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2025 Taste trends: Unlocking insights that drive future flavours
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Friday, 17 January, 2025, 15 : 00 PM [IST]
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Ireland
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With increasing access to global markets, evolving consumer preferences and groundbreaking technological advancements, the opportunities for growth and innovation are endless.
With the world quite literally at their fingertips, consumers are uniquely positioned to influence the future of food, as their curiosity and tastes evolve, inspired by the latest social media trends and content they’re consuming online.
But for food and beverage manufacturers looking to tailor their products to meet consumer demand, the challenge lies in pinpointing just exactly what that demand is. From wellness and taste to sustainability and quality, consumers are seeking increasingly personalised products that adapt and evolve with them and their ever-changing needs.
Luckily, for industry professionals, Kerry’s annual Taste Charts trend predictions take the guesswork out of the year ahead. Bringing together comprehensive data—from social media, advanced analytics, retail and foodservice trends, AI-driven menu analysis, and retrospective retail innovation data— Taste Charts create a stress-tested blueprint for industry professionals, enriched by the expertise of Kerry’s chefs, baristas, mixologists, scientists and tastemakers.
And while trend-mapping is an important factor in forecasting direction, David Deeley, senior insights manager for Europe, shares how Taste Charts research and analysis goes far beyond determining the ‘brat’ vs ‘demure’ of taste.
Stressing the importance of placing the consumer at the heart of the research, Deeley states that, “Kerry’s Taste Charts ‘reveal more than just what’s trending—they tell a story of evolving human needs, mapping how our desires for health, indulgence, and sustainability have influenced global palates. By leveraging human insight and a decade’s worth of flavour evolution, we link these tastes back to fundamental shifts in consumer behaviour, showcasing how the markets we work in are transforming. Consumers transitioning from a reactive to a proactive approach to health is a gradual evolution, not an overnight shift. Today’s conscious consumer rejects the notion of compromising taste for nutrition.”
Though industries have long relied on consumer trends to anticipate the next ‘fad’, Kerry’s global consumer research and insights director Soumya Nair’s extensive experience in research and analysis offers her a unique perspective, particularly when it comes to topics related to health, wellness, and sustainability. And as Nair shares, “This is no passing trend. Consumers transitioning from a reactive to a proactive approach to health is a gradual evolution, not an overnight shift. Today’s conscious consumer rejects the notion of compromising taste for nutrition. This shift away from a 'trade-off-mindset' has reached a critical juncture, as consumer loyalty shifts toward brands that can deliver both - ‘novelty and vitality’. Think ‘table-stakes’ - the new norm from food and beverages.”
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