Deep diving into consumer expectations of gut-health snacking.

Commissioned to completion in just 3 weeks.

While the wider gut health category is largely focused on the dairy aisle at present, The Gut Stuff are taking a different approach to digestive health within the dynamic functional snack bar category.

We wanted to better understand consumer expectations of a snack bar that promises gut health benefits, and whether The Gut Stuff product is able to meet them, as well as which unique sensory features help to communicate these functional benefits.

We wanted to arm The Gut Stuff with the data they needed to support and influence but-in at retailer meetings, so we conducted a Concept Product Test IHUT with 150 category buyers.

Consumers reviewed the concepts online, before testing the products over the course of a 7-day period. We also included our Sensory Portrait add-on, using MMR Research's sensory panels, to gain objective understanding of the alignment between the sensorial experience, product attributes and functional health benefits.

Consumers loved the concept and product!

Post-trial, for overall appeal and purchase intent, The Gut Stuff achieved parity with our wider sweet snack norms (a huge achievement within a challenging norms category that includes the likes of Snickers and Mars Bar!)

The Gut Stuff also outperformed a market leading brand when benchmarked against purchase intent, and after the 7-day trial a whopping 86% of consumers agreed that the product improved their gut health.

Sensory Portrait allowed us to delve deeper, highlighting how physical product attributes - such as dense texture and chunky fruit/nut inclusions - supported functional health benefits. It also uncovered opportunities to optimize and balance the flavor profile of some of the variants that weren't quite hitting the mark.

The Gut Stuff is doing a great job at delivering against consumer expectations and functional health benefits. This brand has a huge opportunity to push forward, outperform even more of the competition and become the next mainstream choice in consumers' gut health product repertoire. In 2025, The Gut Stuff secured listings in major UK stores including Tesco, Boots and Ocado.

Client quote: "Thank you so, so much. Such thorough, fantastic and useful data for a small brand like ours!" - Lisa Macfarlane, Founder & CEO, The Gut Stuff