Dairy Market for Kids Increasing

The market for kid's foods is estimated to be more than $300 billion worldwide. That's approximately 300 billion times as much as I make for this blog. More, actually.

So it's not surprising that the dairy industry thinks that it sees opportunities. A report, Eight Key Case Studies In Kids Nutritional Dairy, authored by Julian Mellentin, director of the Centre for Food & Health Studies, outlines the consumer markets key health concerns and how companies can address them effectively.

According to an article on NutraIngredients.com:

"The dairy industry's ambition to innovate with more and more new ingredients seems to be growing increasingly bolder," said Mellentin. "No other food or beverage category has played such an important role in driving the functional food revolution in Europe, South America and Asia."

Mellentin claims that probiotics, omega-3s and calcium are the three areas in which "the most significant success stories are being made."

This all gets back to the functional foods trend that's sweeping Europe and beginning to take hold in the U.S.

Even better, more and more dairy products are being introduced with lower fat:

Low- and no-fat products account for more new product launches than those making any other lesser evil claims, according to Datamonitor.

In 2001, 7.4 per cent of new food products launched worldwide claimed to contain reduced levels of fat, rising to 10.4 per cent in 2005. This trend is beginning to spill over into children's food.

The anti-milk crazies love to talk about high-fat milk as part of the evilness of dairy, but the reality is that whole milk products have been being phased out of the industry for years. And remember that most children - and adults - with lactose intolerance can still have some dairy without symptoms. Dairy does contain valuable calcium and other nutrients in a good-tasting form, so you parents should only remove it from your child's diet if absolutely necessary, as with dairy allergies.

Mellentin's report is available for a price only, alas. The website is KidsNurtitionReport.com. For $195 / €165/ £100 / A$250 / NZ$290 / C$220 / JPY22,000 you get a 38 page* pdf.

As with all our case studies, this to-the-point 39 page* analysis has been written based on in-depth interviews with the companies concerned to provide you with:

• Companies’ own views on the key nutritional aspects of children’s health they have chosen to target and why
• Insight into branding, marketing and pricing strategies
• Understanding of what aspects of the different strategies have worked and why
• Understanding of product formats used, and ingredients chosen
• Demonstration of the value of packaging innovation.
• Colour illustrations of products
• Relevant market data.

*Yes, the site says both 38 pages and 39 pages. It reproduces the table of contents and 38 is apparently correct. Maybe you get a cover page thrown in for free.