Opinion: Fliss Newland
Fliss Newland looks at the future of confectionery and the need for sustainability and health to be embedded priorities for brands.
If you walk into any supermarket, the confectionery aisle tells a familiar story. It’s all bright packaging, brand mascots and the promise of sugar-fuelled fun. The industry has perfected this art to hook children on sweets; an engineered and deliberate move over 50-plus years.
Having spent nearly a decade inside one of the world’s largest confectionery businesses, Mondelez, I saw first-hand how carefully consumer habits were shaped. Bright colours and playful shapes weren’t just for fun – it’s all marketing. Recipes are optimized for good taste, yes, but also to ensure repeat cravings. The big guys have become experts at creating emotional bonds between children and brands before they’ve even started secondary school. The outcome becomes a generation raised on excess sugar, with parents left to navigate the guilt-versus-joy tightrope every time they shop.
But something I’ve noticed is that today’s parents are more informed than ever. Social media, documentaries, public figures, Google – they’ve enabled us to make our own judgements on what we should be giving our children. Today’s parents take things with a pinch of salt (or sugar in this case). They read labels and look up ingredients. They look beyond the amount of sugar in a product and think about the artificial additives and ‘better for you’ claims. I knew when creating Wild Thingz that the market was changing; there was a gap of parents waiting for organic, additive-free, lower sugar options. Research we ran with YouGov showed that 64% of parents feel reluctant to buy sweets because of these concerns. They want to say yes to their kids, but they don’t want to compromise on health. That makes a lot of sense to me.
Here’s the kicker. Low sugar isn’t a trend. It’s a structural shift in how we view food and wellbeing. Just as plant-based went from niche to mainstream in under a decade, reduced sugar and ‘better without the junk’ is now a permanent expectation. Parents aren’t looking for sweets that taste like cardboard. They just want treats that deliver joy without nasties and guilt (some big companies still include ingredients like talc, gelatine, palm oil, artificial flavours, colours and preservatives in their sweets).
“Here’s the kicker. Low sugar isn’t a trend. It’s a structural shift in how we view food and wellbeing. Just as plant-based went from niche to mainstream in under a decade, reduced sugar and ‘better without the junk’ is now a permanent expectation. ”
This is why big food companies are watching challenger brands closely. The truth is innovation rarely starts in the boardroom of a conglomerate. Having worked in those rooms, I know the challenge. Change is risky for them. Their recipes are known, loved and worth millions. A few grams less sugar might seem like progress internally, but to the outside world it looks like too little, too late. Smaller brands have the freedom to rip up the rulebook. That’s what drove me to launch Wild Thingz. I’d spent years helping build brands like Cadbury and Maynards Bassetts, but in 2016 a personal bet to go vegan opened my eyes to the disconnect between what we eat and what our planet needs. I became convinced that the future of food could be both fun and sustainable. Why should ‘better for you’ mean boring? Why should parents choose between joy and guilt? The confectionery category doesn’t need another bland option that screams ‘but don’t worry, we’re healthy!’. It needs treats that pass the parent test without losing the magic for kids. That’s what brands in this space should always look to create: moments of magic for children.
What we’re seeing is a quiet revolution. Big food is beginning to take note and mimic the innovations of smaller players; they know the tide is turning. Consumers aren’t passively accepting what they’re given anymore. They’re demanding transparency. For the natural brands community, this is an opportunity and a responsibility. We have the freedom to shape categories differently, to ensure that sustainability and health are embedded in the ethos of brands, not added to packaging as a false promise. But we also have to maintain the spark that makes food exciting. No one wants a childhood without treats. The confectionery industry may have historically hooked children on sugar, but as an insider-turned-challenger, I’ve seen both sides. The next decade of growth will be defined by who can deliver joy without compromise.
By Fliss Newland, founder, Wild Thingz