Market intelligence company Mintel has released its three key predictions for businesses to endure adversity in coming years including a resurgence in acceptance of cans, frozen foods and long-life products, and consumers’ usage of artificial intelligence (AI) to ensure a diverse diet.
Mintel found that brands that incorporate, preserve or modernise traditional information with innovation to satisfy consumers’ need to emotionally and culturally connect to food will lead the industry.
“The shocks and disasters that consumers will have survived by 2030 will inspire them to prepare themselves and their pantries to be able to endure whatever surprise is next,” said Jenny Zegler, director of food and drink at Mintel.
“Brands that ground themselves in heritage ingredients will benefit from the trust consumers place in history. By 2030, a newfound respect for resourcefulness will inspire a fresh look at cans, pouches, freeze-dried, frozen and other long-life product formats.”
Companies that apply principles of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) to nutrition will create a desire for diets that defy consumer habits of eating the same food through the use of AI.
“Just like hitting shuffle on their digital music libraries, health-focused consumers will use AI to ‘shuffle’ their weekly diets to ensure they are diverse, include a range of ingredients and inspire excitement with new combinations,” said Zegler.
“AI also will encourage trial of new foods with ‘if you like this, then you’ll like that’ recommendations of fruits, vegetables, grains, seeds, spices or proteins that are new, but familiar.”
The creative use of sensory features, such as texture, aroma and appearance, will help brands generate inclusive experiences for underserved consumers.
“By 2030, multi-sensory inspiration also will come from empathetic explorations of how to formulate for the unique sensory needs of underserved consumer groups, including the elderly, neurodiverse individuals or GLP-1 medication users, while remaining enticing to mainstream consumers,” said Zegler.
“Brands have an opportunity not just to reimagine traditional food and drink, but also to reimagine the consumption occasions where they can be applied, providing a whole new way to remain relevant to generations Z and alpha.”
