Products formulated for toddlers with nutrition-rich dairy ingredients represent a major untapped opportunity for food and beverage brands.
The popularity of dairy ingredients such as whey continues to rise in the mainstream food market, and they are already well established as key ingredients in the tightly regulated infant formula sector.
However, supplier Arla Foods Ingredients says they remain under-used in products aimed at children in the one to three years age bracket – a crucial period in every child’s development.
According to Euromonitor, the global toddler food and beverage market was worth US$34 billion in 2015, making it significantly bigger than the $24.7 billion infant formula market.
Sales of toddler products are forecast to post a compound annual growth rate of 11.4% between now and 2018 to reach $47 billion, indicating the enormous potential this market offers.
“As they transition from babies to toddlers, young children enter a new phase in which they leave behind their exclusively milk-based diet,” said Anne Staudt Kvistgaard, senior manager for pediatric.
“They begin to eat a more varied selection of food and drink and develop their own preferences.”
“In addition, due to their limited stomach capacity and high activity levels, toddlers will often get hungry, and naturally they will crave the most tempting foods.”
Dairy ingredients offer the perfect solution for toddler-specific products such as snack bars, squeezable pouches, yogurt, fruit drinks, milky drinks and toddler formula.
Rich in essential amino acids and minerals, they are filling and gentle on the stomach.
In addition, they are healthy, natural, safe and have a pleasant milky flavor.
As part of its new Goodness of Dairy campaign, Arla Foods Ingredients is offering dairy ingredient solutions containing high quality proteins and minerals from milk that will enable manufacturers to create delicious and nutritious products that parents will want to buy and toddlers will want to eat.
