Contact person
Júlia Filbà
Business Unit Director / Member of the Mgmt. Board
IMPAG IBERIA, S.L.
The trends are varied and full of paradoxes: we have health versus pleasure, local versus global, traditional versus innovative. But from these contradictions, we can recognize four general themes.
- Globalization: Foods from around the world are becoming more popular, as are exotic flavors.
- Exquisiteness: Health benefits remain highly valued even in such indulgent products as soft drinks.
- Imperfect Perfection: Like people, foods are also meant to be less than perfect and perhaps even a bit provocative. This category includes products that are deliberately designed to be indulgent.
- Synergy of agriculture and technology: Healthy, affordable and sustainable: technological advances are helping.
The vulnerability of global supply chains
With increasing globalization, there are also crop failures, transportation bottlenecks and other global developments that increasingly impact local markets. Examples of how these challenges can be addressed include spice extracts replacing whole herbs and spices, cocoa-free chocolate alternatives or citrus fruits other than oranges.
Exquisiteness
Fullness of flavor, functionality and pleasure. Exquisiteness can be associated with mouthfeel and taste, as well as health benefits. Functional beverages are still on trend and will remain so for a long time to come. In addition to vitamins and minerals, there are, for example, acerola, guarana and mate extracts.
Taste is on everyone's lips:
Reducing sugar is another strategy to improve the nutritional value of foods and beverages.
Products with less sugar tend to have a watery, subdued taste. To counteract this, mouthfeel can be improved with soluble fibers, masking flavors, etc. When this is combined with a soluble protein for a high-protein claim, nothing stands in the way of a best-seller.
Flavor complexity with flavorings and fermented foods:
Taste complexity, can be influenced, for example, by mixing various flavors using even fermented foods.
Fermentation produces a large amount of aromatic active substances that give foods and beverages a full-bodied taste. The high content of short-chain aromatic metabolites from the microorganisms creates a greater complexity and intensity of flavor, which can even enhance the perception of other flavors.
The pronounced, full-bodied flavor of fermentation products can reduce the amount of added salt and thus the sodium content. In addition to fermentation products, salt substitutes can also be used flavors and flavor-enhancing extracts to reduce sodium.
Imperfect perfection: making unexpected combinations and breaking with tradition
Savory ingredients in sweet drinks?
Surprising flavor combinations can both mystify existing buyers and attract new ones, which goes a long way toward increasing a brand's popularity.
In addition to creating curious blends, other unspoken culinary rules can also be broken: breakfast at night, sweet drinks in the morning, or unexpected textures and trigeminal stimuli such as cooling, warming or tingling. The possibilities are endless.
Synergy of agriculture and technology: sustainable, efficient and healthy.
To optimize cost-effectiveness, it is necessary to operate in large quantities, both in agriculture and in manufacturing. Changing climatic conditions, unstable fertilizer and energy prices, etc., often lead to fluctuations in availability and price increases.
Beverage trends:
The beverage market is evolving rapidly and consumers are always eager to try new flavors. According to Mintel's “A Year of Innovation in Carbonated Beverages 2024” report, in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) there is an increasing focus on new taste experiences and health benefits:
- 59% of Brits (n=1515) said they are attracted to new flavors when trying new products.
- 24% of consumers in Germany (n=2000) are interested in beverages with health benefits (“better for you”).
These trends can also be observed to varying extents in other markets:
- For example, 47% of consumers in China (n=1000) indicated that they were interested in novel foods and associated flavors.
- In the USA, 31% of the 2,000 respondents said they were interested in the functional properties of soft drinks.
However, certain trends that have already become established in Switzerland can also be found in Latin America and Asia:
- 49% of consumers surveyed in China would prefer to buy beverages without artificial sweeteners (n=2839).
- At the same time, the number of sugar-free or low-sugar beverages has increased, especially in Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
