The Holistic Health Shopper: How food performance and wellness brands are formulating a lifestyle for consumers  

The start of this year marked a quiet revolution for supermarkets – FMCG brands have been propelled into the spotlight of food performance and wellness causing an overhaul of packaging, point‑of‑sale displays, and aisle markers. Customer-centric merchandising now means greeting shoppers who check packaging for protein grams, film or follow #Wellnesstok hacks, and reach for foods that boast elements from the periodic table. 

What the age of food performance and wellness truly means – that what we eat must do something measurable for mind or body, rather than just satisfy hunger and supermarkets are expected to fulfil wellness-related demands across aisles. Golley Slater term people who tap into this as ‘The Holistic Health Shopper’. To avoid being left behind, brands and retailers need to adapt their shopper marketing strategy in order to convey this messaging quicker than ever for our savvy, educated shoppers.  

What we’re seeing in stores 

While food performance and wellness has been somewhat important previously, 2025 marked a starker launch of new lines, rebrands and store experience. The likes M&S introduced the ‘Brain Food’ range, featuring distinctive product designs that immediately conveyed a connection to brain health. Meanwhile, retailers like Morrisons focused on health food, with aisle signs highlighting various benefit categories such as ‘calm & relaxation’ or ‘immunity & daily wellness’ alongside distinctive brands that resonate with these categories. 

The psychology behind it  

Brands are adapting to the idea that for consumers, holistic health and wellness is highly individual. While there are universal principles of a healthy lifestyle and diet, the priorities vary significantly based on personal needs. Consequently, brands have adapted packaging by recognising that being overly scientific on the properties of the product, such as labelling magnesium, protein, amino acids, probiotics, etc, doesn’t necessarily communicate the product benefits. The key to ending up in your target audience’s basket. This shift necessitates a new approach to food performance psychology, creating desirability that resonates with the consumer at the point of purchase. Simply switching ‘probiotics’ with ‘good for gut health’ adds a consumer use for the product.

Of course, our constant consumption of shortform content has drastically reduced attention spans, and factors such as ‘TikTok’ brain is seemingly reducing this further with Generation Alpha. Brands typically have 8 (generous) seconds before our attention spans demand something else of us (source). That’s 8 seconds to sell your product as a lifestyle enhancer – not a scientific equation to solve.

Again, take M&S’s Brain Food range, for example. The brain training apps market is projected to reach $56 billion by 2031(source), clearly indicating that consumers are prioritising brain health and are willing to invest in it, making M&S’ move one of relevancy and confidence in where their consumer spends. While packaging still lists key components of the product, the key purchase incentive is front and centre – ‘Brain Food’!

So, what do brands need to consider? 

Food performance and wellness is a necessity for a majority of grocery brands to leverage (not forgetting our furry friends) if not understand comprehensively as consumers become increasingly aware of their lifestyle choices and consume more education around their purchasing habits.

That’s why we’re creating a toolkit to guide brands through this now polished landscape in order to keep relevant and up to date with food performance and wellness demands. Here’s what’s to come from our Holistic Health Shopper instalments…