Philadelphia cream cheeses get more fruit & vegetables
For the first time in 17 years, Kraft’s Philadelphia brand has made significant changes to its cream cheese spreads, adding more fruits and vegetables than before. Citing growing interest among US consumers in finding out what’s in their food and seeking out products with more recognizable ingredients, the brand added more real fruits and vegetables to its leading sweet and savory spreads, including Strawberry, Garden Vegetable, Blueberry and Chive & Onion.
In addition to the product enhancements, all product packages are now stackable to prevent them from shifting on store shelves.
Cleaner labels appear to be the order of the day for the packaged food and beverage industry, topping ingredient supplier Univar’s list of 2014 trends. “Manufacturers are going for the cleanest labels they can get—taking out anything that sounds like a chemical and putting real food product in,” Charles Purcell, technical development specialist, told FoodNavigator-USA late last year.
While Philadelphia isn’t taking anything out of its cream cheese spreads, adding more of the so-called good stuff will likely curry favor with a similar consumer. Elsewhere, Kraft also recently pulled artificial colors from some of its mac & cheese products and removed artificial preservatives from certain Singles American cheese products.
