Consumers are interested in exciting flavor combinations, especially those that they learn about on social media.
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Consumer research company Innovation Market Insights released its top 10 trends for the food and beverage industry for the year 2025. These trends give insight into the upcoming year for consumer-packaged foods in the food and beverage space.
Report Highlights
- Ingredients and Beyond - Elevating Standards: Consumers are seeking ingredients with elevated features, such as health benefits, nutrition, and naturalness.
- Health - Precision Wellness: Women’s health, weight management, mood support, and performance are among the key growth areas in precision wellness.
- Flavors - Wildly Inventive: Consumers are interested in exciting flavor combinations, especially those that they learn about on social media.
- Gut Health - Flourish from Within: Digestive and gut health are the top drivers of purchases of functional food and beverage products.
- Plant-based - Rethinking Plants: Consumers are not satisfied with today’s plant-based offerings and want choices that are less processed, more natural, and have better taste and texture.
- Sustainability - Adapting to Change: Consumers are extremely aware of climate change and say they are open to climate-related actions, such as sustainable farming practices, climate resilient crops, and novel crop cultivation technologies.
- Beauty Food - Taste the Glow: Ingredients like collagen and vitamins are attracting attention from both manufacturers and consumers.
- Food Culture - Tradition Reinvented: This trend describes reinventing tradition in food culture to honor authenticity and heritage.
- Mood Food - Mindful Choices: Consumer concerns about mental health have impacted product innovation trends over the past several years.
- AI - Bytes to Bites: AI is growing in use as a tool for speeding up product innovation, identifying ingredients, developing formulations, creating flavors, and protecting food safety.
“As key trends evolve throughout the year, brands can anticipate shifts that align with changing consumer desires,” the report states. “In the ‘Ingredients and Beyond’ trend, product quality is important, with consumers prioritizing freshness, ingredient sourcing, health benefits, and nutritional content. To build trust and transparency, manufacturers should focus on these areas.”
