According to Nielsen, 64% of U.S. households buy sustainable products, which is up 4 percentage points from a year ago. In the retail space, the highest sales growth is coming from products that tout sustainable farming and social responsibility, at 14% and 8%, respectively. Products touting sustainable resource management are seeing sales growth of 6% and sales of sustainable seafood are up 3%.
According to Nielsen’s 2017 global survey on sustainability, 67% of consumers want to know everything that goes into the food they buy. Drilling down further, 46% of Americans say that claims on food products have a direct influence on their purchase decisions.
“Organic,” “natural,” and “free from” are a few key marketing claims that continue to fuel sales growth. And with health and wellness driving notable FMCG sales growth in recent years, it’s no surprise that organic sales have seen double-digit growth for the past five years.
But only 15% of Americans trust “all natural” marketing claims. Comparatively, 18% never trust these claims, while 67% say they sometimes trust them. Twenty-five percent of U.S. dairy products fall into this realm, and 1.1% share shifted toward clean label dairy between 2015 and 2017. While the increase seems small, it equates to almost $1 billion in sales.
Source: Nielson.com
Lightbulb Moment: The question top of mind is how do you sell something to someone who doesn’t trust either you or the product? When is comes to claims of any sort, the litmus test is always this – if you are taken to court over your product claim, would you win? Consumers want to believe what you are doing is for them, not for yourself as a company. This goes a long way towards building trust.