar reductions.

Looking at spoonable yogurt product introductions around the world, launches with lactase are most common in Latin America, driven by product launches in Chile and Brazil. In Latin America, spoonable yogurts that contains lactase often use sweetener ingredients, especially sucralose and stevia.

According to Mintel GNPD, in the past five years, nearly a quarter (24%) of spoonable yogurt launches in Chile used lactase as well as 13% in Brazil. However, only 3% of spoonable yogurts launched in Mexico used lactase.

https://www.yumda.com/en/news/1163926/healthier-food-and-drink-products-an-opportunity-in-mexico.html