Biggest concern

The study "Health and sustainability mark the food of the future", presented by the Retail Knokwledge area of ​​the Spanish Association for Commercial Codification (AECOC), which brings together manufacturers and distributors, states that 8 out of 10 consumers spend more on healthy eating than before the pandemic.

On the other hand, healthy eating has an important digital component, since, according to the study "The new healthy conscience", also carried out by AECOC, 56% of consumers seek information on products online and also on social networks.

Google searches for the words 'healthy eating' in Spain grew by 22%, with 5,4 million searches; 3 out of 10 consumers follow an influencer on food and 35% look for information on web pages.

The power of the RRSS

For Elisa Escorihuela, influencer in nutrition and dietetics, with more than 74,4K followers on Instagram, “social networks and the democratization of information have contributed to the visualization of health professionals who, through scientific dissemination, have sensitized the population on health and nutrition issues ”.

The concern about eating a healthy diet is due to several factors, according to AECOC: on the one hand, the concern for having a strong immune system that can fight the virus, and, on the other, care for physical health and the fight against obesity, a problem that has increased considerably during the pandemic.

“The current century has been defined as the century of the metabolic disease epidemic. We have obesity figures of 18,3% and overweight of 26,2%, so that only 55% of the population in Spain is at normal weight”, Said Juan Francisco Merino, director of the Joint Research Unit in Endocrinology, Nutrition and Diet Therapy at the La Fe Health Research Institute in Valencia.

Healthy habits

Merino has warned that the increase in obesity is associated with the increase in type 2 diabetes mellitus and has predicted that "we will go from a worldwide prevalence from 463 million people with diabetes today to 700 million in 2045, if we do not apply the maxim of healthy eating and daily exercise".

“Childhood obesity is a public health problem that affects 1 in 3 children in our country, according to the World Health Organization. Its importance is not only due to the impact during childhood, but also due to the potential projection towards adulthood, with an increase in cardiovascular and metabolic risk ”, said Empar Lurbe, head of the Pediatric Service of the General Hospital of Valencia and head of the PAIDO program for the prevention of childhood obesity.

Strategies

According to Ricardo Fabregat, Executive of Food Safety and Product Quality at Consum, “the lines of work to reduce sugars, salt and saturated fats, following the NAOS Strategy, have been successfully addressed in a work that has lasted two years and that has involved many areas of Consum, as well as our suppliers, since the challenge is not to make a reduction and that's it, but to do it while maintaining the guarantees of the product, without affecting its flavor, aroma, etc. It has been hard and satisfying work ”.

Consum has reduced 502 tons in total sugar, salt and saturated fat in its own brand products. The Cooperative fulfills its commitment to the NAOS Strategy and has reformulated its own brand foods and beverages, reducing these three components significantly by more than 18% of all Consum brand products available in its supermarkets.