Natural: A $75 billion word with no definition—Why not?

Abstract

Natural is a $75 billion word with no official definition in most countries. The United States Food and Drug Administration has given only an unclear guideline on what constitutes natural instead of an actual definition. Sensory and other scientists need to understand the motivations and attitudes of consumers about the products they use. “Natural” is a commonly used term on labels and advertising for food and other products. This research examined 30 ingredients used in food products to determine which ingredients consumers considered natural and why they consider certain ingredients as “not natural.” A national U.S. survey of 1,051 consumers (primary food purchases: 43% male, 57% female) was analyzed using descriptive statistics and chi‐squared tests. No ingredient, except for sea salt, was found to be natural by more than 70% of respondents. Familiarity with an ingredient was instrumental in consumers' determination of naturalness. Healthfulness and chemical sounding names also played a role in whether a product or ingredient was considered natural or not. “Natural” is not a single concept and, thus, is difficult to define. Practical applications Understanding how consumers make decisions about whether a food is “natural” or not is key to understanding how new products are formulated and then perceived by consumers. This study identifies several major issues associated with food ingredients making food seem “not natural.” Most of the issues are associated with a lack of understanding or knowledge or the perception that healthfulness drives naturalness (e.g., if I think it is “healthy” to eat, then it must be natural. The information will better help sensory and other scientists understand perception of their products in a time of consumer confusion.

Willingness to eat an insect based product and impact on brand equity: A global perspective

“…At the same time consumers want products made from natural ingredients and Chambers, Chambers IV, and Castro (2018) found that insect powder was considered natural by only 7% of the US population in their survey. Further research (Chambers, Tran, & Chambers IV, 2019) found that US consumers either did not know what "Cricket Powder" was or found it disgusting.…”

Consumer acceptability in the USA, Mexico, and Spain of chocolate chip cookies made with partial insect powder replacement

“…Those authors suggested just such a scenario based on their findings that unfamiliarity with such products was a major negative factor in eating insect‐based products. Chambers, Tran, and Chambers (2019) and Chambers, Chambers, and Castro (2018) noted that having unfamiliar ingredients in products implied to consumers that the products were not natural. Chambers et al.…”

“…Chambers et al. (2019) specifically found in the United States of America that cricket powder was both unfamiliar (>50% of consumers) and was considered disgusting (∼10%).…”

The Importance Given to Food Naturalness Attributes by Millennial University Students

“…The multidimensionality of the importance of naturalness for consumers has been discussed by a number of scholars, who have identified a wide range of attributes used for measuring this concept [6,8,13,[32][33][34][35][36][37], leading to a lack of consensus about its definition [6].…”

“…It cannot be disregarded that present and future tendencies of food consumption are specified by what millennials value the most [1][2][3][4][5]. The importance of food naturalness for consumers and its impact on their behavior has been widely studied in the literature (e.g., [6][7][8][9]). Among others, previous studies have suggested attributes such as the absence of additives and the presence of natural ingredients [10,11], being unprocessed [12], or containing organically grown products [13].…”