Every industry has its challenges to overcome. This includes both sport nutrition and nutrition vending. We deal with challenges ranging from pricing to product availability and finding great locations for our vending machines. But perhaps the biggest challenge we face is one of conflicting messages. Our industry has to find a way to help people cut through all the noise to truly understand what constitutes good nutrition.
If you are not sure about conflicting messages in nutrition, just step back and think about some of the new stories you've read over the years. Medical science used to tell us that sugar was terribly bad and worthy to be replaced by artificial sweeteners. Then they said the artificial sweeteners were bad so we should return to sugar. Now we are back on the 'sugar is bad' train.
Sometimes messages change so quickly that people don't know what to believe. The simple truth is that people are confused enough that they no longer know who to trust. This lack of trust is influencing our eating habits, whether we want to admit it or not.
A Global Problem
The Food Manufacture website published an article on 9th February describing a consumer study done in the UK, Spain, Australia, and the US. The study involved 2,000 consumers and their perceptions of nutritional messaging. To the surprise of some, 79% of the participants admitted that they "found messages around health food and nutrition confusing."
UK consumers apparently found messages relating to dairy, eggs, and butter the most confusing. But that is of little consequence when you consider the overall perception people have of nutritional information. More and more, consumers just don't trust the information they are being fed. So what's the solution?
Everyone Needs to Be More Transparent
Whether you are talking sport nutrition, food manufacturing, medical science or even vending, the only solution to all this confusion is greater transparency. That means transparency among everyone involved. We have so many confusing messages because all the players are choosing to only put out the messaging that benefits them. This is not transparency, it is self-service.
Companies that actually make the sport nutrition items we sell should be more willing to be completely transparent about all the ingredients they use, from where those ingredients are sourced, and how those ingredients are combined to make their products.
Marketers need to be more transparent in everything from packaging to advertising. Medical science needs to be more transparent in drawing a clear distinction between proven fact and mere opinion. Across the board, only full and complete transparency will eliminate the confusion.
Conflicting messages are the biggest challenge we face in sport nutrition. Here at Nutrivend, we will continue to strive to overcome those messages in order to provide consumers with healthy snacks and drinks they want and deserve. Hopefully you will join us by placing some of our healthy vending machines in your gym, leisure centre, or other location.
Sources:
Food Manufacture – https://www.foodmanufacture.co.uk/Article/2018/01/27/Nutrition-info-is-confusing-to-consumers-survey
