Consumers are turning away from products that make bold nutrition claims. Terms like “fat free,” “low calorie” and even “natural” no longer carry much weight as marketing messages. 

People’s interest in products touting those attributes has waned for many cultural reasons, including a lack of trust, more information about the importance of fat in a healthy diet and the realization that fewer calories does not necessarily mean better calories. Rather than watching fat and calories, shoppers now watch whether the calories they eat come from high-quality foods packed with nutrients. In many cases, they’re having fun doing it — learning to cook, or at least how certain foods are cooked, and experimenting with new dishes and flavors. 

This phenomenon is particularly visible in the organic sector, where higher prices keep consumers focused on which foods are worth the extra money. The answer is often nutrient-dense items: produce, dairy, eggs and meat. (People also view the conventional versions of those foods as most likely to contain harmful pesticides, added hormones and antibiotics.)

The quest for nutrients is part of a broader move toward food-based health and wellness. People are learning more about the building blocks of life — vitamins, minerals, proteins and fats — and how they can best get them. There’s also a growing interest in more esoteric nutrients, from omega-3 fatty acids to probiotics. The founders of a start-up company with the provocative name Soylent have taken this trend to an extreme, abandoning their technology focus to pursue the creation of a liquid meal they say has all the nutrients a person needs without any actual food.

Most consumers are looking for nutrients in whole foods. The list changes depending on which nutrients are “hot,” but a retailer can hardly go wrong by offering a wide array of fresh foods and healthy accompaniments. Some popular nutrient-dense products lately include yogurt, tree nuts, kale salad and quinoa.

Those ingredients and many others can be eaten for almost any occasion — quinoa porridge, yogurt on baked potatoes, kale salad for brunch — and retailers should not forget snacks. As snacks increasingly replace meals for some people, there’s a greater need for snacks that pack a nutritious punch. All of the same ingredients apply, but in the form of to-go cups, granola bars and so on for snacking convenience.

When considering promotion of nutrient-dense products, retailers should emphasize selections featuring whole-food ingredients. Sometimes those products will be obvious, having already become popular with high-end chefs and other tastemakers. Other times, retailers will be able to show shoppers something new in the expanding world of nutrient-dense food.