FNA Food and Beverage Trailblazers Podcast Episode 26
PODCAST: ‘Souping is the new juicing’ - Re:Nourish CEO on the functional health trend and her transition from nursing to food
Re:Nourish specialises in making fresh, healthy soups sold in a bottled format and are already being sold in the UK, Middle East and Asia. According to Clark, the firm is the first in the world to have created this format of fresh soup consumption.
“Nobody’s done this format for soup – they’ve done it for juice, but not for this GBP17.8bn (US$23.6bn) soup category, where there is so much potential,” she told FoodNavigator-Asia.
“Functional health is a trend that is really driving the category - Consumers now are realising that an ambient product is unlikely to be able to give you as good nutrition as a fresh product can
“In places such as the USA, souping has become the new juicing - fresh soup there is the second biggest food category, and is growing even more now because of the fresh, healthy benefits that can be incorporated in these, [as opposed to] ambient soup options which are high in salt and not vitamin-led.
“Convenience is also crucial here as everyone is leading such busy lives – it’s why I developed the world’s first microwaveable bottle for soup, which allows consumers to conveniently eat the healthy soups, hot or cold, directly from the bottle [and] get the nutrients they need for nourishment easily even in the car and on the go.”
Clark also told us about her experience as a critical care nurse and working with nutrition and reflexology, and how these experiences showed her just how strong the link between diet and health really is.
“As a nurse and having seen life-and-death situations, I have a good understanding of how critical good nutrition is to keep the body healthy and functioning well – and all over the world, consumers are switching on to that too,” she said.
“There is such a huge correlation between food and health and what I saw during my time in nursing showed me the many risks of not eating well – for example, Type 2 diabetes, never mind the coronavirus, is the silent pandemic and having this increases the risk of a heart attack by 40%.
“I believe fresh, healthy soup can play an important role here as it is easily consumable and digestible, [and] we want to be a leader in this category.”
Listen to the podcast above to learn more.
