72% of European consumers actively seek products that contribute to their physical and mental well -being, ”explains Cristina Pérez, expert in innovation and commerce of Kantar, in reference to the figures collected in the Global Study Monitor 2025 prepared by this firm. In Spain, this trend has also registered a growth of 18% in the purchase of products labeled as healthy between 2023 and 2024 Cares, Who Does? Food, as well as the natural formulas of cosmetics, which have doubled their penetration among the youngest consumers. The brands that best resist the test are, according to Pérez, those that “are moving from the product to the experience and purpose”. Tangible. More information Beatriz Santos, commercial director of Grupo Eroski, explains how the company has translated that emergency oriented to well -being in a market strategy, reinforcing its proposal “always linked to our three axes: competitive price, quality and closeness”. Nutritional online (Ekilibria), which has already served more than 31,000 users. In the words of Santos, the response of this company of the Mondragón Corporation articulates two trends that coincide with what is indicated by Cristina Pérez, of Kantar: transparency and convenience. Luxury.
Rely on science
For his part, Danone transfers to the industrial field the same convergence of the consumer towards health, but does so, according to his marketing vice president, Soledad Camacho, supporting the product, science and formats designed for day to day. «Health becomes intrinsic in people’s habits; specifically, we see that the interest in digestive health and the microbiota is shooting,» he says. More information of the brand combines three areas: reformulation, innovation and scientific alliances. «90% of our Porfolio in Spain is already composed of healthy products of daily consumption,» says Camacho. This development is based on an annual investment in R&D that is around 12 million euros, as well as an ecosystem of more than 1,700 scientists. In this sense, this dairy product company reinforces the credibility of its commitment to health with more than 180 studies and collaborations with scientific societies and universities; A strategy designed not to fall into the Healthwashing and offer a tangible differential advantage. PWC studies also detect new demand windows, highlighting, on the one hand, the supplement market, in which they have detected that 41% of consumers expect to buy more vitamins and accessories, reaching up to 51% in the case of generation Z. To such an extent that 5% already uses Weight, and about 40% of those who do not take them are willing to prove them. On the other hand, Roberto Fernández, partner responsible for retail and consumption of the firm, points to greater support of technology: “70% of consumers use at least one app or wearable health, with an average of three tools” per individual. In his opinion, this forces brands to adapt their channels and formats, emerging new roads-“such as delivery or subscriptions to Meal-Kits” (packages that include prepared ingredients and a recipe to cook a dish at home)-that reconfigure the relationship with the consumer. That they mitigate the price-salud tension, something that Fernández points out as the main brake through which many families have not joined the healthy car.
Ambivalent feeding
For Gerard Costa, professor at the Marketing Department of ESADE, the focus of the new consumption habits is in the social tension that is outside the triumphant story, explaining that the purchase is not only a matter of health, but a sum of occasions and contradictions. «Food in Spain is ambivalent and contradictory, very based on the occasion,» he says, and that forces brands to accept that the alternate consumer between the functional and the hedonistic.
In addition, Costa recalls that, despite the greatest awareness, only 30% of consumers actually maintain these habits in a sustained way. This without counting that 24% of households with children cannot even afford to go on vacation. This economic reality is the one that sets the limits: «The viable indulgence will be the one that respects the local price and context, not the universal aspirational,» he adds.
On the side of the companies, the risk of those products that seem healthy but are not. Its conclusion is that, in the face of this trend, companies must design an offer of “controlled indulgence”, designing proximity narratives and coherent portfolios – not only campaigns – that resist the day -to -day test.
