4 Consumer Trends Impacting Food, Beverage & Pet Innovation
Sensient’s robust ingredient portfolio delights consumers across many different categories, exposing our marketers to the evolving yet enduring ways in which consumers flex their purchasing power. In turn, we share our marketing intelligence to spark and guide insight-driven conversations around product development. In doing so, the goal is to help brands uncover opportunities and get them to market quickly and efficiently.
Wellbeing 360°
Key Consumer Motivation: Wellness
Insight Summary: Enduring the pains of inflation and with a heightened awareness of nutrition, consumers are implementing proactive and preventative measures to holistically address their physical, emotional, financial, and social wellbeing.
Impact on product development
Natural and organic ingredients
Functional and nootropic ingredients
Plant-based alternatives
Veggie powders
Low/zero sugar and sodium
Cost-effective solutions and formulations
Insights in action
Source: Mintel
Sense of the Intense
Key Consumer Motivation: Experiences
Insight Summary: Hungry for adventure, consumers turn to food as a source of excitement, seeking out products that playfully immerse them into intensely bold experiences.
Impact on product development
Dare-to-try flavours and unexpected flavour mashups
Shareable, influencer-worthy visuals
Textural layers
Extreme sensory attributes, i.e., extra spicy or hot pink colour
Interactive elements like colour-changing, tongue-staining, etc.
Insights in action
Source: Mintel
Back to the past
Key Consumer Motivation: Experiences
Insight Summary: Yearning for security and familiarity, consumers search for products that enable them to emotionally escape to simpler times full of comfort, joy, and childhood nostalgia.
Impact on product development
Everlasting, traditional, family-favourite flavours
Seasonal staples and modernized twists on classics
Child-like inclusions and incorporations like cereal pieces
Decade and playful inspired launches, i.e., tie dye cookie or splatter paint cake mix
Insights in action
Source: Mintel
Culinary inclusion
Key Consumer Motivation: Identity
Insight Summary: To champion inclusion, consumers are navigating the food and beverage landscape in search of products that reflect and celebrate diverse backgrounds.
Impact on product development
Globally and culturally inspired taste profiles
Varietal fruit and vegetable flavours
Hyper-regional ingredient representations
Wide range of spices, seasonings, herbs, grains, and pulses
Distinctive colours and aromatics
Insights in action
Source: Mintel
With Sensient’s robust ingredient portfolio, we are uniquely positioned to help brands turn insights and ingredients into winning products on the shelf that delight consumers worldwide.
