2021 Seven major food and beverage innovation inventory: food addition and subtraction, variable plant-based, "local specialties" on the top...

This year, the food and beverage industry "on the new" stream, relying on the strong consumption enthusiasm of the Chinese consumer market, product innovation continued to accelerate, and gradually become the incremental engine driving the development of brands and industries. According to Nielsen data, 46% of the growth of China's FMCG comes from the continuous emergence of new product innovation [1], which confirms the view of "innovation leads development" in the food and beverage industry.

But innovation is not easy. Under the condition of huge market base and continuous segmentation of consumer demand, how to accurately understand market demand and grasp the direction of innovation has become the top priority.

By combing through the industry innovation development trend in 2021 and combining with the analysis of some representative new products, in this article, we will provide some new ideas and new thinking for the innovative development of the food and beverage industry in 2022.

01, reasonable "indulgence" : delicious and healthy, indispensable

The trend of health has a profound impact on the food and beverage industry, and has gradually transformed into a driving force and become a driving point to guide industry innovation.

In 2021, new products featuring healthy food and beverage continue to emerge, accurately catering to consumers "want to eat, but afraid of fat, afraid of high sugar, afraid of greasy....." The demand, so that consumers to meet the appetite at the same time, have a healthier food choice, "reasonable indulgence" has become possible.

Sugar reduction, fat reduction, low calorie, zero addition, etc. have become the vane of industry innovation, leading the iterative upgrading direction of products. "Not only good to eat, but also healthy" has become one of the most obvious trends in food and beverage innovation in 2021.

In order to comply with the trend of sugar reduction, Mondelez launched the 0 sugar series of sandwich cookies in the Chinese market, replacing the traditional white sugar raw material with maltitol, in order to achieve the purpose of reducing sugar intake on the basis of maintaining the original taste.

Moselian went further, aiming at the pain points of high sugar addition of traditional yogurt and high fat content of dairy products, launched a series of "sugar control and fat control" yogurt, accurately grasp the psychological demands of consumers, and make drinking yogurt a burden.

When sugar substitutes and sugar alcohols became the trend of the whole industry, Good Hope Water "adhered to the original taste" and launched the Forot lemon sparkling water, the main content of not less than 80% NFC juice added, without adding any additional sugar and sugar substitutes, the sweetness of the product comes from natural fruit fructose ingredients.

Vitality Forest further "do the best thing", its newly launched fiber tea, the main mulberry leaves, corn beard and other natural plant raw materials, no additional sugar added, no caffeine, tea body to restore the original taste of raw materials.

It can be said that in solving the problem of "wanting to eat, but afraid of fat" for consumers, relevant enterprises have never stopped working hard. Now, even the heavy oil and salt hot pot has a healthier "advanced" version.  461 grams of ingredients per serving, 367 calories overall.

However, the fear of sugar, oil, fat and body preservation is only one aspect of this change, on the other hand, consumers are increasingly concerned about food cleaning labels. Meat monitor Fang lunch meat will strictly control the ratio of fat and lean products at 1.5:8.5, through fine ingredients, to solve the drawbacks of lunch meat greasy, in order to comply with the trend of reducing fat intake. At the same time, the meat monitor more clearly defined the "six no" quality standards, and made the slogan of not adding nitrite, phosphorus salt, sucrose, flavor, color and preservatives, which further caters to the development trend of healthy consumption.

It can be predicted that the trend of healthy development of the food and beverage industry will continue, and doing "delicious and healthy" food has become an important direction of industry innovation.

02, variable plant base, everything can be "vegetarian"

In 2021, the plant-based concept continues to be hot, and related new products are emerging one after another, showing an explosive growth trend.

Compared with the initial single plant milk and plant meat varieties, the innovation of plant-based food and beverage has greatly promoted the increasingly rich and diversified development of plant-based products, making related products appear in the consumer market with more and more daily appearance. The wide range of readily available products has further stimulated consumers' enthusiasm for plant-based foods.

Two new products of plant label black sesame plant milk and pistachio plant milk break the inherent impression of consumers for the concept of plant milk, in addition to oat milk, to provide consumers with more diversified taste choices, make the face of plant milk more diversified, more everyday, and promote plant milk from "coffee companion" to a broader field of ready-to-drink consumption.