Consumption habits, when it comes to packaged drinks and food products, can be divided into three stages: traditional, modern and postmodern.
 
Traditional
Among many consumers in emerging markets, packaged drinks and food consumption remains a matter of serving a specific need—better taste, greater safety, convenient packaging—with low incomes limiting demand for branding or additional added value. Competition from unpackaged local fare remains high, and traditional retailing, such as independent corner shops and kiosks, remains the primary distribution channel. Traditional consumption habits are prevalent in emerging countries like India, especially among the rural population.
 
Modern
As incomes rise, demand for branding increases, as new middle-class consumers look to the status and prestige of global brands. Shopping habits change, as supermarkets and hypermarkets allow for one-stop shopping amid busier lifestyles. When it comes to beverages, basic, affordable products such as bottled water and concentrates are joined by highly branded carbonates and energy drinks, as consumers increasingly seek to define themselves as part of a global consumer class—with lifestyles to match. Modern consumers are mostly found in high growth countries like Mexico and China, especially in urban areas.
 
Postmodern
As branding becomes omnipresent, consumer behavior shifts again, with purchasing increasingly a matter of finding a portfolio of highly specific products to define one’s lifestyle. Unified global brands give way to segmented, niche products, with local, artisanal products becoming more prominent. One-size-fits-all supermarkets are joined by upmarket niche players, smaller footprint convenience stores and discounters. Differentiation becomes the driving factor for consumers, retailers and food and drinks players, as consumers increasingly “mix and match” products and retail formats to serve ever more specific needs. This is true in more developed market like Japan, U.S. and most of Western Europe.
 
On this blog, we talked quite a few times about the importance of simplicity when it comes to nutraceutical offering. Rationalizing the benefits offered by the product is essential to convince a postmodern consumer blasé by the constant marketing background noise. Postmodern consumers are the ones primarily interested in nutraceutical products because they can afford them and because their drinking and eating habits have reached a maturity when it comes to packaged goods, so they are looking for something extra. Through their own travel, media and immigration they are increasingly aware of (and interested in) foreign products (think about coconut water, a great example of strong local, while exotic, identity).
 
So, what are postmodern consumers looking for when it comes to nutraceuticals?

• Back to Basic: Simple ingredients, if possible of natural origin (i.e., fruit, vegetable, seed, minerals, etc.). Postmodern is all about re-inventing traditional unpackaged products with a twist, and with consumers increasingly well-travelled there is a vast array of products to play with.
• Authenticity: Ingredients with a history and rooted in traditional habits. Authenticity is also linked to the identity of the brand (e.g., strong local identity from a spring water, regionally-sourced craft beverage).
• Nostalgia: Using old-fashion imagery (e.g., glass bottle), logo. Reviving an old brand and re-inventing it with a traditional twist also helps its “authenticity” credentials.
• In-the-Know: Becoming too mainstream too quickly can hurt the product. Sporadic and low-key distribution availability helps remind consumers of its specialness and bring out the “traditional” and “small scale” aspect of it.