The Plant-Ex Research and Marketing Teams have been researching to discover the upcoming flavour trends for the upcoming three to five years.
The trends that consumers are following have been heavily impacted by the global pandemic, with a drive in healthier ingredients and a nod towards new innovations. The lockdowns resulting in people staying home has driven consumers to try new flavours in order to maintain adventurous spirits, while also keeping their home comforts as a safety net. Whether snacks or drinks, it seems that the general population are ready to usher in new flavour profiles to their snack cupboards.
The first category reported on was ‘sweet’, this included confectionery products such as gummies, hard candies, chocolate and marshmallows, as well as bakery products such as biscuits, cakes, icing & buttercream. The research was divided into two subsections, ‘current favourites’ and ‘upcoming trends’.
Plant-Ex found that the current top favourites include salted caramel, mango, peach, strawberry, apple and vanilla. The upcoming trends include more exotic flavours, such as yuzu, tonka bean, honey, starfruit and pomegranate. These upcoming trends highlight how consumers are becoming more adventurous, and the proof is in the research. After staying at home for the best part of two years, audiences are ready to leave their comfort zones when it comes to their snack buying and be transported through flavour.
Flavour trends for carbonated drinks remain similar to previous years with a strong emphasis on fruit flavours. This continues on for the forecasted trend, but there are some new flavours cropping up such as white chocolate, coconut, peanut and cucumber. This continues the idea of the rise of adventurous flavours in a post-pandemic climate.
It seems as though companies are ready to expand their flavour portfolios and dive into the deep end with more adventurous flavours in their products, which will be an interesting shift in the market.
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