Sector Trend Analysis – Health and wellness in Japan

Contents

• Japanese consumers
• General health and wellness trends in Japan
• Market data
• Naturally healthy
• Better for you
• Fortified/functional
• Organic
• Free from
• Distribution channels
• For more information
• Resources

Japanese consumers

In order to maintain their health, Japanese consumers are keen on maintaining a healthy diet. Health conditions related to the metabolic syndrome have encouraged a substantial amount of Japanese consumers to seek products with health benefits and claims.

For example, Kombucha, a fermented black tea drink, witnessed rapid growth in the 1970s following a high degree of health-benefit exposure. Also, in 2012, tomatoes began attracting pleasant attention following an iterative round of media coverage that outlined its many benefits and led to a soar in sales of many product categories that involved the use of tomatoes.

Moreover, the current rapid growth in chocolate confectionery and yoghurt products are also supported by growing demand for health benefits. The trend for maintaining health through diet is expected to continue between 2017 and 2021.

The benefit of Food with Functional Claims (FCC) is that it helps add legitimacy to healthy products, making sure that consumers are aware of the legitimacy of the product’s health claims, invigorating consumers’ perception that these product claims are scientifically backed and approved as beneficial to health.

General health and wellness trends in Japan

Between 2012 and 2016, there was a notable shift in consumer attitudes towards health and wellness products. Many Japanese consumers who are interested in consuming these products in their drive to live healthier lifestyles want their food and drink to be as natural as possible. As a result, they have been avoiding health and wellness products that are considered to be artificial or excessively processed and not perceived as natural and chemical-free.

This trend influenced several health and wellness categories, such as reduced sugar products with artificial sweeteners, for example, which seems to suffer from an image problem as many consumers regard these products as artificial and thus inherently unhealthy.

While this trend has led to a slowdown in growth for reduced sugar beverages in carbonates, the overall better-for-you beverages category was also affected, as it declined by 1% in compound annual growth terms during 2016.

However, naturally healthy (NH) packaged food recorded 5% current value growth during the year, while NH beverages, a large category, grew by 1%. Free from packaged food also recorded 6% growth, increasing sales to US$750 million.

Despite predicted improvements in the Japanese economy, growth in real disposable income levels is set to remain low. As a result, consumers are likely to remain cautious in their expenditure, resulting in slow growth for overall health and wellness.

“Free from” products are likely to see the strongest growth, profiting from opportunities offered by FFC labelling, while better-for-you beverages will see ongoing decline due to reduction of reduced sugar carbonates, which will see a declining consumer base to other healthy beverages, such as ready-to-drink (RTD) tea and flavored bottled water (Euromonitor International, 2017).

Market data

Naturally healthy (NH)

Many Japanese consumers are now interested in consuming naturally healthy products as part of their drive to live healthier lifestyles. As a result, they have been avoiding health and wellness products that are considered to be artificial or exceptionally processed and not perceived as natural, authentic and chemical-free. The removal or substitution of ingredients that are naturally present is therefore seen as unnatural and incompatible with the core values of a healthy lifestyle (Euromonitor, 2017).

It is unlikely, between 2017 and 2021, that the trend towards more natural products with as few artificial ingredients as possible will fade. In fact, this trend is likely to become even more relevant as increasing numbers of consumers will almost certainly expect leading packaged food and beverages brands to remove artificial and unnatural elements from their products as much as possible.

Better for you (BFY)

Reduced fat, reduced sugar and reduced salt packaged food categories witnessed a surge in sales, averaging a CAGR of 4.2% from 2012 to 2016. However, subcategories such as reduced fat in dairy and reduced salt in margarine and spreads have suffered a decline in sales with CAGRs of -0.8% and -3.3% respectively, between 2012 and 2016.

Better for you (BFY) packaged food product sales are expected to continue increasing from 2017 to 2021, with reduced sugar spreads forecasted to record the fastest growth with an 11.4% compound annual growth rate.

Fortified/functional (FF)

Fortified/functional (FF) dairy products recorded the highest value of retail sales with US$6.8 billion in 2016 and a compound annual growth rate of 5.9%. FF breakfast cereals have experienced the highest CAGR with 16.8% between 2012 and 2016 while FF confectionary and FF vegetable and seed oil experienced negative growth with -3.6% and -0.4% CAGR respectively.

According to Euromonitor, Japanese consumers are seeking to lengthen life expectancy, therefore; the aging population is more demanding in terms of health, which resulted in the development of fortified/functional (FF) food. Fortified/functional products are likely to see very strong growth between 2017 and 2021, benefiting from opportunities offered by FFC labelling.

Organic

While organic packaged food remained niche, it continued to see value growth of 1% to reach US$378 million in 2016. While consumers began to look into more premium sophisticated products, organic players increased their presence in order to capture these consumers.

Organic packaged food is strictly controlled by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries under Japanese Agricultural Standards (JAS). All the organic products sold in Japan, both domestic and imported, are certified “Organic JAS” following Ministry regulations (Euromonitor International, 2017).

The lack of organic production in Japan as well as some companies’ reluctance in launching new products may continue to obstruct robust growth. This reluctance will in turn reflect consumers’ lack of interest in these products due to high prices. Therefore, the lack of variety of products as well as significant consumer confusion regarding the health benefits of some organic products will also add to the obstruction of growth.

The increasing presence of supermarkets that are focused on organic products will be a potential opportunity for organic packaged food to grow between 2017 and 2021. In 2016, LIFE Corporation, one of the primary retailers, opened BIO-RAL, a supermarket concentrated on health and wellness products including organic, in Osaka. AEON opened a French supermarket concentrated on organic products, Bio c’ Bon, in Tokyo (Euromonitor International, 2017).

Free from

Gluten and lactose-free products stand apart as they target those with celiac diseases, or those with an intolerance to lactose, both genuine and increasingly common medical conditions.

“Free-from” packaged food in Japan registered a compound annual growth rate of 6.4% from 2012 to 2016. This is a reflection of Japanese consumers’ growing interest in “free from” products, but also of the successful strategies by manufacturers to launch relevant innovations.

According to Mintel, 42 new gluten-free products were introduced in the Japanese market between 2012 and 2016, with 20 of those products being released in 2016 alone. This shows a 150% value growth between 2015 and 2016.

Distribution channels

The strengthening purchasing power of the growing elderly Japanese demographic will increase purchases of greater processed products, particularly through supermarkets and hypermarkets. Furthermore, manufacturers are likely to continue adopting marketing methods to appeal to younger Japanese consumers, whose focus will increasingly be on products offering a high level of convenience in addition to health attributes (Euromonitor International, 2017).

Supermarkets continue to dominate the HW distribution landscape in 2016. Modern retailers are able to offer a wide range of both branded and private label offerings, which enabled them to hold a steady share during 2016. There was little growth in the share of internet retailing for HW products as consumers preferred to buy them when shopping for their weekly groceries in modern grocery retailers or from independent small grocers.

For more information

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Resources

• Euromonitor International, 2017.
• Mintel Global New Products Database, 2017.
• Global Trade Tracker, 2017.

Sector Trend Analysis - Health and wellness in Japan
Global Analysis Report

Prepared by: Hadi el Zein, Market Analyst (Co-op student)

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