You’ve been working, creating and building a food and drink business so you’d know that being across the latest food and drink trends can be the difference between having an impact or being irrelevant – but it’s hard.
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How do you stay on top of trends when you are knee deep in your operation? How do you keep abreast of what the competition is doing?
Females in Food has partnered with food and beverage ingredients company Directus to bring you six core global food and drink trends to make it easier for you, the makers, bakers and creators to stay ahead of what’s trending internationally.
1. Health & Nutrition:
Humans have increased their health and wellbeing targets by treating their bodies like an ecosystem. According to Mintel, 55% of Polish consumers aged 55+ use functional food and drink to maintain a healthy heart whereas 35% of Chinese juice consumers (20-49) would be interested in packaged juices that have anti-aging benefits. Sugar reduction, mindful drinking, probiotics, prebiotics, superfood and functional ingredients will take more of a centre stage in 2019. Plant based food is also becoming very popular especially with the millennials. 50% of the US consumers reported that health is a reason for buying alternatives for bread, meat or dairy.
Global sales of probiotic foods are also expected to grow with a CAGR of +8% to hit US $50 billion by 2021. Fermented Foods contain necessary enzymes, omega 3 fatty acids and probiotics and have been very popular for digestive health.
2. Sugar Reduction:
Some companies have already started their voluntary sugar reduction initiatives around the world. Lidl has started 20% reduction of sugar and salt in own brand products by 2025. Cologne based retailer group Rewe had a very interesting marketing strategy in 2018. They offered consumers samples of their private label chocolate dessert with the original recipe and content of sugar and 3 other samples with 20%, 30% and 40% less sugar than the original recipe. They then asked the consumer to vote on the right amount of sugar for their taste.
3. Naturalness:
As consumers shift away from artificial ingredients the natural trend is still driving growth. 91% of US adult consumers will not buy a supplement if it is labelled as synthetic and 82% of consumers in Chile say it is important that groceries are 100% natural.
Untreated, clean label, minimally processed, organic, no additives, botanical extracts are all buzz words in this category.
4. Individualization:
The idea that each person is unique and have unique nutritional needs is becoming more and more accepted. According to Mintel, 34% of Chinese consumers say that the word “individuality” defines luxury and 42% of UK consumers would be interested in a personalised diet based on their DNA.
Lifestyle diets such as paleo, flexitarian and veganism is increasingly turning into lifestyle philosophies. Customisable product solution attracts health conscious consumers as well as the social media community. OME Health is a DNA based health coaching programme who provides consumers with personalised nutrition. Care/Of is another US based company who are providing consumers with a personalised experience by offering fully personalised vitamin packs.
5. Convenience:
Time poor consumers are expecting more and more time-saving and healthy convenient solutions. According to Mintel, 15% of UK adults eat breakfast at work or on-the-go, whereas 27% of US consumers agree it takes too much time to prepare healthy food.
Frozen foods, grab and go breakfast, meal kits, quick snacks, functional shots, single serve and Uber eats are all moving to become more mainstream.
43% of US millennials said they bought more frozen foods compared to last year and 44% of global consumers snack more than once a day.
The meal replacement category will continue to grow as consumers are becoming more and more time poor.
6. Digitization and Technology:
More and more consumers increasingly live their lives through smartphone screens. 67% of the consumers in UAE use mobile apps to look up nutritional information (webrooming). 62% of young adults in the US (18-22) say they find culinary inspiration from social media to cook international foods and 23% of US consumers would trust artificial intelligence to plan their meals or purchase their groceries.
Social media, mobile apps, Instagram stories, drone delivery, food bloggers and e-commerce are all trending in this space.
It has become more and more important that food and beverage businesses tell stories and becomes more “Instagramable”. Unicorn under the rainbow and pink flamingos was the social hype in 2018. Last year #unicorn had over 10 million posts, #flamingo had over 3 million posts and #mermaid had over 9 million posts.
Keeping on top of global trends is hard when you’re a small business so that’s why at Females in Food we help you to understand what is happening around the world.