For products today, the path to purchase often is tied to the attributes that brands owners include on food and beverage labels. Santosh Kumar, senior analyst at Rockville, Md.-based Fact.MR, notes that, according to a recent global survey conducted by the nonprofit International Food Information Council (IFIC), most prominent product characteristics sought by consumers on product labels are “natural” and “organic,” followed by “non-GMO” ingredients.
“As such, beverage marketers have started to use these as a differentiation strategy against existing competition,” Kumar says. “And now, it has become pervasive as can also be seen from the fact that nearly 60% of all food and beverage launches that have organic claims also claim to have non-GMO ingredients.”