Top Ten Trends 2020: Opportunities for Dairy
12 Mar 2020 | Innova Market Insights
The influence of Innova’s Top Ten Trends for 2020 is clearly apparent in the dairy category, which is facing key challenges in remaining viable. Meanwhile, consumer tastes are ever-changing and interest in the origin of dairy products remains strong. In this webinar, Lu Ann Williams, Director of Innovation at Innova Market Insights, will highlight the top leading trends driving development in the dairy sector. For the full webinar covering the whole top ten trends of dairy, reach out to us at contact@innovami.com.
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Hi, everyone.
I'm Louanne Williams.
I am the director of insights and innovation here at Anova Market Insights.
This is the next webinar in our series where we're looking at our top 10 trends and applying them to different categories.
So today, I hope that I provide you with a lot of inspiration for some new opportunities in dairy.
A lot of you will be familiar with our trends oval.
So, this is the way that we like to present our top 10 trends every year.
So, what we're going to do today is just take each one of these trends and look and see where we see new opportunities for dairy.
So, we're gonna be looking at, spoonable yogurt, drinkable yogurt, also cheese.
And I think it's really interesting.
I think dairy is one of the most interesting and innovative, categories.
So starting with our first trend, storytelling, winning with words.
Since we launched our top 10 trends, in the fall of last year, we've gotten tremendous feedback, especially for this one.
There's so many fantastic stories, and I think brands are becoming even more comfortable telling their stories.
Here you can see that 56% of global consumers say that the stories around the brand influences their purchase decision, and one of the examples that we've been using to illustrate that is this product, this yogurt from, from Danon.
It's a 100% Mexican, made product, even though it's from a really big company.
It's a really interesting story.
The packaging also reflects Mexican culture.
And you can imagine that that would have great local appeal.
We also asked consumers, why do you want to know about the stories behind the food and beverages?
And one of the answers that they gave, and the, and the, the first answer is to learn where ingredients come from.
So there's, again, a lot of opportunities to talk about that.
So, looking at some of the things that you could talk about, you could look at how the product is processed, and there's a nice example there on the left, from Too Good.
And again, lots of explanation there.
It has 85% less sugar.
Why?
It's made with a slow straining process.
It removes the sugar, and also talking about the sweetener in there, but, I think consumers are super interested to know why.
It also makes it seem a lot more accessible because somebody's explaining.
You know, not that it just comes out of this big stainless steel factory, but here's how it's made and here's why we make it like that.
I think that's a powerful story, but also ingredient provenance.
Again, not new, but we're, every day we find more new stories.
And this one, milk guaranteed from mountain farms.
That's really interesting.
Meadows with 100 different herbs for the best milk.
I think that's very powerful.
I remember someone telling me one time that Swiss cows had to be let out at least 1 hour a day, even in the wintertime.
That's a super interesting story, and I think this is also part of that there.
But that's not the only options.
You can also look at something related to lifestyle or taste and flavors or something about a cultural celebration.
There's probably 100 more ideas, but, these are two nice examples, one on, on provenance and one on processing.
I love the processing.
I think you can never go wrong.
You could go wrong, but I think you could probably be, your consumers would really appreciate it if you did explain how things are made.
Trend number 2, the plant-based revolution.
I love that picture, from Dubai.
It really just, just screams, something's happening in plant there.
We also asked consumers, which claims do you prefer?
Is it vegetarian, vegan, or plant-based?
Plant-based, is, is the clear winner.
Consumers think it sounds healthier, it sounds, like it's better for you.
It also kind of, you have hints of sustainability and the environment in there as.
And we've seen a 52% increase, in dairy launches with a plant-based claim over the past five years.
And again, plant-based is definitely, we're gonna, you all know, it's such an important trend right now.
But it's really still a relatively new claim with small penetration, but it is growing very, very fast, and it's growing faster than vegetarian or vegan.
Clean label is one of those.
Topics around plant-based that we're gonna be hearing more and more about.
So, we can see that 2/3 of global, global consumers still say, I want to avoid products with ingredients that are hard to understand.
And now, we're starting to see a lot more communication about that.
So, on the root help there, nothing artificial, nothing refined, talking about the ingredients are sourced from fields, orchards, and vines, not from laboratories.
That's part of that whole demystifying, process.
And I think that's also gonna be fighting off the, the animal-free dairy.
I'm gonna talk about that a little bit later.
So, also making a cleanse, a clear separation between something that might come from a fermentation tank versus, you know, from a field.
But also a simple ingredient list, the, Kaina product there, you can see super, short ingredient list, plain and simple, cultured with probiotics, dairy-free and plant-based, could not be clearer, and it even comes in like a little, flower pot.
Looking at the plant bases, so we know we've, you know, first, we had soy milk, then we had almond milk, and now we can see that we're seeing rapid growth in oat milk launches.
You can see 40% growth there in the products that we've tracked over the past 5 years, and some nice examples there from Nestle, from Kalia Farms, from Quaker, This is just increasing all the time.
Trader Joe's there has a private label product.
But looking at what's coming next, cause that's always one of the fun things to do.
Here's, cacao fruit pulp also being used as a base.
You can see there on the right-hand side, it also contains pineapple, cucumber seeds.
Again, relatively super clean, easy to understand, ingredient deck, but we will start to see the emergence of some of these new, these new bases after the ones that are, that are already very established like oats.
Trend number 3, the sustained domain.
I think it's amazing when you watch TV that how you see new words and, and topics creep into the vernacular.
Even watching business shows and some of these business reality shows, and you'll just hear them talk about the appeal of sustainability, and you don't wanna be seen to, you know, creating a product that has too much packaging or Or doesn't seem sustainable, generates any kind of, you know, waste.
But I think this is just a huge insight that in 2018, when we asked consumers, I expect companies to invest in sustainability, 65% agreed, and by 2019, that went up to 87%.
It's still not the number one purchase driver.
You, when you asked, when you ask consumers, why are you buying these products, you know, dairy alternatives, meat alternatives, health is still number one.
But sustainability is 4th on the list, so still new, growing very fast, but this tells you it's on just about every consumer's radar.
And then we ask consumers, OK, the big question, are you willing to pay for it?
So you can see the two lines there, the yes and the maybe, and if you add them up, it's a significant Number of consumers that say yes.
I don't know if I believe it completely, but I do think that consumer insights like this are always inspirational, and it is definitely coming.
So consumers very concerned about plastic waste, also food waste, and again, if you dive into this and you look at different regions or different countries, even different age groups within those countries, you see different levels of interest in these specific things, but definitely overall, you are seeing.
Sustainability definitely moving more mainstream and moving further up in terms of, of purchase.
And it might not always be the number one reason why you don't buy it, but it could very easily be the number one reason why you don't buy something.
And then looking at some of the, the metrics that companies are using, so, here's the good culture on the left.
This is all about sustainable farming.
So, it, it delivers taste, health, and sustainability, free roaming cows, sustainable family farms.
The product in the middle, it's a, compostable cellulose packaging, so it's plastic-free.
I think that's super interesting.
This is definitely gonna be one of the big stories of the next 5 or 10 years.
And then, again, food waste, harmless Harvest has done a great job of communicating how their products are made and so on.
And now here they're also continuing to tell stories also about food waste.
Trend number 4, the right bite.
This is just all about how food fits into our, our whole lifestyle and I was watching a TV show with my 19 year old daughter yesterday.
It was a Netflix, Documentary on how.
Some of the movies that are made, and it was about, Dirty Dancing.
And she said, gosh, look how thin everybody was.
And I thought, that's so interesting.
Our relationships with food have changed so much, and if, even if I think about When I was in school, I never, nobody cared if I had a bottle of water on my desk.
There was a water fountain in the hall and you could use it or not, you know, my mom never sent me anywhere with snacks, afraid I was gonna be hungry, and I definitely treat my own children in a different way.
I'm always afraid they're gonna be hungry, don't know why, because food is available everywhere.
So, this trend really is about how, how does food fit in our life and how do we manage everything, and also still trying to stay healthy.
So, here, we ask consumers all kinds of things about their lifestyle, but one of the outcomes of that was consumers saying, I experience stress more than once a day.
I think about 15 years ago, maybe 10 years ago, we saw dairy products with like high levels of, of melatonin, for example.
But here, here we see it again.
Here's a yakcul that's promoted for relieving stress, improving sleep quality.
Sleep is gonna be one of our huge issues, of course, in the next 5 years because people are so sleep deprived.
And another product here from the UK about, A chocolate milk drink that helps you, sleep.
Don't know how these products will do this way around, but, or this time around, but again, definitely an opportunity for continuing to talk about how food fits into our lifestyle above just, you know, health or enjoyment, but how does it kind of meet the demands, help us meet the demands of our very demanding lifestyle.
And again, looking at, we've showed this before in our top 10 trends and really comparing the difference between positioning products and, and what consumers need from a Gen Z point of view to a Gen X.
I'm a Gen Xer, but you can embrace your lifestyle, you can try to balance and, you know, Live with it, or you can also reject it and just go, What the heck, I'm just going to go for it.
Gen Xers are definitely saying, I'm just going to go for indulgence sometimes because I feel stuck.
I need a I need a change, or I'm so busy, I'm just going to enjoy myself tonight and I'm going to eat that huge piece of chocolate cake or drink that extra glass of wine.
But there's a nice product there.
Very indulgent.
So apple spice, Greek yogurt, brown sugar oatmeal, really does kind of fit to that indulgence.
And, and I would also say healthy indulgence, type of occasion.
And then you have the, I'm just busy and I'm gonna do whatever it is.
If I have to drink energy drinks or protein drinks to get, to get by.
Here's a product from Brazil.
With 18 g of protein.
And in the middle, finding something that kind of balances that's rich in protein, plain yogurt, or a cheese snack, the one from Arla there.
Nice example of, of how you can position products to fit into consumers' lifestyles, whatever their lifestyle might be and what they're looking for.
Trend number 5, tapping into texture.
I love this trend.
When I tell people that aren't involved in the food industry that there are 4 texture preferences, everybody is interested in that, and it always starts a discussion, are you a, a cruncher or a smoosher or a sucker, or a chewer?
I think it's super interesting, and I think you, you know instantly what you are.
But here, again, 3 in 5 global consumers tell us that texture claims in food and drinks influences their purchase decision.
And just we pulled out a few examples that really highlights products that are marketed on a texture benefit.
So, the bubble yogurt from the UK, the crunchy cheese bites, I love those.
If you haven't ever tried the moon cheese or anything that's microwave vacuum dried, try it because the textures are just so interesting.
The cheese snacks are great.
And there's a Bauer, a crispy shake.
So I think this is a super fun, trend with lots of opportunities.
You can also, again, you know, the world has burst into so many fragments, and again, you have to look at your consumer.
So, here, we looked at two different age groups, millennials versus Boomers.
And we asked, I care more for the texture experience than for the ingredient list.
Younger consumers care more about the texture, and older consumers care more about, the ingredients.
So, again, you can then just look at how you position your marketing message to those different groups.
So, the Emmy yogurt, the extra creamy yogurt texture is the selling point, and on the right-hand side, again, quite an indulgent, goat milk yogurt, but I'm more focused on the provenance of the, of the, the local goat milk.
So that was really fast.
I hope you all have a lot of inspiration on things that you can do with dairy.
And I really appreciate you listening to our webinar, and if there's anything that we can do for you, if you would like more specific examples or to have some kind of deep dive into your particular need, reach out to us.
Our contact details are right there.
