Cocoa – a “naturally functional” health ingredient at the tipping point?

Cocoa has the potential to be a naturally healthy ingredient as successful as cranberries and one that can help create new brands and even new categories. Beverages, dairy and snacks are the areas with most potential, thanks to growing consumer awareness of its health benefits and advances in processing technology that have taken it into new formats.

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56 pages

January 2012

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About this report

For two decades the major cocoa processors have made huge investments in developing the scientific evidence supporting cocoa’s health benefits.

Consumers have so far connected those benefits most with dark chocolate – 75% of shoppers are extremely or very interested in dark chocolate for heart disease and antioxidant protection, according to consumer researchers Health Focus International. Sales of dark chocolate have boomed even despite recession, still managing a 9% gain in 2009.

Now companies like Hershey and Mars have developed technologies that enable them to move cocoa far beyond chocolate, making cocoa a credible “naturally healthy” ingredient in snacks and beverages and creating whole new markets.

Both Hershey and Mars have successfully test-marketed new ranges of cocoa-based, all-natural snacks, while Hershey has collaborated with Honest Tea to create the CocoaNova “chocolate drink” brand – “cocoa as consumers have never known it” – based on a proprietary technology.

They are also investing in educating consumers about the specific benefits of cocoa – and creating points of difference for their products, telling consumers, for example, that “all cocoa is not created equal”.

It’s clear that cocoa is a naturally functional ingredient that is fast approaching a tipping point.

CONTENTS

Executive summary

1. Cocoa at the tipping point?
1.1 Innovating beyond the boundaries

2. Scientific and technological progress
2.1 Technology allows more cocoa formats

3. Cocoa and the consumer
3.1 “Naturally functional” trend opens door for cocoa
3.2 Marketing of chocolate builds consumer awareness

4. Matching ingredient, benefit and the right product format
4.1 Finding the right format for cocoa

5. Ambitious corporate strategies: a long term strategy to reinvent chocolate
5.1 Mars – a long-term commitment to cocoa and health
5.2 Hershey – learning everything about cocoa
5.3 Barry Callebaut: functionalising chocolate by leveraging cocoa benefits

6. Supply chain pressure

7. Case studies
Case Study 1: Mars’ CocoaVia and Cirku – test-marketing cocoa’s heart-health potential
Strong start to sales loses momentum
Selling cocoa without the chocolate taste
Sterols dropped – cocoa alone a “strong position”
Helping consumers understand flavanols

Case Study 2: Mars GoodnessKnows – a healthy snack with the benefits of cocoa
Mars tests snack square as vehicle for “deep chocolate”
Wholesome square better suited to daily snacking

Case Study 3: Mars’ Positively Healthy Cocoa drink takes cocoa into new categories
Cocoa about “comfort and satisfaction”
A premium drink

Case Study 4: Hershey’s beverage innovation helps Honest Tea create a new proposition
Distribution and innovation
Cocoanova process a long time brewing
Cracking branding challenges

Case Study 5: New Hershey snack line ramps up quickly with simple cocoa message
Convenience, nutrition, taste – and cocoa
Apure acts fast to deliver cocoa innovation
Popular with women
Traditional processing for high flavanols
Simple message: not all cocoa created equal

Case Study 6: Coco-Xan – “chocolate with benefits” for women
What would women want?
A vitamin or a chocolate?

Case Study 7: Re-thinking chocolate milk
Enhanced proposition
“Recovery” education:
Disadvantaged competition