With more than 20 years’ experience as a distributor of speciality food ingredients and flavours for the world’s leading manufacturers and formulators, IMCD understands trends. These are the four key trends it sees unfolding today.
At IMCD, we know that understanding trends is the first step towards successful product development – because what’s trending informs and directs innovation, showing the way to potential business opportunities.
With our depth and length of experience, we are committed to solving your formulation challenges and creating healthy, convenient, and sustainable solutions that are consumer trend-led and exceed all expectations.
To showcase this commitment, IMCD releases an annual Trends Report.
In our recently released 2023 edition, our global team of food and nutrition experts identify the market dynamics that will shape the future of the industry, in the year ahead and beyond.
Trends develop in response to market drivers, and there are two major drivers that are expected to shape consumer behaviour around food and nutrition going forward.
The health of the planet is the number one concern for consumers around the world. The pandemic, coupled with the increasing digitalisation has prompted a greater consumer awareness of the environment and the health of the planet.
The second major driver is inflation, which has impacted consumers are every level over the past year.
Food prices have been rising at record rates in line with increasing energy and transportation costs.
Four-fifths (83 per cent) of consumers say they have noticed grocery price increases, resulting in more than half of all consumers (55 per cent) changing their shopping behaviours.
In our annual Trends Report, we focus on four megatrends shaping consumer behaviour and explain how, at IMCD, we support food innovators with our wide portfolio of ingredients and technical expertise.
Continue reading to get a sneak peak of the future of food and nutrition or download the full 2023 Trends Report from our website.
A Feast for the Senses
Food & Nutrition Australia, and
Texture & Nutrition category director
APAC.
These days, health-conscious consumers are redefining ‘indulgence’. It no longer has to mean gorging on rich or processed foods. Indulgence can be found in enjoying a diverse array of fresh flavours and healthy ingredients.
Pasquale Piscopo, IMCD general manager of Food & Nutrition Australia, and Texture & Nutrition category director APAC, says, “Consumers are wanting products that taste, smell, and look fantastic.
“They are becoming much more adventurous, trying new flavour combinations and importantly, the textural component of foods”.
For brands, now is the time to get creative with taste profiles and textural contrasts.
The key to success is not going too far, too fast.
Consumers love to explore global flavours like yuzu when paired with familiar, complementary favourites that offer a comforting sense of nostalgia, like lemon or red apple.
Generation health
The huge number of consumers who started to become more interested in health because of the risk of COVID-19 have had time to learn about healthy living and make progress towards their broader wellbeing goals.
Research shows that the average annual growth of food and beverage launches with ‘functional’ as part of the product name has risen steadily at 59 per cent year-over-year between 2016 and 2020.
Consumers seek out diverse benefits from their packaged and staple choices, including better hydration, improved energy, and immune support. They are also looking for support from brands that can offer personalised nutrition advice, recommending dietary and lifestyle changes as well as supplement products that are right for them as individuals.
Piscopo explains, “Personalised Nutrition is a fast-growing trend as consumers become increasingly aware of the importance of health and nutrition within the foods that they consume.
“Importantly they recognise their individual requirements and seek brands that offer solutions for their needs. With access to functional and nutritional products, IMCD can support the development of offerings in this space.”
Global clean label
Over time, how consumers define clean label – already an umbrella term – are getting broader and evolving. For brands this means clean label is a moving target that they need to follow closely as it begins to overlap with other concepts.
An Innova Market Insights report showed that in 2020 over a quarter of all new food and beverage launches featured a clean label claim, which included “GMO-free”, “natural”, “organic” and “no additives/preservatives”.
“Consumers actively seek retail food products that have a minimal range of ingredients on the pack or contain ingredients that they are familiar with.
“This trend has been steadily growing over the years as consumers seek more natural options, the challenge for the industry is to achieve this whilst still maintaining the eating quality and stability of the retail food product,” Piscopo says.
Growing Greener
Sustainability has become a mainstream consumer priority that’s here to stay, and this is reflected in the way we talk about what we eat.
With the increasing availability of plant-based products, consumers are now ‘veganising’ their food by recreating traditional dishes with animal-free natural ingredients such as pulses, fungi, herbs, and algae.
Besides sustainability reasons, the use of plant-based ingredients can lower fat and calorie content.
Market insights showed an increase of 35 per cent in products launched with plant-based claims between 2017 and 2022.
From a local perspective, Piscopo says, “Sustainability is a hot topic in the industry as consumers are increasingly aware of the impact food production has on our planet, they are seeking products and brands which have a more positive impact on the global environment, water usage and carbon footprint.”
He says that at IMCD Food and Nutrition, every challenge is seen as an opportunity to innovate.
Staying ahead in a competitive and crowded marketplace might seem difficult for upcoming food and drink brands, but as we demonstrate in our trends commentary, IMCD has plenty of ideas and concepts for developing consumer-friendly solutions in food and nutrition, and beyond.
Our global team of technical, sales, distribution, and marketing experts can help you find the right opportunities to innovate, and the best way for your business to grow.
Taste the future of food and nutrition with IMCD.
This story first appeared as the cover story in the April-May edition of Food & Drink Business magazine.
