Consumers’ quest for digestive wellness has consistently been one of the biggest growth drivers in food and nutrition for over 30 years and it will stay a growth driver for a long time to come.

People's thinking about gut health is developing and for a growing number of consumers it's beginning to include an appreciation of how digestive health can benefit not just the gut, but many other aspects of our wellbeing.

According to a report from international consumer research agency HealthFocus International, which has been tracking beliefs about gut health for three decades, nearly 50% of consumers think that their immune system and stress levels are impacted by their gut health. 42% think that digestive wellness affects their mood and a further 35% say they think it affects healthy aging.

Image source: HealthFocus International

And while consumers may not always be aware of exactly how their digestive system works, or what terms like ‘live cultures’ or ‘prebiotics’ mean, research from HealthFocus has found that “their general impression of these ingredients is ‘healthy,’ making them at least receptive and perhaps even driven to embrace products containing them,” says Cali Amos, Human Insights Director at HealthFocus International.

But the market is crowded, and it can be difficult for manufacturers to know how to reach consumers in this competitive space. Looking at ingredients, consumers are most likely to seek out fibre to improve their gut health, with 60% of respondents in HealthFocus International’s survey, which included 13,000 consumers in 25 countries, picking this as their top gut health ingredient. This is followed by probiotics (51%) and wholegrains (45%).

Probiotics is the digestive wellness ingredient that has created the biggest successes over the last 40 years - from Yakult to Danone Activia and Meiji Bulgaria - and it will go on doing so. Data from HealthFocus shows that both awareness of and interest in probiotics has increased significantly over the past five years, with awareness going from 50% to 61% between 2018 and 2024 and interest growing from 59% to 67%.

However, there's no certainty that simply flagging up the presence of fibre or probiotics in a product will drive sales growth. A successful growth strategy connected to digestive wellness needs to be more nuanced and sophisticated, ideally connecting to more trends beyond just gut health. To learn more about this, read 10 Key Trends in Food, Nutrition and Health 2025: https://www.new-nutrition.com/keytrend?id=344