Our team at Glanbia Nutritionals offers insights into why Gen Z and Gen Alpha are the ideal consumers of personalised nutrition products - starting with explaining precision nutrition and how custom premix solutions allow brands to personalise foods and beverages.
Personalised nutrition vs. precision nutrition
Personalised nutrition is a tailored approach to diet that accounts for an individual’s specific nutrient needs. A number of advances in technology, ranging from DNA sequencing to microbiome analysis, have brought personalised nutrition to a new level—far beyond the early questionnaire-based diet recommendations.
This is why many brands have switched to using the term “precision nutrition” in their product positioning. This newer term is expected to alleviate consumer confusion and express the upgrade in nutritional support available to consumers today.
Using custom premix solutions to personalise food and beverage
A custom premix solution is the path to creating foods and beverages that can meet personalised consumer health and wellness needs. For example, a company might focus on just a few base products—or only one, such as a ready-to-mix beverage—and yet offer near-infinite variations in nutrient content simply by using different nutrient premixes.
Once a consumer’s specific needs are identified, a custom premix can be developed with the appropriate vitamins, minerals, and other bioactives, which can then be added to the product at precisely the right dose. A custom premix solution could contain a few nutrients or as many as twenty ingredients, for example, and include protein, sweetener and even flavour.
Why Gen Z and Alpha are ideal personalised nutrition consumers
Mintel’s latest research points to Gen Z and Gen Alpha as the ideal consumers for personalised nutrition products, for several key reasons:
Gen Z teens and young adults expect customisation
Gen Z’s familiarity and appreciation for personalisation options stem from growing up with their own smartphones, apps, and social media accounts that have allowed them to customise sounds, visuals, and content to a degree not available to prior generations.
This generation also expresses an interest in personalised food and beverage and is willing to pay more for it (1). To tap into the Gen Z market, personalised nutrition companies can connect through Gen Z’s health and wellness priorities. For example, the top health concern among Chinese 18–24-year-olds (at 43%) is poor eyesight (2). In the US, companies might lead with an emphasis on nutritional support for mood and mental wellness.
Parents interested in cognitive and other benefits for their kids
Gen Alpha and Gen Z kids make up another target consumer segment for personalised nutrition products—in this case, due to their parents’ strong interest in products that provide high-priority health benefits. Mintel reports a specific opportunity here in hydration products with added benefits, such as ingredients for cognitive support.
“Brain water” for kids tackles parents’ concerns about their kids not drinking enough water (a surprisingly widespread problem linked to headaches, irritability, and reduced cognitive function) and having the proper nutrients to support the developing brain, such as magnesium, zinc, B vitamins, and DHA. In China, 30% of parents prefer to buy beverages with DHA/EPA and 36% would be interested in buying a beverage for their 4–12-year-old if it contained B vitamins (3).
We offer the high-quality nutrients needed to support optimum health and wellness. We solve for better performance – nutritional, functional and operational and our team at Glanbia Nutritionals works with companies to develop personalised nutrition products for all consumer segments.
References
(1–2) Mintel, Nutrition Watch: Personalisation, August 2023.
(3) Mintel, Brain Water Can Help Children Stay Sharp, April 2023.