FEATURE | FIBER MOVEMENT
Fiber moves from niche claim to everyday expectation Get used to the term “fibermaxxing”
BY KEITH LORIA
“The recommended level of 28 grams of fiber per day is a really heavy lift because a serving of a vegetable or fruit may have two, at most three, grams of fiber.”
FIBER is having its moment. The term “Fibermaxxing” is all over social media, prebiotic beverages have made gut health a familiar selling point and fiber claims now stretch from cereal and tortillas to yogurt and snacks. Still, the opportunity for supermarkets is more nuanced than a rush toward added fiber. Recent Circana data show selective momentum rather than a broad sales surge. Fiber-claim products are generally growing in line with products without the claims. The one notable exception is breakfast, where fiber-claim products are up about 3% in dollar sales year to date even as the total breakfast segment has declined. The data showed that chia seeds and fiber-rich refrigerated fruit beverages are posting double-digit growth, while high-fi- ber claims are up 2% and products carrying
prebiotic or probiotic claims are up 4%. Sally Lyons Wyatt, global executive vice president and chief adviser for consumer goods and foodservice insights at Circana, compared that performance with the online conversation. “There is measurable retail movement, and it is mixed,” she said. “Online enthusi- asm is still running ahead of broad grocery penetration.” The interest nevertheless arrives against a persistent nutritional shortfall. Joanne Slavin, Ph.D., RDN, a professor at the Uni- versity of Minnesota’s College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences, studies fiber in public-health and prod- uct-development contexts. “The recommended level of 28 grams of fiber per day is a really heavy lift because a serving of a vegetable or fruit may have
two, at most three, grams of fiber,” she said. “The average person is only about halfway there.” From beverages to the whole store At The Save Mart Companies, functional beverages helped move gut health into the wellness conversation. Jessica Freels, direc- tor of center store, has since watched fiber show up across pasta, snacks, cereal, bread and protein bars. “The biggest shift isn’t product innova- tion,” she said. “It’s consumer expectation.” Lonnie Marshall, The Save Mart Com- panies’ director of frozen, dairy, deli and private label, noted Greek yogurt estab- lished a template for functional nutrition in dairy. Similar thinking now appears in frozen grain and bean bowls, riced
42 SUPERMARKETNEWS.COM SUMMER 2026
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