Lotte Members said on the 19th that roughly three in 10 consumers bought at least one "zero" food product with reduced sugar over the past year.
The share of consumers who bought zero-sugar or zero-calorie food products came to 29.3% between September last year and August this year, according to Lotte Members' L.Point Trend Report. That is up 3 percentage points from 26.3% two years earlier. Zero products also accounted for 6.8% of sales during the period, up from 5.8%.
Zero foods are products marketed as "zero sugar" or "zero calorie" after cutting sugar or calories. Among all customers who bought zero products over the past year, those in their 20s made up the largest group at 42%, followed by people in their 30s at 27% and teenagers at 19%.
Carbonated drinks were the biggest category, accounting for 42% of zero products sold over the past year. The data also showed consumption spreading to a wider range of items. Zero products made up 30.0% of pudding and jelly sales, up 26.9 percentage points from two years earlier, and 15.0% of hangover-relief product sales, up 11.8 percentage points.
As zero-food consumption expands into more categories, consumers also showed a preference for zero versions of established products. Among carbonated drinks, zero versions based on existing brands sold about five times as many units per item on average as newly created zero products. Pudding and jelly and coffee and tea drinks showed a gap of about three times.
A Lotte Members official said the data captured how the zero market is growing around consumers in their 20s and 30s and undergoing structural changes, including diversification of product categories and a preference for original brands.