Three Major Global F&B Market Trends

FrieslandCampina Ingredients has identified three major global food and beverage market trends in the brand new 2019-2020 trend report, which enable companies to understand consumers’ needs.

The unique market insights are the accumulation of a big data analysis of consumers’ online behavior, combined with FrieslandCampina Ingredients’ experts’ market insights and complemented with additional owned and bought market studies.

The report identifies the need for:

– experiences engaging all senses,

– conscious indulgence, and

– personalize it yourself conveniently.

1. Experiences engaging all senses

Experiences engaging all senses is a trend that describes the consumers’ need for moments of indulgence, tingling more than just the taste buds. Today’s and tomorrow’s menus need to not only taste delicious, but they also need to look good, smell good, and even sound good, offering a multi-sensory experience that will be remembered – FrieslandCampina Ingredients explains.

2. Conscious indulgence

The craving for conscious indulgence trend denotes the rapidly growing number of consumers who are making increasingly conscious choices when it comes to food and beverages. Looking at food and beverage packaging, they search for ingredients that are, for example, more sustainably produced, healthier or offer more variation. Food and beverages still need to be delicious and indulgent in taste but, at the same time, they are appreciated more if the experience comes with additional peace of mind for being a responsible treat – the experts from the ingredient supplier company say.

3. Personalize it yourself conveniently

People across the world are looking for indulgence with a personal signature, a way to personalize their food or beverage with a delightful trait. “Personalize it yourself conveniently” also comes from the growing number of people who enjoy home style or semi-professional baking, brewing or “barista-ing” and look for easy decoration or taste-tweaking options.

DIY Doughnuts are a perfect example of people’s desire to personalize their food.

“To leverage one or more of these trends, a close collaboration between manufacturers and their ingredients partners is required. Manufacturers are able to jump quickly on the trends and win in the market when ingredient partners already have appealing trend-based concepts ready as well as the ingredients that perform in these concepts,” says Anneke van de Geijn, global marketing director at FrieslandCampina Ingredients Food & Beverages.

“Brands that are able to work together with the entire supply chain will be the ones that optimally leverage especially the conscious indulgence trend. When addressing the trend of multisensorial experiences, it is important for manufacturers to partner up with an ingredient supplier with strong sensory capabilities. And personalization requires that ingredient manufacturers deliver versatile ingredients that mix & match with a variety of other ingredients,” she added.

With food and beverage brands looking at global markets, understanding local nuances and preferences is also crucial. These nuances may mean the difference between winning the market and just missing the virality tipping point. “Although the trends take place on a global level, there may be local differences in the way these trends take shape. For example, European consumers may be looking for vegan-friendly options, whereas consumers in Asia may be looking for authentic dairy products as part of their quest for consciousness,” says Anneke van de Geijn.

The focus on the report has been on relevant trends in the coffee, (milk) tea, cakes, bakery and pastry, desserts and ice cream industries.