In the UK alone, 28% of consumers changed their diets in the past year, the highest rate in Europe.[1] From-scratch cooking has become common practice, driven by a desire to avoid artificial ingredients and over-processed options.[2]
Yet a persistent gap remains between dietary ideals and daily reality. 95% of UK adults still don’t consume enough wholegrains, with nearly one in three getting none at all. Meanwhile, 76-78% express concern about ultra-processed foods, and 19 million UK adults now actively avoid UPFs, a 15% increase year-on-year.
While consumers embrace simplicity at home, they still rely on packaged goods that must survive supply chains, maintain consistent quality, and remain affordable. But how are crop-based functional ingredients reshaping what’s possible in clean label formulation?
Understanding the Market Shift: UK Consumer Demands
What is a Whole Food Diet?
A whole food diet emphasises ingredients in their most natural, minimally processed form. This includes wholegrains, fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and seeds; foods that are recognisable and close to their original state. The whole food, plant-based (WFPB) movement takes this further, focusing on plant-derived foods while minimising or eliminating animal products and highly refined ingredients.
This approach aligns with broader dietary shifts, with scratch cooking gaining significant traction as consumers seek greater control over ingredients, avoiding artificial ingredients and over-processed options while gaining transparency about what they consume.
Market Forces Driving Change
Three converging pressures are reshaping ingredient strategies across UK and European manufacturers:
One, UPF concerns about “hidden” ingredients in complex labelling is affecting purchasing decisions across more than half of European consumers.[3] A growing belief that too many added ingredients compromise health.[4]
Second, consumer scrutiny is intensifying the clean label shift from niche positioning to mainstream portfolio strategy across European manufacturers.[3] Half of European consumers now pay closer attention to ingredient listings, primarily to avoid unwanted additives and seek beneficial ones. The result? Nearly two-thirds say free-from claims directly influence purchasing decisions.[3]
And third, the price of simplicity, consumers understand that mass-produced goods differ from home cooking, but they’re less accepting of reformulations that feel deceptive. While 68% say it’s important that food and drink are 100% natural, only 59% actually believe this claim is achievable.3
The Wholegrain Challenge
The persistent gap in wholegrain consumption illustrates the broader challenge manufacturers face. The British Dietetic Association’s advice is straightforward: swap white bread for wholemeal, white rice for brown. Yet the 95% failure rate suggests this isn’t simply a consumer education issue.
Wholegrain products face genuine technical barriers. Without functional support, wholegrain bakery often suffers from density, poor volume, and rapid staling. And brown rice products may have texture issues. Wholegrain formulations can compromise shelf life. These aren’t trivial concerns, but rather the reasons consumers buy a wholegrain product once, then return to refined alternatives.
The challenge extends beyond wholegrains to all health-focused reformulation. Manufacturers must deliver nutritional improvements without sacrificing the taste, texture, and convenience that drive repeat purchase.
Technical Innovation: Functional Whole-Food Alternatives
The food industry’s response lies in replacing synthetic or chemically modified ingredients with highly functional, crop-based alternatives. This is achieved through specialised physical processing of natural crops to isolate and enhance their intrinsic functional properties – not through chemical modification.
This distinction matters. When consumers see “pea protein” or “tapioca starch” on a label, they recognise the crop origin. What may not be that clear is that functional ingredient specialists have developed processing techniques that unlock performance capabilities these crops naturally possess.
Key Replacement Strategies
Modern clean label innovation focuses on matching, and often exceeding, the performance of synthetic ingredients while maintaining crop-based declarations:
Phosphate Replacers: In meat and fish applications, ezimoist™ ingredients derived from tapioca, maize, or potato starches enhance yield, succulence, and water binding. These crop-based alternatives deliver the moisture retention and texture improvement that processing requires, without phosphate declarations that concern consumers.
Modified Starch and Chemical Stabilisers: Sauces, fillings, and ready meals demand consistent texture and stability through freeze-thaw cycles. synergie™ functional starches from tapioca, maize, or wheat provide superior thickening, gelling, and stability. The processing is physical, not chemical, maintaining the clean label credentials consumers seek.
Refined Sugars: Sugar reduction remains a priority, but cutting sugar typically compromises volume, texture, and mouthfeel. avanté™ high-functionality carbohydrates maintain these critical attributes while enabling significant sugar reduction. The result: better nutritional profiles without sacrificing sensory appeal.
Synthetic Binders: Plant-based meat alternatives face particular challenges around structure and binding. complex™ proteins and flours from wheat, pea or faba bean provide structure, binding, and protein fortification, replacing synthetic options like methylcellulose while delivering recognised ingredient declarations.
The Role of ‘Intrinsic’ Functionality
The innovation centres on using crops’ intrinsic properties rather than adding foreign substances. Consider two examples:
scilia™ ingredients use oat or pea fibre not simply for bulking, but for superior water binding and moisture retention. This addresses both the technical requirement (shelf life, texture) and the nutritional opportunity that products can achieve ‘High in Fibre’ claims while meeting consumer demands for recognisable ingredients.
fazenda™ flours from crops like tapioca, wheat, or chickpea provide crucial structure, softness, and volume control. In challenging applications like wholegrain and gluten-free bakery, where achieving acceptable texture without functional support proves difficult, these solutions enable manufacturers to deliver the performance consumers expect. The declaration remains straightforward: flour.
This approach aligns with consumer expectations. When asked what “natural” means, 70% of consumers specifically mention freedom from synthetic ingredients. Physical processing of recognised crops delivers exactly this: functionality without synthetic declarations3.
Partnering for a Transparent Future
The convergence of whole food dietary trends and clean label demands isn’t temporary. With 62% of consumers saying free-from claims influence purchasing decisions, manufacturers face sustained pressure to reformulate while maintaining product performance.3
The challenge of achieving whole food principles at production scale requires specialised technical expertise. Crop-based functional ingredients enable manufacturers to simplify labels, meet rising consumer expectations, and maintain the quality, safety, and shelf stability that modern supply chains require.
This isn’t about compromising between consumer preferences and manufacturing requirements, but instead about solutions that serve both. As clean label becomes the expected standard rather than premium positioning, the advantage goes to manufacturers who can demonstrate genuine ingredient innovation grounded in crop-based functionality.
Get in touch with our experts to discuss how functional, crop-based ingredients can simplify your labels while meeting the growing demand for products that honour whole food principles.
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[1] Innova Market Insights: Category Drivers in the UK, Sept 2025.
[2] Innova Top Trends, 2024.
[3] European consumer trend data from FMCG Gurus Clean Label and Whole Food research, 2025
[4] AHDB: Consumer concerns around ultra-processed foods gaining traction, May 2025
