Trends In The Food Processing Industry

Food & beverage processing trends can be classified into ingredients-based and technology-based.

Mindfulness: Mindfulness reflects a new consumer attitude, especially among millenials, to understand everything about the food and beverage products that they consumers purchase. Factors such as increased demand for fresh and clean food ingredients, growing processed food industry, rising health consciousness among consumers, and increased instances of food contamination and accidents during processing through human contact have made consumers more mindful about the products that they consume.

Thus, leaders of food and beverage industry, like Nestle, are drive by a set of new corporate values- social conscience, health and wellness and enhanced nutrition.

Meat Reduction: Driven by recent trends of eating healthier, consumers are now reducing the amount of meat that they eat or eating meat that targets towards eating healthy. In 2017, there was a rise in the number of ‘flexitarians’ - people who consumer lesser animal products. People are now moving over to vegetarian and vegan diets. GlobalData analyst Ronan Stafford commented “the rising number of vegans and how fashionable the cuisine seems to be, big companies are taking notice; the number of vegan options will increase in both supermarkets and restaurants”.

Transformative technology: Technology plays a great role in making food production more sustainable. In recent times, producers are looking to produce more and better products but also using resources more efficiently. This is even important from a consumers point of view because consumers want to make sure that the food and beverages they are consuming are produced through environmentally sustainable means. In recent times, there has been a great change in the customer preferences, especially among millennials.

Change in the shopping structure: It is a well-known fact that people are shifting their shopping activities from super markets to online. Online shopping has been seen recently even in the F&B industry, with companies providing food and beverage online. This has changed the supply chain of producers and manufacturers. Producers will now arrange for food and beverage to be delivered to the homes of customers. This also calls for a more direct relationship between the manufacturers and the customers. Bold and exotic flavors, snacking and health and wellness are all at the forefront for consumer food preferences in 2018, and the millennial generation is frequently driving those choice options with their adventurous palates. Due to the ever-changing demands and preferences of the consumer, food processing companies are looking for flexibility in the production process. To adapt to these changing needs of the consumers, Nestle has now decided to move away from sugary products and moved its focus to the market for health conscious food.