Global Flavors, Local Shelves: Predicting world cuisine trends for FMCG
12 Nov 2025 | Symrise
In this exclusive webinar, explore how home cooking has evolved into a consumer’s lifestyle choice, driven by social media and global travel inspirations.
Learn how to predict the next big dish, what authenticity will taste like, and how to turn these insights into winning product concepts.
In this webinar, we explore current culinary and consumer home-cooking trends in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Key challenges in understanding local expectations, consumer taste preferences, and market needs include translating insights into authentic taste experiences for your consumers – today and tomorrow. Solutions to key challenges, such as new alternatives to Smoke flavorings for the EU, are also crucial.
We also showcase how our proprietary prediction tool, Symvision AI™, and our consumer studies, combined with our expertise in flavor and ingredients, can help you create a culinary future for your consumers’ kitchens and ensure global cuisine innovation in your products.
Good morning, good afternoon, or perhaps good evening, wherever you're joining us from today.
And welcome to this webinar hosted by Food Ingredients First.
I'm Elizabeth Green, a senior journalist at CNS Media, which is also the publisher of The World of Food Ingredients.
I'm delighted to guide you through today's session from SimRse in this webinar titled Global Flavors, Local Shelves.
Predicting World Cuisine Trends for FMCG.
Now before we dive in, I'd like to make a few quick housekeeping notes.
A Q&A session will follow today's presentation, providing listeners with the opportunity to explore key topics in more depth.
I'll be leading this Q&A session with our experts, so please feel free to drop any questions in the Q&A engagement box.
If we don't get to your question live, we'll follow up via email after the broadcast.
The webinar will also be on demand on Food ingredientsfirst.com in just a few days, so you can catch up or revisit any details.
Today's webinar will explore the evolving, evolving world cuisines trend, including how it is integrated into consumers' home cooking habits, driven by social media and global travel inspirations.
Listeners will learn how SimRice can help them to predict the next big dish and to make it taste authentic for their consumers.
Our Sunrise experts will explore current cuisine and consumer home cooking trends for Europe, Africa and the Middle East, as as some of the key challenges faced and solutions to overcome.
To guide you in today's webinar, we have two speakers.
Firstly, let's introduce Sam Russell, savory marketing lead for Simrise in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
Sam's career spans food service, ingredients, and consumer insights.
He brings a unique ability to decode global culinary signals and translate them into actionable forecasts and market ready concepts.
He is joined by Benedict Hensler, application technologist and chef, who boasts a true culinary foundation shaped in some of Germany's top kitchens and deepened through further food technology studies.
Benedict's career includes extensive experience working globally, including in the Middle East, where he helped develop some innovative concepts for some of the region's leading brands.
In his current role, he leads Zimrise's global culinary trend coordination across diverse markets such as Brazil, Mexico, Singapore and China to directly create the next generation of taste.
So, first to present is Sam.
Sam, the floor is yours.
Brilliant, thank you.
Hello everybody, we are live from Benedict's Kitchen.
I have to say I'm absolutely delighted to be here.
This is a topic that's something of a bit of a passion project for me.
I, I truly believe that how we predict and deliver world cuisines in FMCG is and will be one of the defining trends of modern food.
And I hope that by the end of today's session, you will too.
So let's begin first by setting the scene and introducing this trend to world cuisine, which, as the slide suggests, continues to grow as consumers are increasingly being given the chance to explore the world through both greater traveling opportunities, but also through social media, which brings a sense of adventure without even having to leave the house.
What's more, these platforms are fueling creativity and helping to improve the skill set of the average home cook.
Once again, seeing a rise in this classic activity.
Now, despite this rise, modern home cooks are still facing the pressure of today's increasingly busy lives.
So first and foremost, they need convenience, coupled with the need for authenticity.
Our home cooking study shows that despite wanting to cook a certain cuisine.
The main reasons not to are based around things like missing knowledge, missing tools and a lack of ingredients.
This suggests a real opportunity for manufacturers who can bring convenient shortcuts in the right flavors and formats.
And in fact this opportunity is already starting to have a big impact in the market.
Analysis of new savory product launches in EE over the past 6 years shows that cuisine-based flavors are considered what we call rising stars, indicating high numbers of launches with high growth.
This shows that these flavors are playing a big role in shaping the future of the market.
When we start to break this down and look at individual cuisine profiles, one that stands out quite strongly is Korean, also considered a rising star.
This indicates that Korean is a driving force behind this rise in cuisine based flavor profiles.
Something else that catches the eye is the reinvention of the big classic cuisines, for example, Italian, and how it's playing a role in reigniting interest.
This is perfectly demonstrated here, where Italian is considered what we would call a cash cow, suggesting high numbers of launches but stable growth.
Whereas the more regionally specific Calabrian, as part of Italian, is considered a new potential.
Lower launches but much faster growth.
This then suggests that there is still an opportunity for you to deliver trends in these more established cuisine spaces by providing interesting twists and we'll actually cover more on that later.
Finally here, I just want to reiterate the product categories that are benefiting from this growing world cuisine trend.
As you can see, all of the categories sitting in the green sections, i.e.
High launches, high growth, are very much sitting within the convenience space.
Those products that are helping consumers get the shortcuts they need in what should be authentic fashion.
Now this is something really worth bearing in mind when deciding on product formats that you want to use to take this trend forward in your business.
So how are we capitalizing on this opportunity at SimRse?
The first step really lies in predicting and understanding what the future of world cuisines is going to be.
To do that, we use two key proprietary tools.
One is SymVision AI, our own AI-based trend prediction tool that considers both internal data and external sources too, offering us rapid insights into the future of food.
The other tool is our home cooking study, an online UNA study that explores how consumers are cooking at home across 16 markets in EMI.
This allows us to really tailor a development to your consumers within specific markets in terms of taste, format, characteristics and key benefits.
Over the next few slides, we're going to demonstrate to you both how we predict and respond to emerging cuisine trends for local markets, utilizing both the tools referenced on here and our own proprietary taste creation capabilities too.
We're going to do that through the lens of Korean cuisine, which whilst established now, has been somewhat of a samurai success story, whereby we were able to predict the cuisine in advance and develop a high performing market ready response for when it was needed.
This Korean journey is actually an interesting one.
It began in 2009, when you may not have been aware, but the Korean government actually made a conscientious effort to raise the global profile of Korean cuisine and its products in order to boost exports across the world.
In 2021, during the pandemic, these efforts really started to come to fruition, particularly aligned to things like the launch of the hit Netflix show Squid Game.
In 2022, in line with the launch of our SinVision AI we saw strong signals on the future trajectory of Korean cuisine for FMCG which to this point was really only established in food service.
And in early 2023, we had developed a whole range of locally relevant flavor solutions and concepts across both savory snacks and culinary applications, delivering the key elements behind the trend.
And now, looking back, this work was timely, with new product launches containing Korean flavors across Emi doubling in the period from 2023 to now, meaning that we were ready and available to deliver the right product as and when the market demanded it.
So let's talk about the process we followed and the challenges we overcame when it came to building this authentic Korean portfolio.
First, as I've mentioned authenticity already quite a few times today, before we go on, I'm gonna take a quick minute to explain how we understand this terminology, which is important if you're looking to create authentic products of your own.
In world cuisine, authenticity is a rich, layered concept, it's shaped by history, culture and real lived experiences.
It's about bringing the soul of a dish and the story that it tells.
It's the secret ingredients that add that perfect finishing touch.
It's about the regional quality and local sourcing of produce.
It's a mastery of local cooking techniques.
It's also about recreating an experience that includes all of the senses, taste, touch, sight, sound and smell.
How do we do that?
That's what we're going to show you now.
So, as I've said, I have Benedict with me, our culinary chef, application technologist, and actually one of my most valued colleagues to help give us some insight into the approach that we took to develop this Korean portfolio.
Thank you, Sam.
So what we, do when we, work on such a project, especially a cuisine, which is not my own, so I'm from Germany.
So, we would, first get also in touch with our colleagues in the region, in this case, South Korea and Singapore.
We would ask them what are the dishes, what are the ingredients, the trends, the techniques, the profiles we are looking for them for this cuisine.
So paired with my own experience, then, And with consultation then from the chefs and flavorists from the region, I would, create the first dishes, would cook them, we would taste them, and, from there, we would take it forward.
Next step would be then to, localized, our, our learnings.
So for, for this example we use now the United Kingdom and Pakistan.
So there are some key differences in, in England, for example, or in, in the United Kingdom, it would be put more savory umami tangy.
So if you just think of Marmite or fish and chips, with vinegar, for example.
And if you ever had a dish from Pakistan, you also know it's very hot and spicy, so this would be a key profile there.
And also the preferred labeling, would be very important.
So in the United Kingdom, it would be natural flavorings and ingredients, and in Pakistan flavorings are still OK.
So and it's also the more cost sensitive market, that's why we would go there for flavorings.
Also a big topic is, smoke flavorings.
So in the European Union, already, banned smoke condensate and And, might come in the United Kingdom.
So therefore we would use a smoke replacers for, for developments for the United Kingdom.
In Pakistan still permissible, so we would use that still the smoke flavorings.
Also important for us to know is, the top dishes.
And, therefore we would go for, Mandu, for example, for United Kingdom, Korean barbecue, and kimchi.
And for Pakistan, the most common dishes would be kimbab, Korean noodles, and kiboki.
Also important is how would you or what the consumers actually use to cook Korean dishes at home.
So and we have our home cooking study and with this home cooking study, we know what are the actual ingredients, the people at home would use to cook these dishes.
So, but I also would like to ask you, what do you think, are the top ingredients or what would you use, to cook these dishes.
So therefore we created a pole.
OK.
As we expected, quite a, yeah.
Quite a, interesting outcome.
So, and now just to show you what, our home cooking study says, for the United Kingdom, we have black pepper, garlic, scallion, fresh chili, chili flakes in, Pakistan, we have garlic, ginger, fresh chili, black pepper, and sesame seed.
So and a few, of them are, they, they are the same.
So black pepper, for example, and garlic, so this we would use that in both dishes.
On both applications when we do them for the markets.
So also important for us is the formats that we really know, OK, what formats we develop for the markets for the United Kingdom, it would be meal kits and instant noodles, and, in Pakistan would be, instant noodles and cooking sauces and cooking sauces if you just think for example of a Korean barbecue sauce, for example.
Great, I'm actually going to interject here, Benedict, as now I want to quickly show how Sinion AI can help us get a handle on which elements of Korean cuisine are trending in a market at a specific moment in time by segmenting flavors based on their impact.
This measures in terms of size of impact versus the growth of the impact over time.
So this is defined across various categories, as you can see, it goes from emerging down to dimming.
And what you can see here is that the more specific flavor names for Korean cuisine, for example, Gochajang or kimchi, are considered emerging in the UK, whereas in Pakistan, the focus is still on more generic mainstream terminology.
Worth considering that if you were to launch a Korean type product in either market.
For the UK you can definitely feel more confident to call it what it is, Kochacheng for example.
But with Pakistan, it might be more worth to focus on some of these more familiar terms and add a Korean twist.
So Korean kimchi barbecue as an example to really build that visibility and connection with the kimchi.
Once we've outlined these final development directions, what comes next is the flavor creation process itself.
So Benedict, I'd like to pass back to you, how do you go about creating these authentic world cuisine products and flavors for our.
Sure.
So, I would start, with the, bringing signature taste as I would do then with our top notes, , to also meet the local requirements, to get the right impact.
I would add some, culinary complexity with Some, sunspice, for example, which is an, infused oil which is, has long cooked notes or some of our Diana food, products, which, for example, roast bell pepper, or also some, some tools out of our, chicken toolbox where we could use and for I can use white chicken meat, flavor if I want.
I can boil long cooked boiled chicken or even roast chicken to get really this long.
Processed notes inside.
And also, I could replace certain ingredients, for example, to, get rid of some allergens from the labeling, so like soy or sesame, I could then use, some flavors instead of the actual product to just get rid of the, get rid of the, the, the allergens, and, also what we talked before about, with the smoke flavoring, so we could use some of our smoke alternatives.
And also, quite important is meat cost and labeling.
So we can do a lot from actual chicken concentrate over natural chicken flavoring, 955 flavorings, or Yeah, you name it, we have it.
And , and then also what is important is nutritional guidelines, for example, certain markets they're very, very particular about salt or sugar levels so and then we can use our SimLife, products to, adjust it to the market needs.
So, and , all of these tools we use, to develop products.
In this case, we, developed kimchi fried rice, which we, through our home cooking study, we know that this format is also liked and this application is liked in the er, in certain markets, so we, we use this, and, to develop this, we have now, a retard rice, in combination with, seasoning which has cold swelling starches and cold active hydrocolates.
And , you actually just need a kettle and a microwave to, to make this product, at home.
Yeah.
So, I actually quite excited about this, but I get to interject here because I get something to taste.
So if I can take that, thank you.
So while you guys get to sit and watch me eat this, Benedict's going to walk you through some of the key elements that are demonstrated within this concept.
To truly deliver authentic taste that's fit for a local audience.
Great.
So enjoy them.
So, what I, what I did here, I started before with the base recipe, then I, use our signature top notes.
In this case, we use the kimchi top notes from our colleagues from, Singapore, in combination with, very fragrant, pepper extract.
We used the complex culinary taste or we brought it through, certain flavors which is fried notes and fermented notes, and also used, some products from our, Diana portfolio, malt vinegar to give a bit of fermented acidity and the base taste of, cabbage.
Also important is here that we, replaced, MSG for example, which is quite common to use in, products that we have from Asia Pacific, but not really liked in.
In the European markets and even not permissible in, in Pakistan, for example, that's why we, replaced this with our similar umami tools.
We also, removed some, allergens, soy and sesame with, soy flavoring and, with, sesame flavoring, and we made it also, vegan permissible, so that you can, that we have a, a big range of customer we can attract with this product.
Yeah.
Excellent, mostly my mouth's watering.
I have to say, you know, having tasted it, and thanks to the, audience for bearing me whilst I do, I can really stand by that description that you give.
I get the fermented cabbage notes.
It actually tastes just like I know kimchi.
It's got a bit of spiciness in there, which is great, but also that fragrant black pepper note that you mentioned, you know, it really does come through for me.
I think it's important to say, you know, I would say it's authentic, but what's important is not to just take my word for it.
So, on the screen, we say validated for authenticity.
Can you talk us through what you mean by that?
Yeah, sure.
As mentioned before, what we did, we cooked the extra dish, we fermented kimchi here, and we, we fried it together with rice.
So as a benchmark cooking, then, we also got the actual product from, South Korea, we, with our sensory consumer insight colleagues, we, described it with the simple language, and we really got the product which is, close to the benchmark from, from South Korea, and also, very comparable to the cooked benchmark, and, now we're actually very happy with the, with the results and it's, yeah, ready to present, I would say.
Brilliant, yeah, really good concept, thank you.
So hopefully that section there offered a nice demonstration of how we approach the development of authentic cuisine flavors.
As we come towards the end of the presentation, I don't just want to leave you though with what was, albeit it's something that we're very proud of, but I want to spend a bit of time talking about what's next.
So what I'm gonna do now is give you a little bit of insight into a prediction for a cuisine style to follow.
With an idea for a concept that you could explore.
So first I'd like to start by introducing our Generation Alpha study, which was carried out this year, so the data is very fresh.
And as you can see on the slide, we interviewed over 2000 consumers aged 6 to 14.
This was carried out across 11 countries in EMI, so a very represented data set, and it combined both qualitative and quantitative data through the forms of online survey and video interviews that really help us to understand the different nuances within this consumer group.
The first thing to highlight is a summary of our findings, so we identified 3 key themes that really separate Gen Alpha from the rest.
And the most relevant that we want to highlight today, of course, is this piece around online influence and world knowledge, which really reiterates how this consumer has been introduced to technology straight from infancy, and as a result, giving them greater access to world cuisine than ever before.
Things like sushi, hummus and ramen are very much making up part of the Jen Alpha's daily diet, highlighting just how normalized these foods are today despite being considered probably too exotic in our own childhoods.
And in fact, an interesting insight from this work was that parents were asked an open question about the most surprising food requests that they've had from their children.
And the top answer in fact was a request for an international cuisine of some sort.
So what's the impact that this new super connected consumer is going to have on the evolution of our world cuisine trend?
Fundamentally, we think the answer lies in the emergence of more blended cuisines.
This concept of third culture, which refers to the more unified global culinary larder, one where the key elements of different cuisines, so the ingredients, the techniques, the taste profiles are actually brought into one to create new and exciting flavors with shared origins.
You probably know this trend already as fusion food, which has been talked about for many years, we know, but never really established itself in the mainstream.
More typically found in fine dining, but very rarely in FMCG, which is what we're interested in today, right?
The point now is that with this emerging consumer, the foundations are really in place for this third culture cuisine to become the norm.
And what will be key is to capture those combined elements that will really resonate and then establish themselves as part of the mainstream.
Right now, we see this trend manifesting itself very much in the clashing space, so bringing together elements without necessarily reason, pushed further along by social media and existing mainly for engagement.
This is seeing products that bring exciting new twists on classic dishes, where uniqueness and newness are actually the key criteria to evaluate their success.
A great example of this on the screen as you can see, is the recent lasagna soup trend, which is seeing both high growth and high engagement online, particularly for the US and the UK CPG markets.
Now lasagna soup itself is a great example of a wacky twist on the traditional mashup of American and Italian cuisines, which for me sits alongside Tex-Mex as probably the most traditional of traditional fusion cuisines, if that can be such a thing.
But the problem with these high impact but gimmicky type ideas is that they can only last so long.
You know, they're typically great for product trial, not so good for long-term retention.
So whilst we do see some future for the novelty and fun factor.
The real success in this trend will lie in the development of proper, purposeful cross-cultural cuisines that brings together real complementary elements.
These are the areas that we want to explore here.
So a great example that we see in this would be the combination of both Japanese and Italian food.
Both hugely influencing global world cuisines in their own right.
And on the face of it, arguably they stand as two of the most individual of world cuisines too.
But Japanese and Italian actually has a lot more in common than you think.
Take their mutual love of umami for a start, tomatoes and parmesan, sea soy and miso, or their reliance on starchy carbs, pasta and spaghetti, udon noodle, noodle soup, and you can see why they merge together so easily.
In fact, this combination already has its own name, Iamshi, which literally means Italian food in Japanese.
And it's typically delivered through the use of mainstay Japanese ingredients within traditional Italian dishes.
Now.
I'm going to be a bit transparent here, but Itameshi isn't necessarily all that new, and in fact, much like the fusion trend in general, it's relatively established already in the fine dining and street food scene.
In fact, the image on the left hand side of the screen is advertising a ricotta ramen.
If you can read that, but it was actually a late addition to our presentation, actually taken only just this weekend.
But as I said before, you know, we're here to talk FMCG and highlight the areas that we think can really stick.
And with the appealing inherent natures of both of these cuisines, we see Itashi as the ideal starting point.
So how do we go from trend to concept?
I'm now going to walk you through a worked example that came from our consumer insights team.
Demonstrating how we would generate a suitable concept idea under this cuisine trend that is prevalidated by data to give us the confidence for future success.
So first things first, we need to understand whether there is really a heartbeat here, and if so, what is already starting to resonate in these markets directly.
A quick search in SinVision AI shows us that miso is emerging in Italian ready meals and pasta carbonara is growing in Japanese ones, which is instantly reassuring that both of these markets are already incorporating trends from the other's cuisines.
More reassuring still is that both of these trends are also considered both growing in key trendsetter markets for savory, such as the USA and the UK which actually then supports the likely translation of this going into other markets moving forward.
From here, we then start to look at how these trends are being translated in the market themselves.
We use the pairing tool within Symion AI to do this.
As you can see, in Japan, carbonara is being very strongly linked to Mentaiko, which is spicy marinated fish eggs, originally coming from Korea, but actually now adopted as a beloved ingredient in Japan.
It's known for its rich umami depth and it's actually really compatible with carbonara because it enhances its inherent savoriness, the texture, but also adds a novel spicy edge.
Now, interesting as that may sound, we know the uni market, and the risk there is that it could just be over polarizing and perhaps just too new.
So instead we're going to explore it from the Italian perspective and to better ensure the potential stickiness of our concept idea, we're now looking to refer back to that long standing fusion cuisine I mentioned already in US Italian.
And as the US is a key trendsetter for savory foods in Emi, we're actually now analyzing US Italian pairings with miso directly within the US itself.
Something that instantly caught the eye was the combination of miso and Caesar dressing, Caesar dressing obviously being a great example of a recognized US Italian hybrid.
It makes excellent sense from a taste perspective.
The miso really amplifies the umami effects that are there already present from the Parmesan.
And if you want to go further, it can also support the removal of anchovies if you're looking to go vegetarian or for allergen removal.
Yeah, might confuse some, some traditional chefs, but it works quite , I have to say.
So we worked it out together and it was great.
Nice.
And so it's this miso Caesar dressing that we propose to take further as part of this growing ittashi trend that we see having a real future in savory FMCG.
This is, of course, due to the complementary taste benefits, but also because it brings a novel yet recognizable twist on familiar US Italian food.
It also brings modern consumer benefits like permissibility with the option there to be more accessible through things like the allergen removal and the vegetarian status if needed.
So that was our sneak preview prediction and that very much brings us near to the end of today's session.
Now before we come to a close, I want to briefly summarize some of what's been discussed today.
The rise and rise of social media is making home cooking trendy again.
There's a real opportunity for manufacturers to capitalize with consumers through convenient products that deliver a sense of authenticity in key trending world cuisines.
To deliver against it, you need to overcome 3 key challenges.
One is around understanding cuisine trends and how they change, what's going to stick around, really capture the attention in the years to come.
The other is around delivering the right taste and experience for your consumer.
That means balancing the authentic taste with the local expectation.
Third, it's all about delivering the right format, asking, is the application fit for your consumer's home cooking needs?
Is the product designed to suit them and their family's requirements?
Is it meeting the price point, health implications, and personal values?
It's these areas that we need to solve together.
So our penultimate slide is really just to reiterate these challenges and our approach at S SimRse in which to overcome them.
We break this down into 3 areas decode, design, deliver.
We decode key trends and consumer preferences with proprietary consumer insight that brings in-depth understanding of consumer needs and intelligent trend prediction for future flavor innovation.
We designed the bright tasting experience through advanced flavor creation and technology.
This includes our exciting new range of smoke flavoring alternatives, as as a broad portfolio of backwards integrated natural ingredients.
And finally, we deliver the ideal format with market ready concepts enabled by our leading application capabilities, our expert culinary team and chefs network, which of course includes this superstar sitting next to me today.
Together, we bring truly authentic taste solutions designed to meet local consumer needs in trending world cuisines.
SimRice has the tools to do it, but we really need you to make it happen.
And so finally, before we come to the Q&A, the only thing left to say is that if you found the session valuable and you want to know more, trust me, we want to tell you more, please scan the QR code that you see on the screen where you can download our home cooking ebook that will give you some further insight into key consumer needs and preferences in the kitchen.
It also gives the opportunity to sign up to our mailing link.
This will open up a journey of content that delves even deeper into some of these topics and areas discussed today.
That will include the Gen Alpha study and also more on this cross cultural cuisine trend, so I promise it will be worthwhile.
And that's it for the presentation.
Thank you for listening, and you're back to Liz.
Thank you.
OK, thank you so much, Sam and Benedict, for those very interesting discussions.
This is Elizabeth Green once again, back for the Q&A.
Now we've already received some great questions, so please keep dropping them into the console.
Right guys, our first question from a listener is, how do you measure if a cuisine flavor has moved from trial to habit for the consumers?
Who would like to take that question?
I'll get this insight based, yeah, so we, we've actually got various methods, particularly around analyzing patterns that we see in new product launches.
You would have seen a chart I showed earlier called an in motion.
Chart, which is a bit like a Boston matrix.
We've also got something called the flavor interest curve.
But actually as we become more sophisticated, my most pertinent answer to this question would be around Symvision AI, you know, and how that shows how flavor trends move from category to category.
So if we can see a flavor trend that we see or predicting moving from the emerging space into growing, for example, then that gives us the confidence that this trend is really starting to take hold in a particular market.
Perfect, thank you, Sam, very interesting.
OK, next question is, do you look at signals not only coming from the food scene, but as part of a larger picture, such as beauty, fashion, movies, or culture?
Very interesting question.
Back to you guys.
I guess this would be another one for you, Sam.
So go ahead.
Yeah, I've got, I've got an answer to this.
The first thing I would say is definitely, you have to.
And I think if you look at the Korean cuisine trend, that's a real example as to why you should do that.
You know, I showed in the presentation about how the Korean trend has evolved, and that was very much around elements beyond food too.
You know, I mentioned TV with Squid Games, and actually I remember being told once, about how popular Korean soaps were for women in Pakistan.
Music, obviously, because you think of K-pop, and BTS when they launched, and actually now the Demon Hunters, the, the Netflix show, which my daughter is completely obsessed with, even we've seen trends around Korean beauty regimes and things like makeup rituals going viral.
But what I want to do is give an example of how perhaps that, we've explored this angle or this, this idea quite recently.
So.
When you consider who the biggest influencers on modern trends are in terms of the markets, two of the biggest countries, I think would agree, would be the US and South Korea.
Now, interestingly, both of these countries are leading in terms of International engagement for online content creation, so basically the exports of their social media content into other markets, which like completely makes sense, right?
If they're being watched around the world, then the likelihood is these countries are, are bringing these trends.
So what I wanted to do is I started to look into who are the fastest growing markets worldwide for the export of online content creation.
And actually it's the Philippines and Thailand that are considered amongst the highest, but interestingly, not so much for EMI, Europe, Africa, Middle East, which is the markets that I represent.
So when we look into EMI specifically, my personal recommendation here would be to consider Australia and Saudi Arabia as trend leading markets.
So, Saudi itself is already quite established, particularly in the Middle East, for digital content creation.
I think Australia is probably Quite recognized too as, being, , certainly punching above its weight in the global creation economy.
But I do know that both of those countries, like Korea was 15 years ago, are making an effort to grow their export of content.
So for me, looking into every element beyond food, I'd actually consider both of those two markets as being an area that's having a growing influence in EU trends.
Mhm, mhm.
Thank you, Sam, really interesting insights.
I'm also a secret K-pop Demon Hunters fan as , so, Next question now, how do you validate flavor trends or fusions to actual customer purchasing intents?
Maybe one of you would like to answer a question.
Yeah, yeah, it's a good one for me, I guess.
So, yeah, as mentioned before, so I'm, I'm also privileged and to attend a lot of food safaris we are doing, and, recently we came across.
A dumpling filled with cajun, kimchi, so the Cajun spice mixed with kimchi, with chicken, and, I thought that's a really, really good, nice, pairing, and, I tried it out, I cooked it, tasted it together with them.
So, but this is on the chef's side to do it.
So, this also has to be that for sure also validated.
So, and this is the more up to use them, right?
Yeah, the, the best example I would give is something that we have called concept scan, which is where we can put sort of paper concepts in front of consumers digitally and then gauge understanding on things like liking, but also purchasing intent is one of the key questions there.
So from my side, I would say that's probably the, the most relevant answer.
OK, perfect, thanks to the both of you, very interesting.
Now, I think we have time for one or perhaps two more questions now.
We have another question now from a listener, which is, Simrice works with many culinary producers.
How do you turn the trend insights to my own company's needs?
Hm, maybe I'll start again for this one.
Yeah, this is also through conversations, so, because every company can, produce everything.
So in the example of the kimchi rice, what we did before, it would not make sense to, present, rice, retort rice to, , to a, to a customer which is not able to produce this in, in this factory.
So therefore we would go for a different format.
So it's between, it's about the conversation with the customer, with the development team, what they want to do, what they want to launch, what they are able to produce, this would be in a nutshell, I'd say from my side.
I think maybe the bit in that I would add as is and, and.
People who've ever sat on a presentation for me will know this, but you know, we've got a wealth of insights and studies that we've created at Symrise, and a big part of our process is understanding our customers' brand, right?
And there are many elements that we can link from that brand understanding into these studies.
The one thing I would say is that the more information that can be shared with us from our customers, the job to be done, the brand promise, your target audience, for example, the more that we can align and start to tailor our responses directly to your needs.
Perfect, thank you, Sam and Benedict.
OK, we will take one last question from the console now.
The question is, what other fusion type concepts has Simrise worked on?
Back to you guys.
Actually, I, I could have think one we, we're working right now, which is quite exciting and, it's the Nikkei cuisine.
So it's Peruvian, Japanese, mix, which is quite established in, in, in, in Peru for, definitely in, in, in Lima.
You have done a lot of restaurants serving, Nikkei cuisine, and we recently developed a ramen soup with, good a bit soy sauce inside, bit sesame.
And also some, sweet potato powder and some, some lime juice, some lime juice powder, which gives a really interesting taste combination, a hint of spiciness, or a bit of traditional Peruvian ingredients mixed with, Japanese ingredients.
And this is something we are working on right now, actually, and this is also quite interesting and, and we're also looking forward to, discover this more a bit, yeah.
Fantastic, very interesting.
So thank you to both Sam and Benedict for your answers, and to our audience for all the interesting questions.
Sadly, that's about all we have time for today.
Some very fascinating predictions have also been highlighted, and we would love to know if you agree with them or perhaps have any other ideas.
So please feel free to leave any comments in the Q&A console for Cymrise to explore further.
Finally, let's convey a big thank you to SIRice for sharing their expertise and to everyone behind the scenes who help us in making our webinars happen.
Any unanswered questions will be responded to via email.
And you can also keep up with industry developments on our channels and watch out for the on-demand link from Food Ingredientsfirst.com in your inbox.
Thanks again for joining and goodbye.
Application Science & Technology Manager, Symrise
Senior Journalist, CNS Media
Senior Marketing Manager - Savory EAME, Symrise
Benedikt Henzler
Application Science & Technology Manager, Symrise
Elizabeth Green
Senior Journalist, CNS Media
Sam Russell
Senior Marketing Manager - Savory EAME, Symrise
