The food processing industry includes activities that not only make the product attractive, but also more usable and increases the shelf life. Globally, food processing market amounts to USD 7 trillion of annual production. Increasing urbanization and growing consumer preference for processed foods is driving the specialty food ingredients market. However, the consumer is aware of the use of food additives that strip the product of its nutrients. This paved the way for consumers demanding for a safe, quality product having a long shelf life. Companies, by introducing functional food ingredients, have increased the demand and kept the nutrient value intact. Also, organized retail sector, which is a small percentage in the emerging countries, is seeing inroads in the processed food sector, thus increasing its penetration and fueling the demand for specialty food ingredients according to Mordor Intelligence.
Increasing demand for processed & convenience foodstuff, shift in demand for higher nutritious and organic products are expected to drive the industry. The increasing number of health-conscious consumers with preference for convenience foods is fueling the global specialty food ingredients market, which is estimated to reach USD 92.5 billion by 2022, up from USD 63.8 billion in 2016 with a CAGR of 5.9 percent from 2017 to 2022. Specialty ingredients are the foremost important products that guarantee the well-being of the vast range of processed foods. Specialty ingredients that range from a wide variety of macro ingredients such as fibers, carbohydrates, fats & specific proteins to other micro ingredients including minerals, vitamins & enzymes, all typically perform various functional activities thus enhancing the diet quality and taste according to Grand View Research. Specialty ingredients customarily preserve the texture, enhance color, emulsify, add benefits in processing and ultimately add a superfluous edge health dimension to the produced food. The health, nutritional and technological related functions of these products make the diet pleasant for consumption, tasty, safe, healthy and even affordable. Hence, these advantages associated with the specialty food ingredients are expected to be the major driving factors of the industry. Apart from these benefits, these constituents are considered as one of the few major options suitable for sustainable processing of foodstuff. These ingredients provide solutions to enhance the efficiency of resource by reducing downstream losses and the entire value chain owing to their extremely effective impact during storage and processing of food.
Development of new technologies such as decaffeination of coffee beans that reduces the gastro-oesophageal reflux in both patients and healthy people with reflux disease add to increasing importance of functional ingredients. Various organic technologies for processing of ingredients, nutritional supplements, flavor components, processing aids and reagents have been formulated in the recent past, which is major trend expected to drive demand for these products owing to the shift in consumer demand for organic foodstuff. The global industry has witnessed the entrance of a large number of participants mainly of the multinationals. Several companies have been involved in aggressive mergers and acquisitions to enhance their product portfolios to cater to the changing consumer preferences as customized needs for foodstuff manufacturers. Multinationals are acquiring medium level companies that are specialized in technological advancement but lack regarding funds for expansion. Such initiatives are some of the major trends in the industry and hence is driving the overall market in the recent years according to Grand View Research.
