Reducing Risks In Your Health and Business

How fitness can help your health and business

In the United States, health and fitness becomes a larger focus every year. One industry that people are particularly attracted to is that of Pilates and Yoga studios. This industry represents over a $7 Billion market.

People who practice Pilates and Yoga not only attend classes but also buy merchandise. In fact, there are four types of customers in this industry: those who attend a studio, a non-studio program, pay for a broadcast of a program, and those that perform programs on their own. This expands the market for these types of businesses because they can also sell merchandise, equipment and supplements also allowing them to reach a wide variety of customers.

Pilates is a type of exercise that brings: body awareness, a stronger core, and body control. Yoga stretches your muscles to help you feel less stiff or tired, stress reliever, lower cholesterol and triglyceride levels and better immune system function

Due to these health benefits, the demand for Pilates and Yoga will continue to increase as awareness of the health benefits and consumer benefits increase.In addition, there are low entry barriers to this market and low federal regulations of the operation of these type of businesses.

Rapid Expansion in the Health Food Market

Shift Towards a More Health Conscious Lifestyle

In the United States, the specialty food market is worth over $8 Billion. In fact, over half of the American population consumes specialty foods. The consumer market for these products ranges greatly with 60% of the consumers being between 18-44 years old. However, there is a visible change in consumers and the millennials are becoming the largest customer segment.

Recent studies show that 31% of Americans snack more than they used to. This is a direct reflection of American’s love of convenience, living a busier lifestyle, packaging innovations, and expended distribution. This new customer segment of millennials are also shifting their concerns more and more towards being health conscious. What better way to address this health concern and increase in snaking than through specialty snack foods?

In the United States, there are high regulations and tax on junk-food. This hurts the competition and opens a window for convenient health foods. One problem that these specialty foods face is that they are expensive and, as a result, are mostly bought by upper-middle class families. However, the benefits outshine this price concern and people are showing a willingness to pay a higher price for a higher quality good.

Healthy Living Made Easy 

Obesity and diabetes are epidemics in the United States. In the US, 166 million people are obese, 1.25 million people have type 1 diabetes and 19.85 million people have type 2 diabetes.

To help combat this massive problem, companies have started to develop apps as easy, convenient ways to track your overall health. Most of the mobile-health application users look for goal tracking and for warning of potential health issues.

In recent studies, it was recorded that 60%, roughly 135 million, American adults say that they try to track their diet or exercise. Of this 135 million people, 40 million use an app to do so. Total, 150 million American adults said that they could use a smartphone app to manage their health-related issues. One of these health issues is diabetes. However, only 4% of diabetics use diabetes management apps because they are unsatisfied with the current offering.

There is a lot of competition in the app industry. Forty percent of the top 100 apps on the global charts are less than one-year-old. Brand loyalty to apps is low because comparing similar apps is easy; so, being able to differentiate yourself is important because there are so many diet apps and they are virtually the same. Therefore, having strong brand awareness is crucial in the app market because people search for specific names, not general terms.

The market for health apps is booming. Millennials are focused on fitness while baby-boomers are focused on health. These are two giant segments that have barely been tapped. Consumers are constantly searching for that one app that can do more than the last and provide more accurate features. This is a window for app companies that can offer advanced technological offerings because there are not a lot of apps that are very accurate.

One of our clients, DietSensor, was recently awarded for their innovative technology in this industry. Be sure to check out their website!

Tea-ing Off Into America

Shift towards a healthier lifestyle opens the market for international companies looking to expand 

Health and wellness is quickly becoming more and more of a concern for people. One small step people are taking towards this healthier lifestyle is drinking more tea and less coffee. The gourmet coffee shop market has been steadily declining for the past five years. This provides a gap that needs to be filled and is being done so by the high quality tea market.

In the United States, over 22% of the population drinks tea. In general, tea consumption increased with age; however, this trend is shifting. The largest tea consumer groups are now urbanites and hipsters under the age of 34 years old. While women still consume more tea than men, this new consumer group in comprised of more men than women. This shows a shift in tea consumption and broadens the market.

Despite the US recession, the sales of tea did not slow down. Instead, the positioning encouraged consumers to learn more about what they were paying for. This led to the opening of boutiques and artisan teashops.

Premiumsation trends tend to anchor tea consumers to higher quality teas. Manufacturers use a health and wellness image of tea from exotic countries and use perceptions of high-end quality to justify these higher prices. The entry barriers for this market are quite low because of the low capital intensity of the market. Also, this market has risen close to 9% in the past four years. Companies need to leverage these health and wellness and premiumsation trends for added value.