Dubbed the Kerry Discovery Hub, the resource provides trend information concerning consumer motivation and patterns as well as ingredient trends such as the increasing importance of plant-based options.
Rise of botanicals
The resource includes trends on the rise of botanical ingredients in many food and beverage products. According to Kerry’s information, ashwagandha, ginkgo and ginseng lead this trend of greater inclusion, which is demonstrating a 4% compound annual growth rate.
Among the major takeawasy for entrepreneurs are:
- Botanicals have a dual role as a way to deliver taste but also perceived health halos in areas like immunity, digestive health, energy, stress, sleep, and cognition
- Science is still catching up to consumer perceptions for many botanicals, which can make claims challenging
The new hub also offers information on trends in sustainable agriculture, immune health, mood and sleep support, personalized nutrition and other topic areas.
Fermentation to the rescue
The resource also includes discussion of the future of food, in which the company asserts that there will come a time in the next 30 years in which existing agricultural production systems won’t be able to feed the world’s growing population. New modes of production, including creating ingredients from advanced fermentation, will be needed.
Among the key takeaways in this discussion are:
- Fermentation is a sustainable, versatile, dynamic process but brings complexity
- Multi-functional ingredients that can replace multiple ingredients in a food or beverage (e.g. a fiber that emulsifies and provides nutrition) can reduce the carbon footprint of production
“Our Kerry Discovery Hub is designed to be a one-stop shop for leaders and product developers of fast-growth brands to quickly find quality information they can use to make decisions on scaling up and growing their food or beverage product development. Kerry has a wealth of knowledge in many different aspects of product design and development, and we’re making much of this available in one easy-to-access online library,” said Elizabeth Horvath, Kerry’s vice president of marketing.
