Every year, the Natural Products Expo West is one of our favorite sources for emerging food and product trends. We kept an eye on our social media feeds this weekend and were intrigued by the new offerings, blogger commentary and trends that we saw coming out of the expo. We gathered quite a few notable trends that our food & beverage and CPG clients might find useful:
Removal of Additives
To the delight of bloggers, many “natural” products are moving one step further to remove additives that kept them from being compliant with Whole 30 or Paleo diets. So Delicious going carrageenan-free is an example of this.
Integration of Natural Active Ingredients
Ingredients and products that nurture “good” bacteria in order to neutralize/kill “bad” bacteria are trending upward. The Mother Dirt hair and skincare line is breakthrough in this space because it “rethinks clean.”
Real Foods Continue to Replace Supplements
The juice and juice shot trend continues to explode, as does the superfood ingredient trend. These trends are taking over the benefit/claim space that used to be reserved for supplements. Lumi juice shots are even packaged in what looks like little pill bottles.
Milk Goes Beyond Almond & Coconut
Nut milks, butters and flours have diversified far beyond just almond and coconut. Pistachio, walnut, pecan, cashew and macadamia are all showing up. Malk is a good example of the options available.
While these are natural product trends, we see them influencing mainstream food and beverage in the very near future. Did you go to Expo West 2016? We’d love to hear your take-aways!
The Garage Group enables corporate brands and teams to innovate and grow like startups, including, but not limited to, brands in the food & beverage space.
Photo licensed under Creative Commons 2.0 via Flickr user: Catherine Sharman
