More fat and healthier fat are a key area of focus in food for infants and children, as a result of the surge of interest in low-carb and keto diet trends in the years 2017-2021, according to food consultancy company New Nutrition Business.
 
“In the over-supplied and increasingly competitive market for pouched baby food, U.S. brand Serenity Kids has used a positioning connected to quality fat and quality animal protein, growing from quirky challenger brand to being stocked in Target and Kroger,” Julian Mellentin, director of New Nutrition Business and author of a new report called “Strategies & Trends in Kids Nutrition,” said.
 
Serenity Kids positioned itself to appeal to American parents who embrace both protein and fat as healthy nutrients, and have lost confidence in official dietary guidelines, New Nutrition Business said, noting that the brand deploys messaging such as:
 
– “Your baby needs 30g of fat per day! This supports brain development, hormone regulation, and builds the immune system,”
 
– “Fat is also needed for your baby’s digestive system to absorb fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, E, and K,”
 
– “Fats are satiating foods, which means your baby will feel full longer and get a longer, higher-quality night’s sleep.”
 
“Brands such as Serenity reflect the increasing fragmentation of people’s beliefs about food and health,” Mellentin said. “There will certainly also be a cohort of parents who see fat as unhealthy and want to feed their child mostly plant-based. But the fat-friendly are a new niche that won’t go away. If anything, looking at the adult market, the direction of travel is clear and ‘more fat’ will become a more normal feature of kids’ foods.”
 
Mellentin noted that fragmented beliefs about health will result in brands needing to connect to multiple trends. He notes that with birth rates declining sharply around the world, nutrition brands will find themselves “fighting more intensely for a share of the shrinking market. In an attempt to differentiate themselves and carve out a niche, more kids’ brands will set out to connect to parents’ food beliefs and this will drive the use of ‘healthy fat’ ingredients, such as avocado, coconut oil, and nut butters.”