Baby food is an easily consumable soft food apart from breast milk that is specially manufactured to provide all the essential nutrients for infants and babies of up to two years of age. It is ready-to-cook or ready-made product that is easy to digest for the babies. With the rise in demand for organic baby foods, the global baby food product market is likely to witness notable growth.
Ideally, the babies are given homemade food in many developing and underdeveloped nations. Nevertheless, the rising urbanization and increasing awareness about baby foods are some of the factors altering the trend. This resultantly leads to the growth in the global baby food product market within the forecast period. With the change in lifestyles, packaged baby food is being adopted in many homes in various cultures and societies. Besides, growth in retail marketing and increasing awareness about the nutritional benefits of these foods is fueling the demand in the global market.
But, even though these packaged foods are high in nutritional value and highly organic, they are not quite affordable for every family across the globe. This is one of the key market hindrances in the development of the overall market. In addition, strict government regulations and quality norms by FDA restrict the global market growth further. In addition, various governments are raising awareness about breast-milk and home-cooked food for babies, which is another bottleneck for the market. However, the rising number of working mothers across the world is expected to support the growth in the global baby food product market.
The global baby food product market is broadly segmented into application, product type, and region. In terms of application, the market is divided into convenience stores, online retail, and hypermarkets/supermarkets. On the basis of product type, the global market is segregated into dried food, cereals, prepared food, milk formula, and frozen foods.
Geographically, the Asia Pacific region is estimated to lead the global baby food product market in the forthcoming years. This is attributed to the rising number of working women along with surging awareness about the nutritional benefits of baby foods in the region. In addition, an improved distribution process and a wider range of products are also supporting the market growth.
Nevertheless, Europe region is not far behind and is likely to follow the Asia Pacific market owing to a high number of product manufacturers and strict laws related to the food industry in the region. The players are also working to diversify their product portfolio with renewed supply chain networks to get a wider global reach, providing several opportunities for themselves across the world.
Some of the leading players in the global baby food product market are Groupe Danone, Nestle S.A., Abbott Laboratories, Kraft Heinz Company, Hain Celestial Group, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Morinaga Milk Industry Co. Ltd., Hero Group, and Cargill Inc. Recently, Danone in partnership with Meiji, a Japan-based company has launched the first of its kind formula milk in a pre-measured spoon format. It aims to make the milk preparing process simpler with precise nutrition.
