Need to increase trust in your health & wellbeing products? Think about quality certifications

The health & wellbeing category has been going from strength to strength, with growth rates that many other (food) categories will be envious of.

Consumers use sophisticated approaches to find wellness benefits and will pay a premium for a product that they believe in. It’s a world where trust is key. It is primarily built through personal experience and the influence of relevant people & experts. Unlocking this trust model is key for wellness brands [as opposed to OTC/medicine products] since wellness products can rarely make specific benefit claims [either due to food regs status or because small brands often cannot afford the budget to develop claims].

The challenge for manufacturers is to find innovative, but simple ways to share the evidence and science behind their products to maximise relevance and provide reassurance to consumers. Quality certifications – proof points that demonstrate your brand’s passion and commitment to go the extra mile - can be a relevant and credible means to do this.

The European Manuka Honey market can be used as a great example here: despite its well documented health and wellness properties consumers find it increasingly difficult in today’s crowded marketplace to differentiate between products in their search for authentic, genuine high-quality Manuka Honey.

Our European Comvita business faced this challenge

At Comvita we pride ourselves on the high-quality Manuka Honey we have produced for nearly 50 years. Our challenge was to help the consumer to see how this passion and quality makes Comvita one of only a handful of brands delivering best quality and authentic Manuka honey.

Our response?

We decided to look at our existing processes and the attention to detail we dedicate to the way our product is produced. We reminded ourselves that we already had an amazing internal quality process in place. It was not a marketing idea – but a fundamental product truth - and we know that wellness consumers love those. All our products undergo a unique set of tests in order to meet our ambitious standards. This is Comvita’s Triple Test Guarantee [TTG]. All we did was take the decision to share this quality process with the consumer via our TTG quality mark. It makes it easier for consumers to identify authentic Manuka Honey and it differentiates Comvita. The Comvita Triple Test Guarantee not only provides our consumer with the ultimate reassurance that they are purchasing a Manuka Honey product of the highest possible quality but is also a great tool to educate retailer staff around relevant quality criteria.

I suspect most passionate authentic producers/manufacturers have something in their process - a product truth - that reflects why they don’t do it like a big corporation – turning this into a quality certification is a great way to share this with the consumer and stand out from the crowd.

I’d appreciate people sharing examples of similar, simple steps wellness brands have taken to magnify their quality and authenticity.