People want to live healthier lives, and consumer good companies are responding to these demands to keep and gain market share and profit margins. Consumer product firms reformulated over 180,000 consumer products in 2016 for in response to consumers’ health and wellness wishes, based on data collected by Deloitte for The Consumer Goods Forum project (CGF) and published in The CGF Health & Wellness Progress Report.

The CGF is an industry network of some 400 consumer goods, retail, and service companies supporting the global adoption of standards and practices. This Report focused on the CGF members’ progress toward health and wellness goals that include the making of healthy products and services; providing product information and responsible marketing; and. communicating and educating about healthier diets and lifestyles.

This year, progress was made among food and beverage companies who targeted removing sodium and sugar in products, and adding in vitamins and whole grains. For personal care companies, removing parabens was the top goal in re-making products.

Although health and wellness improvements are advancing among the companies, the major public health challenges of the growth of non-communicable diseases and obesity continue to pervade economies around the world. The CGF embraces a vision of “a culture of prevention,” which will require collaborative, ecosystem-wide approaches to achieve it.

Health Populi’s Hot Points: The logos on the second chart represent members of the CGF, including food and beverage, personal care, hygiene, and retail sectors.

Consumers the world over seek health engagement well beyond health care: financial wellness, mental and emotional health, and appearance all play into peoples’ perceptions of integrated self-health. So L’Oreal is a member of the CGF, and well understands the role that personal appearance plays in holistic health. L’Oreal exhibited at CES 2017 in Las Vegas earlier this year, featuring a smart hairbrush as part of a wellness strategy.

M&S, the retailer (once known in full as “Marks & Spencer”), recently launched a Frazzled Cafe’s in eleven stores to promote positive mental health, partnering with British writer and comic Ruby Wax on the project.

In addition to launching the Well Yes! brand of healthier soups, Campbell’s recently invested $32 mm in Habit, a data-driven nutrition company, to extend the food manufacturer’s knowledge of and reach to health-minded consumers. You probably know who Campbell’s is from your childhood canned-chicken-noodle-soup-eating days. You may not know Habit, which bills itself as a personalized nutrition solution, “from test to table™.”Here’s a video about the effort…

The Well Yes! brand and Campbell’s soup have to channel through grocers, so Ahold Delhaize, another CGF member, offers programs in stores to help consumers develop healthy shopping habits and healthier eating styles.

Consumers seeking health know that health is everywhere. Consumer goods companies and the stores that channel their products are trusted for health engagement. Healthcare industry players (hospitals, providers, suppliers, health plans) be aware: the food-as-medicine movement is taking hold in consumers globally. People would much rather shop and eat than fill a prescription drug or go to a doctor’s visit. This requires an ecosystem vision of health, moving back to prevention and wellness — what Dr. Daniel Kraft has called Stage Zero Medicine.