Trend Tracker: Redmart on e-commerce trends, premium affordability, healthy ageing and more feature in our round-up

E-commerce conversion: Singapore consumers’ purchasing decisions increasingly driven by health and sustainability - RedMart​

Grocery e-commerce platform giant RedMart is seeing health and sustainability trends increasingly driving the purchasing decisions of consumers in Singapore, inspiring the firm to focus its own in-house product innovations on these factors.

RedMart is the grocery arm of Lazada, one of the largest e-commerce platforms in Asia, and this grocery arm has a particularly strong foothold in Singapore where it has established its own in-house delivery fleet as well as a dedicated fulfilment centre to ensure smooth logistics.

E-commerce as a whole saw a major boom in demand during the COVID-19 pandemic – but this also brought with it increased sustainability concerns due to the added packaging needed for logistical purposes.

Having it both ways: Creating a ‘middle path’ to premium yet affordable food and beverage product innovation​

The dual rise of consumer demands for the somewhat paradoxical combination of premiumisation and affordability in foods and beverages has spurred firms to find various forms of a ‘middle path’ when it comes to innovation.

Amid a backdrop of inflationary pressures, price hikes and geopolitical instability, consumers all over the world and especially in the Asia Pacific region are on the lookout for affordable options when making food and grocery purchases.

But at the same time, there remains a significant reluctance to completely surrender little luxuries, making for a rise in demand for premiumisation as well.

‘Disproportional focus’: Public perception of healthy ageing favours eating well, excludes extrinsic issues - study​

New data from Singapore has shown that the public’s perception on ‘healthy ageing’ as a term has become overly skewed to focus on intrinsic elements such as healthy diets, at the expense of extrinsic issues such as elder neglect and ageism.

The research team from the Singapore General Hospital (SGH) and National University of Singapore (NUS) Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine utilised machine learning to analyse over 63,000 social media posts on Twitter pertaining to the concept of healthy ageing between 2012 to 2022.

According to the study’s principal investigator Professor Liew Tau Ming, there is a need for both an elder person’s intrinsic capacities as well as their environmental influences to be considered when it comes to weighing up their functional ability to experience ‘healthy ageing’.

'More than just a spread': Novel applications and affordable pricing strategies crucial to grow nut butter success in APAC​

The nut butter industry in Asia Pacific is targeting pricing strategies and novel applications as it seeks to achieve mainstream success beyond being ‘just a spread’, according to industry experts.

In this edition of the FNA Deep Dive, we take a closer look at the nut butter industry in APAC and current limitations to its growth, as well as major driving trends and opportunities to potentially push this to new heights.

Clean and clear: China’s Haofood optimistic about plant-based growth despite dwindling hype​

China-based clean label brand Haofood is putting extra efforts into innovation while maintaining focus on taste and affordability to boost consumer adoption of plant-based diets.

Claimed to be China’s first clean label plant-based meat producer, Haofood admitted that there is “a long way to go” before Chinese consumers would incorporate such alternative-protein products into their everyday life.

“​Plant-based protein is not something very new to Chinese consumers. After all, China is the birthplace of tofu. There was a lot of hype about plant-based meats when they entered the market a few years ago. Unfortunately, the hype has slightly diminished, partly because many companies were focused on rebuilding their businesses post-pandemic, so there has been less​ room for innovation,"​ Haofood Founder and CEO Astrid Prajogo told FoodNavigator-Asia​.