Clean Label

What is inside my food? Where does my food come from? Consumers are asking these questions more and more frequently. In addition to the desire for more transparency, interest in naturalness and sustainability has also increased. This is where products with clean labels come into play. Clean labelling provides the end consumer with information on:

• ingredients
• origin
• ethical factors
• ecological factors

Clean-label products are among the rapidly rising food trends in the organic food sector. Consumers' need for information about the compatibility and health-promoting properties of foods is growing. They want to know where the products come from, how they are produced and what ingredients are used. Consumers often give natural foods and beverages the advantage over heavily processed foods containing artificial ingredients.

Clean Label - not only for ingredients

At the same time, the clean-label food trend has changed and now goes beyond transparency regarding natural ingredients and health aspects. Production, including ethical and ecological factors, is moving into the focus of the consumer. Anuga 2022 follows this trend and offers international exhibitors a stage for their clean-label concepts.

In a study conducted worldwide by Innova Market Insights*, more than 3 out of 5 consumers agree that "companies should be more transparent about technologies they use during production". Transparency with regard to the ingredients and processes used is therefore an important key to consumer confidence.

The potential of clean-label products

In the period of July 2021 – June 2022, more than 1 in 3 new food and beverage products launched globally was positioned with one or more clean-label claims (e.g. "No additives/preservatives", "organic", "natural" or "GMO-free"). "No additives/preservatives" remained the most frequent clean-label product promise worldwide (42.7%), followed by "Organic" (27.5%), "GMO-free" (15.4%) and "Natural" (14.3%). Europe is by far the leading region in terms of new clean-label food and beverage launches, followed by North America and Asia.

*Innova consumer survey 2021; average of the values for the UK, Canada, USA, Spain, France, Brazil, India, Germany, Mexico, China and Indonesia

Clean label across categories

The table below shows market categories with the highest share of new product launches with "clean label" positioning. (Percentage of all registered new product launches; global, July 2021 - June 2022.)