FT: Yoghurt finds its place in beauty culture
Yoghurt finds its place in beauty culture
By Jenny Wiggins
Published: January 16 2007 21:50 | Last updated: January 16 2007 21:50
As a brand name, “Essensis” could fit all kinds of products. A perfume, for instance, or perhaps a herbal shampoo.
It is not the first name that comes to mind for a yoghurt.
It is, nevertheless, the word that Danone, the French dairy group, has chosen for a new yoghurt that will be launched in France and Spain next month, followed by Belgium and Italy in March.
Danone has a good reason for its unusual choice: Essensis will be the first cosmetic product that Danone, best known for little bottles of gut-cleansing dairy drinks called Actimel, has sold.
Essensis will “nourish the skin from the inside”, Danone promises.
It says the yoghurt will improve the health of the skin of people who eat it for at least a month, by using certain ingredients – including borage oil, Vitamin E and antioxidants from green tea – to “feed the cells” of the epidermis, the surface layer of the skin.
“It is an ambitious innovation,” says Taous Lassel, Danone’s new health benefits and innovations director. “The market will say if it is a success or not.” Danone believes it will see €100m in sales from Essensis, which is available in three flavours (including raspberry/grenadine and peach/apricot), within two years.
The move into skincare is a step in a new direction for Danone. But it is part of the group’s overall strategy of developing dairy products with health benefits – such as Activia, for help with constipation, and Taillefine-Vitalinea, aimed at controlling weight.
John McMillin, analyst at Prudential Equity Group, says consumers are well- disposed towards Danone’s products because the company is marketing something recognised long ago by companies such as L’Oréal: the desirability of youthfulness and longevity.
“L’Oréal does not sell shampoo as much as it sells beauty to women,” Mr McMillin says.
Danone’s move into skincare is possibly the most radical move undertaken by a food or drink company to date, although Inneov – a joint venture between L’Oréal and Nestlé – has also investigated nutritional cosmetics.
Still, the move towards functional kinds of foods and drinks is now so widespread that even iconic brands seem to feel the need to recreate themselves.
Speculation that Coca-Cola has been planning an enhanced version of Diet Coke gained credibility last month after Beverage Digest, an industry newsletter, said the company would launch Diet Coke Plus – a version of the soft drink with added vitamins and minerals – in the spring. Coke has not confirmed this.
Meanwhile, Coca-Cola’s rival, PepsiCo, is planning a range of fruit-flavoured fizzy drinks for adults with added vitamins, called Tava.
Gary Roethenbaugh, research director of food and drink consultancy Zenith International, says demand for functional drinks is rising as consumers seek more control over their health, and become more willing to pay for products that address health concerns.
“Functional drinks, initially much more of a niche concept, are now becoming much more mainstream,” Mr Rothenbaugh says.
In western Europe, consumption of functional drinks – including sports and energy drinks – rose 6 per cent last year to an estimated 4.4bn litres, according to Zenith International.
The smart choices made by early movers into the functional market are becoming clear as they become attractive targets for larger companies who have been slower to spot new opportunities.
Glaceau Vitaminwater, which sells water with added vitamins and is second only to PepsiCo’s Propel brand in the US functional-water market, received a $677m investment last year from the Tata Group in return for the Indian company taking a 30 per cent stake in the company.
But now companies large and small have recognised the direction in which the soft drink industry is heading, they are trying to outdo one another in seeing who can come up with the most exotic functional benefit.
UK herbal drinks group Firefly Tonics plans to launch a drink called Health Kick, containing honey from the manuka bush, indigenous to New Zealand. Researchers claim that the honey has anti-bacterial properties, and can be used to boost the immune system as well as being applied externally to skin cuts and irritations.
Energy drink manufacturers, who initially reinvented fizzy soft drinks for adults by spiking them with caffeine and taurine, are also on a health kick.
INOV8 Beverage Co sells energy drinks flavoured with dragonfruit, acai berry and casaba lime, while Arizona Beverages offers drinks flavoured with green tea and pomegranate, all known for their health-giving properties.
Still, companies must be careful not to overenthuse about their new products: consumer groups are increasingly critical of some of the new beverages being put on the market, claiming that some companies are making spurious health claims to try to make up for a drop in sales of traditional fizzy drinks.
Fizzy drinks are the largest part of the overall global soft drink category, accounting for more than 40 per cent of sales in 2006, according to Canadean, a beverage market research group. But the fizzy drink category’s overall share is slipping, down from 50 per cent in 1998, as it loses sales to bottled waters, as well as all kinds of functional drinks.
Consumer groups have been aggressive in targeting food and drink companies when they believe they have been misleading consumers. The US’s Center for Science in the Public Interest last month threatened to sue Coca-Cola and Nestlé for claiming that their new fizzy green tea drink, Enviga, helps burn calories.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
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