Consumer Insights to Support Health & Nutrition Journey
How we helped Lantmännen Unibake understand consumers’ usage and attitudes towards health and nutrition in relation to baked goods to drive their Health & Nutrition Journey forward.
"We have worked with Opeepl for many years on a number of projects. We firmly believe that your methodology is good. The process is quick and easy, and overall, we are very happy with our collaboration.
This project ran very smoothly. Since it was a multi-country study across several markets, we chose a full-service approach where Opeepl provided translations and setup of questionnaires, and did the data analysis and reporting."
Mikkel Andersen
Global Category Manager, Bread Category & Global Lead for the Health and Nutrition Journey at Lantmännen Unibake
The challenge
Gaining knowledge about consumers’ attitudes towards healthier foods
Lantmännen Unibake is one of Europe's largest bakery groups, with 30+ bakeries in multiple countries, providing frozen and fresh bakery products for retail and food service markets in over 60 countries worldwide. Lantmännen Unibake operates in 3 global categories: bread (baguettes, breakfast rolls, sandwich bread), fast food (hot dog and hamburger buns), and sweets (pastries).
As part of their Sustainability Strategy, Lantmännen Unibake aims to maximise the nutrients in its products to positively impact public health. In relation to this goal, they have set a target to double their volume of healthier products by 2030.
Lantmännen Unibake’s Health and Nutrition Journey: Key Targets by 2030
“We aim to offer products that are a bit healthier. As the second largest bakery group in Europe, we think we should and can make a difference in the long run. We have set global targets to significantly increase the content of whole grains and fibres in our products by 2030, because from a health perspective, everyone eats too few whole grains and too little fibre. On the other hand, Europeans consume twice the recommended amount of salt, much of which comes from bread, as many people eat bread 2-3 times a day, and too many calories. We also aim to reduce salt and calories in our products to fight obesity,” says Global Lead for the Health and Nutrition Journey, Mikkel Andersen.
Having limited quantitative structured knowledge of consumer attitudes towards healthier foods, including barriers and triggers for consumption, Lantmännen Unibake was interested in understanding consumer perception and behaviour towards health and nutrition themes centred around 4 crucial areas defined for their different product categories: whole grains, dietary fibres, salt/sodium, and calories per portion for sweets.
In addition to measuring consumers' interest in healthier options, Lantmännen Unibake needed facts and figures to address common objections that both internal and external stakeholders might have regarding products with more whole grains and fibre or less salt, such as bread colour.
The solution
Bi-annual health and nutrition tracker & Visual crumb test across multiple markets
To gain consumer insights supporting the execution of their Health and Nutrition Journey, Lantmännen Unibake turned to Opeepl to conduct 2 types of studies across multiple markets.
The first study was a bi-annual tracker monitoring consumer usage and attitudes related to health and nutrition themes centred around 4 defined areas: whole grains, dietary fibres, salt/sodium, and calories per portion for sweets.
The second study was a visual product concept test involving different types of bread and burger buns.
“There is a tradition in Europe to bake bread from refined flour—the purest, finest white flour—which removes between 70-90% of all nutrients (minerals, vitamins, etc.) from the bread compared to whole grain flour. There’s a default thinking in our industry in many countries that bread that is not completely white will not sell, and this research was aimed at finding out how much of a problem that really is for consumers.”
Mikkel Andersen
Global Category Manager, Bread Category & Global Lead for the Health and Nutrition Journey at Lantmännen Unibake
Usage and Attitude study (U&A)
A usage and attitude study gives a real time understanding of how products are perceived and used by the consumers. By being aware of your products’ perceived trends in the market, you will be able to strengthen your market position by promptly undertaking products/services innovation or other initiatives.
Concept testing
A concept test evaluates concepts and identifies their strengths and weaknesses across KPIs such as likability, purchase intent, differentiation, and brand coherence. This enables to decide whether the concept is good enough to continue into product development. If more concepts are tested against each other in the concept test, you will be able to identify the most suitable concept for the given audience.
The research
A detailed picture of consumers’ views and preferences regarding healthier bread products
Opeepl’s proprietary Dynamic Sampling technology was used to engage directly with consumers. Research participants were not part of a ‘professional panel’ but were sampled live and randomly via mobile app networks to prevent over-exposure and biased answers, ensuring that consumers were truly representative of the markets researched.
STUDY 1: HEALTH AND NUTRITION TRACKER
A total of 2,700 interviews were conducted (300 in each of the 9 markets: BE, DK, FI, NL, NO, RO, SE, UK, US), targeting people aged 18-60 years who consume bread several times a week and sweets and fast food at least twice per month.
The usage and attitudes study focused on the following topics:
Overall importance and dimensions of health and nutrition for consumption
Awareness of the health benefits of fibre, salt, and whole grains
Current usage, triggers and barriers for consumption
Health and nutrition related to the consumption of burgers and sweets
Overall perception of health and nutrition regarding baked goods
Trust in local health and nutrition front-of-pack (FOP) food labels
Lantmännen Unibake plans to repeat the health and nutrition tracker in late 2024 to measure any changes in consumers' usage and attitudes across the markets.
STUDY 2: VISUAL CRUMB TEST
Earlier, a blinded triangle-tasting of different bread and burger bun types concluded that consumers could not taste the differences between the ‘regular’ and slightly healthier versions. As a next step, Lantmännen Unibake needed to test the visual appeal of their products with additional nutrients because whole grain and fibres tend to add a darker, brownish colour to baked goods.
A total of 2,800 interviews were conducted (400 in each of the 7 markets: BE, DK, PL, RO, SE, UK, US), targeting people aged 18-60 who consume bread no less than 4 times a week and/or fast food at least every other month.
The product concept test focused on the following topics:
Observation of the crumbs in different types of bread and burger buns: Can consumers distinguish differences in crumbs?
Differences between the types of bread and burger buns: Can consumers name what is the actual difference in the bread crumbs (crumb colour, texture, rusticity, etc.)?
Preference for different types of bread and burger buns: Which versions do consumers prefer? Do preferences change once they are informed about the health benefits?
Importance of different bread and burger bun crumb structures: How important is the difference in visual crumb structure for consumers?
The development of the questionnaires, translations, survey scripting, and data analysis was managed by Opeepl. For each study, Lantmännen Unibake received a comprehensive insights report specifically tailored to meet their unique requirements, outlining the research findings in detail.
The outcome
Actionable insights to substantiate the implementation of the new strategy both internally and externally
The research results showed that health and nutrition have a significant impact on people's food choices, both at home and outside of home. Consumers are highly interested in healthier products, such as bread and burger buns with more whole grains and fibre, and prioritise these products in their purchasing decisions. A majority of consumers would like to decrease their calorie intake and are interested in smaller servings of sweets and pastry products.
The visual product test concluded that only a quarter of consumers could correctly identify the actual difference in crumbs between different types of bread and burger buns. The colour and visual crumb texture mattered much less to consumers than initially anticipated. Those who initially preferred whiter bread products largely changed their opinions after being informed that the darker option has more health benefits.
The findings strongly support the key targets of Lantmännen Unibake’s Health and Nutrition Journey and are utilised both in new product development and as supporting arguments in conversations with relevant internal and external stakeholders.
Mikkel Andersen, Global Lead for the Health and Nutrition Journey at Lantmännen Unibake, uses the insights internally to motivate and set targets for local units to develop healthier assortments. Within just a year since the research started, there have been 30 launches of new, healthier products with higher nutritional value. Additionally, local units continuously reformulate many existing products by enhancing their recipes with more whole grain, more fibre, and/or less salt, sugar, or fat.
The research conclusions are also presented to external stakeholders, such as trade organisations and customers, to address objections and document consumers' interest in purchasing healthier bread products.