Ingredient overload is leaving consumers confused and longing for simple options

Ingredient overload is a state where consumers simply can't keep up with the sheer quantity of unfamiliar and difficult to pronounce ingredients at a time when they seek simplicity in their shopping choices. 

Given the recent choices that shoppers are faced when shopping for fresh and packaged food, it would not be unfair to say ingredient overload is at play. 

This is a state where consumers simply can’t keep up with the sheer quantity of unfamiliar and difficult to pronounce ingredients at a time when they seek simplicity in their shopping choices. 

Michael Pollan, the famed food writer and critic of diet culture and processed food, promotes seven key rules to eating, one of which includes: 

“When you pick up that box of portable yogurt tubes or eat something with 15 ingredients you can’t pronounce, ask yourself, ‘What are those things doing there?’” 

According to a 2019 Q3 GlobalData Global Consumer Survey, Pollan isn’t the only one confused by unpronounceable ingredients. When asked their opinions on various trendy ingredients, many consumers responded with a shrug. 

Below are examples of some ingredients where respondents answered with: “I’m not familiar with this ingredient.” How many you can guess right?

• Kombucha: 49% 
• Xilotol: 43% 
• Duckweed: 50%
• Lotus seeds: 43%
• CBD: 37%
• Guarana: 33%
• Creatine: 24%
• Agave syrup: 26%
• Insect protein: 36%

Given the onslaught of new ingredients, often from far-flung locations, consumers are finding scanning the ingredients list an exhausting exercise not least because it is often difficult to make value judgements as each new ingredient claims to be better than the last. 

“Miracle ingredients” that consumers can’t pronounce are not new to the foodscape: think ‘chia seeds’ and ‘acai’ (pronounced ah-sa-ee). But, as the survey suggests, consumers long for options that are “simple” and “real”.  

According to the Q3 2019 survey, 62% of respondents associate the word “natural” with real ingredients. And with the natural diet, comes a food culture that is about being “free” of ingredients: gluten-free, dairy-free and meat-free to name a few. 

Generally speaking, consumer culture is about slowing down and embracing a simpler life: “clean” eating, digital detoxes, slow fashion and cafes where it takes 10 minutes to make a filtered coffee. 

This is where brands end up between a rock and a hard place: consumers want innovation and enjoy trying new products, but they also want to feel like they’re eating “real” food and not a list of ingredients they don’t understand. 

An ingredient called “xylitol” might be all-natural and very healthy, but to the average person, it reads like a lesser-known element from the periodic table. 

According to recent research which appeared in Food Quality and Preference – a journal devoted to sensory, consumer and behavioural research in food and non-food products – consumers have difficulty understanding labels and nutritional content. Consumers read product labels with good intentions but have difficulty understanding which purchase decisions will benefit their health. 

Consumers aren’t going to buy products they don’t trust. Brands need to understand the value of transparency and clear communication of product labels particularly because consumers are paying close attention to what they’re eating and the impact their consumer choices are having on their health and the environment. 

As Pollan’s mantra says: “Eat real food, mostly greens and not too much.” The simplicity of this sentence should resonate with brands: keep it simple, transparent and make it taste better than whatever lotus seeds are. 

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