A new book released this month is challenging the way we consumers view the "superfruits" that are on the market today and exposes the realities behind making a superfruit "brand". Those fruits which are held up to be more nutritionally valuable than others, such as acai berries, blueberries and pomegranates are actually just marketed in very effective ways, according to Karl Crawford and Julian Mellentin, authors of Successful Superfruit Strategy - How to build a superfruit business.

Rather than relying on the fruits' overwhelming nutritional benefits, superfruit manufacturers are using the right combination of health, science and marketing – giving them exponential growth within a dwindling fruit market.

Superfruit market beats all the rest
While the sales of seasonal fruit such as apples and pears are actually falling, the superfruit market is experiencing growth of 40-100%, and crucially, we pay around 20 times more for superfruit products than we do for conventional juice such as apple or orange. It appears that shoppers are validating the market in superfruits and Mellentin, a food industry analyst and consultant, believes it's all down to the consumer's wish to cure themselves through food.

"You're talking about niche products that sell at very high premiums in relatively low volumes. They reflect the diversity of consumer demand for functional foods, therefore there needs to be a large number of them, just as there are a large number of health and wellbeing issues consumers want to target through their diet."

Scepticism about over-hyped products
The term superfruit was created in the US in the mid-1990s, to give a name to those fruits that have outstanding nutritional and antioxidising qualities. However, the over-use of the term has caused some scepticism as to the quality of many products. Superfruit juices made from concentrate, or those that include lots of sugar and "filler juices" such as apple or grape, make superfruit products seem nutritionally weaker than we first imagined.

With the kind of growth the industry has been experiencing, beverage multinationals such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Cadbury Schweppes are eyeing the superfruit beverage market as a lucrative opportunity. Although, one has to wonder how much this will dilute the market with even more dishonest practice.

EU to the rescue
One piece of EU legislation that will certainly help tackle the misrepresentation of health benefits is the EU Health Claims Regulation which requires businesses to provide scientific proof of any claimed health benefits associated with its products. The opinion of market analysts Frost & Sullivan is that "market participants take responsibility for reducing the ambiguity of these producst and communicate the right scientific message to consumers, enabling them to make informed decisions." That sounds like a pretty ideal situation to me.