SugarCreek: Brandworthy Food Solutions

Technology has revolutionized the warehouse, connecting the supply chain on levels that hadn't ever been considered even a few short years ago. It has also dramatically altered the supply and demand landscape outside of the warehouse walls, speeding up product cycles and popularity spikes. Customers now discuss and engage with brands and one another on social media and through mobile devices on the go. This means that in order to properly leverage opportunities, a food supply chain must be poised and ready to move, and it can't do that without transparency.

“Food has always been expressive of identity,” wrote John Lanchester, British journalist and gourmand. It’s about who we want to be, and how we want to live. Food fashions and trends encourage us to choose who we want to be. Today, consumers want food to be fresh, local, and sustainable. They want “clean” and healthy ingredients: No more trans fats. No more hormones and antibiotics. Hold the aspartame and artificial caramel colorings, please. Food industry trends point to a healthier, cleaner approach to eating. And the big brands, the titans of the food industry—companies like Campbell’s, Kraft, McDonalds, and Panera—are taking notice.

In the past, traditional pizza marketing has often favored the adolescent and young adult niches. Advertisements in this industry typically focus on indulgence, with stuffed crusts and an over-abundance of cheese taking center stage. However, food industry research indicates that consumers are growing tired of this approach as food industry trends continue to shift away from extravagance. To keep your pizza chain competitive, consider incorporating flatbread into your menu.

Food fads like local eating and farm-to-table may seem like niche interests that only apply to a small group of young adult consumers or foodies. But, brands like Chipotle and Panera have seen skyrocketing popularity—enough, in fact to help Chipotle, at least, weather a major food safety incident—after embracing this and other all-natural trends. It has become clear: If you’re in the food industry, you need to be paying attention.

There's a lot of evidence that the greater interest in where the food we eat comes from has passed from fad to become a fixture in consumers' buying habits.

It’s long been said that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and it turns out this adage couldn’t be more right. New research has suggested that people who skip breakfast are nearly 5% more likely to overeat at lunch, and the foods they choose are more likely to be unhealthy. It won’t be long until health-conscious consumers take these findings to heart, and we begin to see new breakfasting habits emerge.

When it comes to food industry trends, bacon is one that will not die. The "bacon on everything!" phenomenon may be cooling down recently, but this smoky, umami-rich treat remains an essential part of many consumers' eating habits. And, this is a good thing for brands. Bacon sales soared to $4 billion last year. To use the power of bacon to bolster your brand's profits, it's important to pick the right bacon for your specific needs.

With Sriracha, shisito peppers and ginger once again topping the list for the hottest food industry trends, it’s clear that Asian and Latin-inspired flavors have truly gone mainstream in the United States. Shifting demographics, coupled with Millennials’ preferences for global flavors, are driving a major shift in ready-to-eat (RTE) foods, fast-casual concepts and even grocery store offerings. From breakfast tacos to sushi, Latin American and Asian foods are in-demand, RTE staples for Millennial grocery shoppers. Is your brand prepared to capitalize on this major shift in food consumption?

The last several years have seen a seismic shift in food industry trends. Where consumers were once highly loyal to big name brands, they are now more choosy than ever about where they spend their food dollars and tend to favor smaller brands and less processed foods over old-school favorites. The largest food and beverage brands saw their market share fall from 49.4% to 45.1% between 2009 and 2014—the equivalent of $18 billion in market share. And, unfortunately for brands who have yet to adapt to changing consumer values, it doesn't look like these patterns will be changing anytime soon.

Forget clean labels, fusion flavors, "snackable" ready-to-eat meals, and kale smoothies. Smart technology is one of the hottest food industry trends—it’s not just changing what we eat, but how we are manufacturing food. Today’s food processing plants exist in a classic state of information overload: A galaxy of sensors, video security, and monitoring devices deliver more data than can possibly be processed for meaningful, real-time insights. The “Industrial Internet of Things” (IIoT) is changing this. By applying deep analytics through software, IIoT brings meaning and order to this interconnected physical world of sensors, devices and machines. The result is a futuristic food plant where data can now be leveraged for real-time optimization of production and intelligent decision making in actionable, accountable ways.

What will grocery shoppers be buying 10 years from now? It's a vexing question for food producers and marketers alike.

New food products take months, or even years, to develop. It's extraordinarily difficult to anticipate, that far out, not only what consumer preferences will be, but also what laws, agricultural production factors and market conditions will prevail.

Of course, that doesn't prevent industry experts from trying. And Technomic has done just that, in its recently published report, “Food Industry Transformation: The Next Decade,” which seeks to predict what grocery shoppers' preferences (and the market's responses to them) will be in 2025.