A few years ago, getting extra protein in your diet seemed relatively straightforward. You ate a steak or cooked some eggs and got on with your day. These days, protein seems to have gone from its traditional sources and spread right across the supermarket. It turns up in everything from iced coffee, breakfast cereal, snack bars, desserts to pancake mixes. Wander through the health-food aisle for long enough and you begin to suspect that if someone could successfully add protein to wine, that would be on shelves too.
“Increased demand for fibre-rich products creates opportunities for grain growers, pulse producers, ingredient manufacturers, food processors and consumer brands.”
What is striking is not just how much protein is available, but how ordinary it has become. The products themselves often haven't changed very much. Just as they always did, consumers are still drinking coffee, buying yoghurt and grabbing a snack between meetings. The difference is that food companies found a way to weave protein into existing eating habits rather than asking people to adopt whole new diets, through the development of new ingredients. The result was that protein moved from gym culture into everyday shopping baskets, becoming one of the most successful food and beverage stories of the past decade.
Fast forward a few years and another nutrient appears to be following a similar path. For years, fibre was largely associated with bran cereal, porridge and the sort of nutritional advice that most people agreed with but didn't necessarily follow. While protein turned up in fitness magazines, gym bags and sports nutrition products, fibre mostly appeared on cereal packets and in reminders to eat more fruit, vegetables and wholegrains.
Today, fibre is appearing in places where many consumers would not have expected to find it. Yoghurts, wraps, cereals, beverages and snack foods are increasingly being reformulated to contain additional fibre, with manufacturers promoting fibre, digestive health, gut health or prebiotic ingredients front and centre on the packet. Social media posts and discussions that once revolved around protein intake now regularly discuss fibre targets, gut health and something called "fibremaxxing", where people compare ways to squeeze more fibre into their daily diets - such as how to add chia seeds to your overnight oats, or whether putting beans in your smoothie is great for your health or maybe a step too far. The focus may have changed from protein to fibre but the underlying pattern feels familiar.
The growing case for fibre
A major reason for this development is that many Australians aren't consuming as much fibre as many nutrition experts recommend. According to government health guidelines, adult men are encouraged to consume around 38 grams per day and women around 28 grams, yet average consumption falls well short of those levels. Only around 28 per cent of Australian adults meet the recommended intake.
Unlike calories, which are printed almost everywhere, fibre is still not something many people consciously track. Yet awareness of the gap appears to be growing as nutrition discussions increasingly move beyond counting calories or avoiding sugar and towards topics like gut health, blood sugar and what should actually be on the breakfast plate.
Trust your gut
Another prominent trend is that discussions about gut health seem to have migrated from doctor and dietician advice into many everyday life conversations. Terms such as microbiome, probiotics and prebiotics increasingly appear in television advertising, podcasts, supermarket promotions and online discussions. It is no longer unusual to hear someone spend ten minutes discussing their gut health over coffee or to see a yoghurt commercial talking more about bacteria than flavour. While many consumers probably still don’t understand the science in detail, the broader consumer feeling is that a healthy gut contributes to overall wellbeing. And it’s that sentiment which is creating opportunities for food companies to talk about fibre in a way that feels understandable and relatable rather than just pharmaceutical.
To a degree, there’s also something about this progression which seems like food patterns have come back to where they once were. For decades, the food industry became exceptionally skilled at making food more convenient, more portable and easier to eat. Bread became softer, breakfast increasingly shifted from a bowl of porridge to highly refined cereal flakes that could be quickly poured and eaten, and fruit often became juice. These innovations were enormously successful because they suited increasingly busy lifestyles and allowed food companies to scale products across large markets. Along the way, however, much of the naturally occurring fibre in the ingredients was often vastly reduced through refinement and processing.
The challenge now is for some food manufacturers to find ways of adding add fibre back without losing the convenience and familiarity with which consumers have increasingly become accustomed. Historically, this hasn't always been easy. While protein can often be incorporated into foods with almost no impact on taste or texture, fibre has been much more of a challenge. Older formulations sometimes made products denser, grainier or more difficult to drink - some fibre-enriched products tasted as though someone had added chaff into the mixing bowl. Today, however, new generations of fibre ingredients are helping overcome many of those challenges, allowing manufacturers to improve fibre content while keeping the taste and texture of food products broadly familiar.
A new opportunity for food and agribusiness
Some of the most surprising examples can be found in categories that would once have seemed unlikely candidates for fibre. One prominent example is Pepsi Prebiotic Cola, which, according to the company, contains 3 grams of prebiotic fibre per can. That would mean a can of cola contains more fibre than two slices of white bread. Regardless of whether consumers choose to buy it, the comparison highlights how differently food companies are now thinking about product development. Twenty years ago, consumers searching for fibre headed for the cereal aisle - today they may find it in the drinks fridge.
This growing interest in fibre has impacts well beyond supermarket shelves. Increased demand for fibre-rich products creates opportunities for grain growers, pulse producers, ingredient manufacturers, food processors and consumer brands. As companies search for new sources of fibre and new product formulations, the ripple effects extend through the food, beverage and agribusiness supply chain.
So the next time you walk through a supermarket, fibre may be just a little more on your mind than it was before. You might find yourself looking more closely at two loaves of bread that previously seemed identical, wondering whether one contains a little more fibre than the other. You may notice a fibre claim on a packet of cereal you have bought for years without ever paying attention to it or find yourself briefly considering whether that new prebiotic drink is actually worth giving a try. And once you notice fibre on a few products, you start seeing it everywhere.
Michael Whitehead is Executive Director, Food, Beverage and Agribusiness at ANZ.