Consumers want to live longer, healthier lives and a new product category has emerged to help them do it.

A July 2002 study of Canadian Natural and Organic Retail Markets, commissioned by the Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural Development Ministry, identified a consumer trend toward ‘better for you’ foods, or foods that contribute to overall wellness, longevity and disease prevention.

‘The emerging breed of woman is influencing this opportunity as they continue to become more nutrition conscious,’ the report says. ‘Functional foods, eaten specifically for their ability to fight disease and slow the aging process, are also gaining momentum as a result of this driver.’

Also known as ‘nutraceuticals,’ functional foods are natural food products that are proven to have specific health benefits. Sam Graci of Graci Research estimates the demand for functional foods and nutraceuticals is growing 25% to 30% annually. The Saltspring Island, B.C. resident is a long-time health-food advocate and inventor of Greens+, a powdered drink made up of 23 different herbs and plants with a variety of functional properties.

Greens+ is a case in point. Lisa Chisholm, director of marketing, has seen the market grow since the product first launched in 1994.

‘Initially we just sold to health-food stores. Since then we’ve branched out to select grocery chains, and now Loblaws is where we do the highest volume. It’s not just the traditional health food shopper buying this product any longer.’

Marketing for Greens+ has also evolved. The Food and Drug Act expressly prohibits health-food makers from associating their products with any drug-like benefits but health-conscious consumers are putting two and two together, or in some cases learning about products like Greens+ through educational seminars, events, Web sites, trained health food retailers and advertisements in publications like Alive (national), Shared Vision (B.C.), Common Ground (mainly B.C.) and Impact (Calgary).

‘In the beginning we were talking more to women. Now, we build our campaigns around men and women between 35 and 64.’

‘Public knowledge about these foods has absolutely increased during the last few years,’ says Beth Potter, Greens+’ Calgary-based PR practitioner, ‘and it continues to grow.’

Word about functional foods may soon be able to reach an even wider audience when the National Health Product Directorate reveals new regulations for the natural health products industry in June. The changes will legalize health claims for vitamin and mineral supplements as long as they can be substantiated by clinical trials. (Currently, there seems to be a moratorium on companies that are already making these kinds of claims, based on the understanding that consumers know these products to be unregulated.)

The kinds of claims that will be allowed in the case of functional foods, however, are still up in the air. Changes to the Food and Drugs Act unveiled in January [see ‘The Legal File,’ p. 10] now permit five specific health claims for foods, such as ‘fruits and vegetables may reduce the risks of some cancers.’ This seems to pave the way for similar, or even more specific, claims for nutraceutical makers.

B.C. marketers have the most to gain. The province has the highest number of health-food retail outlets per capita, and, according to Potter, ‘a real dedication towards healthy food.’ According to the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, the province is also home to over 100 nutraceutical and functional foods manufacturers.

Could this be an emerging category in a market that’s now starved for new advertisers?

Donna Harringer, Vancouver-based president of the Markham, Ont.-based Canadian Health Food Association, thinks so. She believes that awareness of functional foods lags behind public concerns about health in general, and eating right.

‘It’s absolutely a growing market, but people don’t quite understand it yet,’ Harringer says. She hopes the new regulations will create the opportunity for more mass-communication efforts. ‘Very quickly you’ll see more claims and they’ll be substantiated.’

Canada’s blueberry industry, which netted $44 million for B.C. growers last year, is just one of the industries that could benefit from the new regulations. High levels of cancer-preventing antioxidants found in blueberries make the fruit ideal for the growing functional foods market. A spokesperson for the Vancouver-based B.C. Blueberry Council says that already, ‘it’s widely known that blueberries have a variety of benefits.’ In deference to the law, the council has focused its marketing work on public relations.

‘Right now there is no way to market strictly on health claims,’ she says. But ‘any consumer will come up to you and tell you what blueberries can do for you. There’s a lot of media on functional foods. If you supply the info to journalists, they can do whatever they like with it, and the public is getting very well educated on what is good for them.’

B.C.’s cranberry industry could also benefit from increased consumer demand. A 1994 study by The Cranberry Institute, based in Massachusetts, found antioxidant properties in the tart fruit that has wide health implications, including a reduction of urinary tract infection and the risk of some cancers. B.C. produces 10% of North American cranberries and demand is currently growing 3%-4% annually industry-wide.

In December, Seattle’s Publicis Dialog was awarded a $1.5 million, three-year contract to help the Washington Cranberry Alliance develop scientific studies to bolster its claims that cranberries are natural bacteria blockers. The studies will serve as the backbone for a marketing campaign targeting health professionals, lifestyle and nutrition writers and consumers.

Jeff Hamilton, a spokesperson for the B.C. Cranberry Marketing Board, expects to see further growth in demand as a result of the American campaign. Since a crash in market prices due to overproduction in 2000, Canadian cranberry growers don’t have the money to do their own mass marketing, but for now Hamilton expects growers to benefit from the increased demand stateside.

Shauna Pratt, director of marketing at food supplement producers Natural Factors in Burnaby, says her company advertises mainly through the health food store network. ‘If the regulations changed we might do more TV and radio advertising. We always prefer to treat peoples’ concerns about claims very seriously. At the same time, people want to know what our products do.’

Summer Sit, quality assurance manager for Burnaby’s Flora health products, says new regulations would ‘definitely’ cause her company to take their marketing message to a wider audience.

Kevin Brady, president of Toronto’s Anderson Advertising is already making recommendations to national health product clients such as Centrum vitamins, Caltrate (a calcium supplement) and Wheatabix, an organic cereal. He thinks, ‘if people want more knowledge, commercials will have to provide it.’

That sounds like a challenge B.C. marketers should get ready for.