Spin City

The increasingly popular trend toward organic foods is making its way into fair fare. The Bernod Group has launched its SpunCity brand of certified organic cotton candy.

Labeling the product as “the first nearly guilt-free indulgence of its kind to ever be produced and distributed in the U.S.,” the company notes SpunCity will initially be available in southern California in a grape flavor. The 1oz, ready-to-eat packages are for home use, and the treat is vegan and produced without “chemicals, dyes, pesticides, cholesterol or sodium.”

Furthermore, the product will be available in natural food stores, and the company notes a growing interest among retailers in spinning their own organic cotton candy at retail. In response, Bernod Group is introducing a 1.5lb SpunCity Foodservice pack.

Choose Life

PepsiCo has an-nounced its latest entry in the enhanced water category. SoBe Life Water boasts “a bold packaging look” and five flavors: blackberry grape, pomegranate cherry, orange tangerine, strawberry kiwi and passionfruit citrus.

Each is infused with a mix of antioxidant vitamins C and E, essential B vitamins and healthy herbal ingredients. The product’s marketing campaign, which debuted during this year’s Super Bowl, attempts to capitalize on the 25th anniversary of the album Thriller with the concept of Thrillicious.

The company explains that the water has been infused with natural herbs to give each flavor a unique benefit that will better help consumers meet their needs in life. Furthermore, the developers replaced crystalline fructose with sucrose, which the company says helped reduce calories by 20%.

Plum Crazy

Sunsweet Growers Inc. has launched PlumSmart Light, which it claims is “a lower-calorie version of the popular digestive health beverage.” Each glass of the plum juice has 3g of fiber; the American Dietetic Association recommends healthy adults consume a minimum of 20-35g of fiber per day.

Furthermore, the company notes, PlumSmart Light is made from all-natural plum juice containing such nutrients as magnesium and potassium that “work together to maintain a healthy digestive tract.” The company is positioning the product strongly toward the diabetic audience.

More than 21 million Americans over the age of 20 have diabetes, reports the National Institutes of Health, and 50% of general consumers would like to reduce the amount of sugar in their diets. In addition, the company estimates nearly 70 million Americans suffer from digestive diseases, part of the reasoning behind the description of the juice as a “digestive health beverage.”

Level-minded

A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) finds U.S. obesity rates have leveled off. While more than 34% of U.S. adults over the age of 20 do fall into that category, that number has not measurably increased in the past few years.

Between 1999 and 2006, obesity levels in men did increase. However, when considering a more-recent span of years (from 2003-2006), the study finds “no significant change in obesity prevalence for either men or women.”

"Since 1999, there appears to have been a leveling off in obesity among women, but the trend is less clear among men. We do know, however, that the gap between men and women has narrowed in recent years, with men catching up to the higher rates among women," said Cynthia Ogden, a CDC researcher and lead author of the study.