Never has such a simple food had so many different options associated with it. Ask for a simple bowl of porridge for breakfast in many hotels, and you’ll be faced with an extraordinary and baffling range of different options. Salted, not salted, sugar, no sugar, milk (cold or warm, cow’s or plant based) or water. Then there’s an array of different toppings and drizzles. Honey, syrups, superfood powders, fruits, nuts and seeds – the possibilities for porridge are endless!
But this choice is simply what customers want. Especially when they’re on holiday and they have the luxury of taking their time over breakfast.
However, when the average person isn’t on holiday, which let’s face it, is most of the time, their choice has a different emphasis. They want something quick and simple that tastes good. But second to that, or possibly even top of their priority list in today’s health conscious and informed world, they want nourishing and good for them too. That’s why wholesome cereals are so popular.
So if you’re in the business of healthy breakfast cereals, and in particular, porridge, then congratulations!
Sales of porridge have been steadily increasing over recent years and porridge based cereals are now the “fastest growing cereals segment” with volumes up by 6.5% in 2019. This is in stark contrast to the ‘functional health’ cereals market (mainly wheat based cereals) that’s seen a downturn of 4.4%.
And according to The Grocer, 43% of shoppers say that healthy ingredients are important to them. So that’s an awful lot of people looking for something other than the sugary sweet, unhealthy cereals of breakfasts past.
A survey by the Grocer found that consumers are also turning away from old style “negative marketing” such as low calorie, low sugar (arguably low taste) messaging. Instead, they’re now more in favour of more positive marketing messages relating to what ingredients a product does contain, rather than what they don’t. So if you have healthy, tasty and ‘in’ ingredients in your products, now’s the time to celebrate them!
Now, consumers would much rather a breakfast cereal that goes that bit extra. They might be looking for one that fuels their workout with added protein or ticks the plant based box. They’re looking for a filling, natural, organic or superfood alternatives to the bland, insipid compromise breakfast cereals on offer to them just because they’re trying to live healthily.
Even Special K, known for years for its slender woman draped across breakfast in a red dress campaign, has “left the shape management category behind” in favour of a refocus on “inspiring women”.
Positive vs negative marketing aside, the one thing that most consumers agree on though, is the need for a breakfast cereal that tastes good and contains a certain level of sweetness. It’s a die hard porridge fan that eats simply oats made a bit soft with milk or water. Most consumers want a porridge that’s sweetened, but with a healthier sweetener than sugar and a more natural one than an artificial sweetener.
That’s why date powder from Global Foods is the answer you need for your porridge products!
They say that in business, once in a while, from nowhere, comes a solution that changes your sales trajectory for the better, and date powder might well change the way you approach your product development. Striking the balance between something that tastes good yet is still healthy is the tricky bit. But we’ve just sorted it for you…
Date powder is simply whole, pitted dates, minimally processed by drying and milling into a powder. This means, that unlike other sugar substitutes that are overly processed, date powder is completely natural with only a minimal amount of processing. And yet it still tastes satisfyingly sweet despite having a lower Glycaemic Index (or GI) than normal table sugar.
What’s more, date powder retains all of the vitamins, minerals and crucially, fibre, that whole dates contain. Normal table sugar on the other hand is just sugar, with no beneficial nutrients, just empty calories. And it can be added to your porridge (or any other breakfast cereal or bar or indeed any other sweet food), maintaining the integrity of your healthy ingredient for a healthy lifestyle message.
Date powder has the unique benefit of containing all of its naturally occurring micro and macronutrients (including fibre, phosphorous, magnesium, copper, calcium and B vitamins) as well as its sweetness – all from one simple, easy to use and store, ingredient. It won’t compromise your product’s texture as it isn’t granular and is instead, so finely milled that it has no impact aside on flavour and nutritional value.
With an increasing market share and an eager customer base keen to eat a breakfast with health benefits and that keeps them fuller for longer, porridge is the way forward. You already know that. But can you afford to not satisfy the healthier sweetener requirement too?
Today’s new world of living alongside a virus that’s caused a global pandemic has also made things even more tantalising. With more people working from home with time to make a steaming bowl of porridge (rather than grabbing a piece of toast as they’re heading out of the door or buying a pot of readymade muesli from the local coffee shop on the go) is also a boost for your business.
So with all this customer excitement for porridge, how are you going to stand out from the crowd? By giving your customers what they want. And that’s porridge that not only tastes good. But meets (and even exceeds) their criteria for a breakfast that fills them up, is full of healthy ingredients and has a sweetness that’s not overly sugary and detrimental to their health and wellbeing.
Get in touch today to see how we can help you supercharge your porridge!
