Kerry’s 2024 Global Taste Charts: Heritage flavors, spices and yuzu appeal to the masses

19 Feb 2024 --- Kerry’s latest global taste charts, “A World of Future Tastes,” have been designed to track flavor adoption and evolution worldwide and provide analysis of the ingredients and trends that will shape innovation in the year ahead.

Kerry researchers conducted a deep dive into the lifecycles of two long-popular heritage flavors — orange and chocolate — and examined how these mainstream ingredients are now exploding into all manner of inventive product offerings around the world. 

These two case studies illustrate how many traditional tastes worldwide are now fusing into new, innovative applications as product creators around the globe source, combine and recombine flavors and spices from distant origins into new and exciting taste experiences.

Dissemination of taste 
Soumya Nair, global consumer research and insights director at Kerry, says: “The global exchange and dissemination of tastes and flavors through social media and travel is still in its infancy, and globalization in food, beverage and cuisine development make this a truly exciting time to be in the industry.”

She flags that although rapidly changing times can present great challenges, they also provide an “unparalleled opportunity for brands to catch an emerging trend on the rise.”

“We are seeing many unique flavor intersections in foods and beverages, and Kerry is harnessing technologies such as Natural Language Processing, AI, social media and traditional consumer observation tools to stay ahead of the adoption curve and to help customers navigate the emerging taste environment for products being developed in 2024.”

Examples of some of the insights in this year’s charts include:

• Increasingly inventive crossovers of international cuisines are being seen, such as the innovative blends of Filipino and American dishes happening in the US, with Halo-Halo-inspired cocktails, ube burgers and adobo chicken sandwiches appearing on menus. 
• Spice — literal and figurative — is being added to a wide range of everyday foods, providing a dash of excitement and a new sensation. From the now common-place spicy cocktails, everything from spicy chocolate and spicy honey to spicy sparkling waters are also being seen, with products often utilizing new and interesting spice ingredients, such as Mexican arbol peppers and tajin seasoning and Korean gochugaru.
• Young consumers are craving bold and unusual flavor combinations, driven by social media’s influence and a desire for novelty. This opens opportunities for sweet-savory pairings like bacon milkshakes, coffee infused with black garlic, and chocolate bars with wasabi.
• Some very familiar flavors, such as orange, are getting a new look with varietal and floral twists. Health considerations spurred by the pandemic also provided this source of vitamin C with a renewed wave of consumer appreciation.
• Consumers remain open to new experiences. Fruits such as yuzu are gaining popularity across multiple markets and applications, with recent launches including Yuzu Gose Beers in South Africa, Yuzu and Pepper Mayonnaise in China, and Yuzu Low ABV wines and alcoholic beverages in the US and Australia.

At the end of last year, sugar reduction, sustainable nutrition metrics and innovating cost-effectively were among the emerging trends Kerry unveiled in its winter 2023 Art of Taste & Nutrition: Festive Edition research report.  

Edited by Elizabeth Green