Fruit flavours dominate the yogurt market, featuring in over two-thirds of global launches recorded by Innova Market Insights in the 12 months to the end of March 2013, rising to three-quarters of the US total and nearly 70% in Latin America. This encompasses a wide range of different types of fruit, from more traditional strawberry and peach to more unusual such as papaya, damson and coconut.
Lu Ann Williams, Director of Innovation at Innova Market Insights, reports “The yogurt market is generally showing good growth, and this is reflected in terms of new product activity, where levels are continuing to rise globally. With an increasingly competitive marketplace, the need for product differentiation has led to developments in flavours over recent years, most notably into more upmarket and complex options, often featuring a number of different ingredients, sometimes with formulations taken from other sectors of the market, such as desserts, bakery and confectionery.” She also notes that companies are trying to ring in the changes with increasing numbers of limited edition and seasonal options.
Meanwhile, flavour trends in the yogurt market in 2013 seem to be following a similar path to recent years, with the exotic, unusual and more complex featuring strongly across a range of countries. In the UK, Collective Dairy has even added value to a new natural yogurt variant sweetened with honey, by giving it its own identity under the Plain Jane name. Other range extensions featured the more exotic and upmarket, including Banoffi and White Peach & Raspberry, while a limited edition Papaya & Coconut variant replaced the previous Mighty Mango line.
