A leading executive at Dutch dairy giant Campina has said the industry must innovate more to boost dairy consumption among consumers worldwide.
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Dairy intake falls below national nutritional guidelines in many markets around the world, with consumers linking the fat content in milk, cheese and yoghurt to rising obesity.
Campina managing director Martien van der Hoeven said the dairy industry needed to tell consumers that dairy products can play a central role in tackling obesity and managing weight.
“There is a lot of education needed and the industry can and should do it,” van der Hoeven told a conference held by industry body Dairy UK in London yesterday (22 January).
Van der Hoeven said Campina had launched a series of new products to encourage consumers who are anxious about their weight to buy more dairy.
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By GlobalDataHe cited Campina’s Optimel brand, which since its launch in 1998, had seen “double-digit growth ever since”. Opitmel’s success, van der Hoeven said, was due to its “sole focus on weight management”.
He added: “The key for the dairy industry is innovation; we have to keep innovating all the time.”
However, dairy has suffered among consumers looking to lose or manage their weight. Dr Cindy Schweitzer, technical director for the Global Dairy Platform, said consumers in countries from the UK to the US were, on average, failing to eat enough dairy.
“Consumers think: ‘If I eat more dairy, it will make me fat because I’ll be eating more calories.’ We need to tell people that if they switch to dairy products, they will get way more [nutritional] benefits,” Schweitzer said.
She added that new products containing less fat or products containing extra calcium – which reduces the storage of fat – have resonated with consumers.
She added that new products containing less fat or products containing extra calcium – which reduces the storage of fat – have resonated with consumers.
Nevertheless, van der Hoeven said the dairy industry needed to work with governments to encourage overweight people to change their diet.
“It’s not job as companies to tell consumers to change their whole diet. It’s more the task of governmental organisations and non-governmental organisations to take care of that.”
