Vitamin D content of products recently launched on to the marketplace – findings from the MINTEL Global New Products Database

Vitamin D deficiency is a cause for concern among the UK population, with many failing to achieve the recommended daily amount of 10µg/day (1) . Sunlight exposure is not sufficient in the UK to maintain year-round vitamin D status so therefore the population rely heavily on dietary sources, including fortified foods (2) . In the absence of standardised and/or mandatory vitamin D fortification policies in many countries (3) , such products often contain variable amounts of vitamin D (4) , however this has not been investigated to-date on a global scale. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore the vitamin D content of newly launched products worldwide over a 5-year period. Data were extracted from Mintel’s Global New Product Database across all regions. Search criteria were filtered by nutrient and/or ingredient, to only include products launched from December 2018 to December 2023, and containing >0.1µg vitamin D per 100g/ml. Of the total 2,963 products identified, 608 were excluded owing to missing data, resulting in 2,355 products included in the final dataset for analysis. Vitamin D content was quantified as µg per100g/ml (µg = IU/40, when required). Data were compared by food category (n = 12) and between branded vs private label (own-brand) products, using ANOVA (with Tukey post-hoc tests) and independent samples t-tests, respectively. The overall mean ± SD vitamin D content of newly launched products was 12.5 ± 71.2 µg per 100g/ml (range: 0.01-2380 µg per100g/ml). By category, the mean ± SD vitamin D content of products (µg per100g/ml) were as follows: baby food (7.1 ± 20.3), bakery (210.4 ± 683.3), breakfast cereals (9.4 ± 21.2), chocolate confectionary (134.4 ± 135.1), dairy (6.0 ± 23.7), desserts and ice cream (1.8 ± 2.1), rice and noodles (4.4 ± 0.1), processed meat and fish (20.9 ± 39.0), sauces and seasonings (39.3 ± 123.5), snacks (6.7 ± 9.3), sugar confectionary (101.4 ± 90.9) and sweet spreads (56.7 ± 95.5). Products in the bakery, chocolate confectionary and sugar and gum confectionary categories had a significantly higher vitamin D content per 100g/ml, compared to all other categories. In the total dataset, branded products (n = 2832; 96%) had a significantly higher vitamin D content than private label products (n = 131; 4%) (12.7 ± 72.5 vs. 6.1 ± 11.3 µg per 100g/ml, respectively; P<0.001). This preliminary analysis has demonstrated a wide range in the vitamin D content of newly launched products worldwide, which varies significantly between food categories and is higher in branded compared to private label products. Future research using this dataset will explore changes over time, as well as regional differences in the vitamin D content of new products, both between and within the different categories. Such evidence may help to inform future new product development opportunities and vitamin D fortification policies.