Clean label has revolutionized food products — especially where kids are concerned. Learn how to better serve the growing natural and organic market in clean label baby and toddler foods.
Clean label has revolutionized food products — especially where kids are concerned. Learn how to better serve the growing natural and organic market in clean label baby and toddler foods.
Consumers’ attention to food and beverage labels has intensified in recent years, leading the shift to products with perceived healthier benefits, more recognizable ingredient lists and "free-from" claims. And the trend is especially true where kids are concerned.
Today, clean and simple is where the excitement is in baby and toddler foods, driven by parents' concerns on issues like GMOs and chemical additives — as well as the desire to ensure their young ones have the varied range of tastes, vital nutrition and vibrant colors during the critical first years. The strength of this trend is seen in new launches of baby foods in North America, which are highlighted by four key clean label claims:1
And it’s not just the focus on clean and simple ingredients that has changed the game. We used to think of baby foods as just early life nutrition — instant cereals, milk and formula products, teething biscuits, and long-storage jarred foods. But the definition has expanded to include toddler-appropriate products that are closer to what adults would want to eat themselves while still being easy to chew and easy to handle — fresh fruit, yogurt, finger foods like baked snacks, and simple, delicious meals like pasta with vegetables.
The top subcategory in new product launches in 2020 was "Baby fruit products, desserts and yogurts," with over eight of ten new product launches of new baby and toddler foods falling into these groups.2
So how can manufacturers make new inroads into the expanding range of clean label baby and toddler foods to capture a bigger slice of the market — while still meeting processing and stability challenges?
Ingredion is ready with the portfolio, insights, formulation knowhow and support to help you move beyond cereals to deliver the wholesome, organic, and clean and simple products that are top priority for today’s parents.
Our full array of starches, flours, and flavorful fruit and vegetable purees can help meet demands for clean and organic labeling while still delivering on your processing and shelf life stability requirements.
Choose from NOVATION® functional native starches from corn and tapioca that provide winning texture as well as shelf life stability advantages, and organic PURITY® Bio native starches that label as rice, corn or tapioca.
Our rice lineup includes HOMECRAFT® Create native rice flours for wheat replacement; NOVATION® functional rice starches delivering great texture across applications; and PURITY® Alpha 801 and 865 native rice flour for light, crispy texture in snack applications.
Optimize your baby and toddler snacks and pasta with HOMECRAFT® Quinoa 112 flour for superfood nutrition appeal, and HOMECRAFT® CREATE GF tapioca/rice texturizing systems that are ideal for bulk gluten-free flours.
Kerr by Ingredion solutions are, by in large, sourced from the Pacific Northwest to deliver real fruit and vegetable flavors with simple labels (non-GMO), plus a variety of organic options.
With knowhow and development support from our SOLUTION GURUS™, Ingredion is ready to inspire you to create innovative clean label baby and toddler food ranges. To help you imagine what's possible with our leading ingredient solutions, we've created new baby and toddler meal and snack formulation ideas, including:
Come see what our insights, clean label portfolio and deep category expertise can mean for your baby and toddler food success. Just call 1-800-713-0208 or chat with us.
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