Many programmes are being operationalised throughout the world to communicate the benefits of health food, especially being targeted at the younger generations and in school environments. With obesity rates increasing at concerning levels in nearly all first world nations, governments and health organisations, both public and private, are pushing the message about the long term health benefits of healthy eating behaviours. The Grocery Manufacturers Association has created a website that highlights the productive efforts of many companies who are reformulating their ingredients and products to reduce the sugar, salt and fat content. With trends in consumer demand tending towards healthier food products, this is not also a welcomed initiative from the governmental and health institutions, but also from health conscious consumers, in all demographics, whom want to remain healthier for longer.

In response to these initiatives, the marketplace is placing pressure on food and bakery manufacturers to produce products that offer more choices to the modern consumer, including options with less fat, sugar, salt and sodium; as well as options with high fruit content, higher nutrients and fibre. The website launched by the Grocery Manufacturers Association has recorded that over 10,000 products have been reformulated since its inception, with food manufacturers searching for alternative ingredients with high fruit content, nutrients and fibre to create food that is not only healthy, but long lasting and convenient. In this search for key ingredients that provide manufacturers the ability to produce healthy products and alternatives in their existing range of products, establishing relationships with leading bakery ingredient suppliers is an essential course of action.

Receiving high media and health interest is the range of superfruits on the market, such as cranberries, pomegranate, acai and blueberries, with their high levels of vitamins, nutrients and fibre, along with their great taste. However, baking with such ingredients can prove challenging due to the high water content and its effect that this has on the baking process. Leading bakery ingredient suppliers have implemented their own unique concentration processes to provide the market with fruit pieces, flakes and pastes that are incredibly stable in the baking process and offer the real flavour and health benefits that only fruit can deliver.

According to recent research, the dominance of superfruit in its ability to deliver unsurpassed levels of vitamins and nutrients is being challenged by more traditional and well known varieties of fruit such as berries. With the large range of fruit products available that have been prepared for optimal baking performance, bakery ingredient suppliers are able to innovate with the range of products and variations of such products they produce.