Fermented foods: availability, cost, ingredients, nutritional content and on-pack claims.

Abstract

INTRODUCTION\nFermented foods have been consumed for millennia and commercially-produced variants are now available in the food supply. The aim was to investigate the availability, cost, ingredients, nutritional content and on-pack claims of commercially-available fermented foods in the United Kingdom (UK).\n\n\nMETHODS\nAll products from seven categories of commercially-available fermented foods were systematically identified at eight national supermarket chains in the UK. Data were extracted from manufacturer and retailer websites and were compared between categories using Kruskal-Wallis test and Fisher s exact test.\n\n\nRESULTS\nA total of 143 fermented foods were identified, with kombucha (41, 28.7%), kefir drinks (32, 22.4%), sauerkraut (22, 15.4%) and kefir yoghurts (21, 14.7%) being most common. The number of products sold at each retailer differed between categories (P=0.016), and was greatest for kefir drink (median 7.0, IQR 9.0), kombucha (5.5, 11.5) and kefir yoghurts (5.0, 8.5). Kombucha (£1.99/serving) and kefir drinks (£1.26/serving) were the most expensive fermented foods and sauerkraut (£0.66/serving) and miso (£0.20/serving) the least expensive. Energy, fat, saturated fat, sugar, protein and salt content varied between fermented foods (P<0.001). Nutrition claims were made on 72 (50.3%) products, the total number of cultures was labelled on 29 (20.3%), specific strains were named on 53 (37.1%) and bacteria-related benefits were promoted on 39 (27.3%) products.\n\n\nCONCLUSIONS\nCommercially-produced fermented foods are widely available in the UK, but are diverse in their cost, nutritional content, ingredients and use of on-pack claims. Consumers should be aware of these variations given limited evidence of functional benefits from controlled human trials.