Welcome to the Community Call Podcast.
I am Melissa Travers, Director of Community here at BevNET & NOSH, here with my co-hosts, Monica Watress and Mike Schneider.
If you're enjoying the show, please follow and review us wherever you listen.
Monica, Mike, it's so great to have you back here again.
I know, so when this comes out, it's gonna be January 7th.
I don't know what the threshold is for how long you can talk about it being a new year, but I feel disgusting from the holidays.
And I need all of your cleansing, dry January.
What are we doing to flush the gravy and the chocolate out of my veins?
Well, if you're like me, you're just playing as much soccer as possible.
I don't know about that one.
Monica's hitting the gym.
Yeah, Monica, you've got some serious stuff going on.
What are you doing?
Well, I am doing a dry January for the first time ever, I think.
I don't know if I've successfully completed one before.
And I'm training for a half marathon in February and a full marathon in May.
And I am going to start taking GLP1s.
Wow.
That's like the full pie chart of all of the things.
I think you win.
Before we get into the GLP1s story, I want to just tell you both what makes dry January easier.
Dry December.
You know what makes dry December easier?
Dry November.
And then dry October.
I thought you were going to say magic, I guess.
I had a drenched December.
Drenched December.
My shoes are still wet.
Right.
Yeah, you know, I did really hit it pretty hard a couple of times, at least a couple of times.
I'm ready to dry out at least a little bit.
Monica, GLP-1 Drugs, I am so interested in this.
When do you start?
Is there any preparation that you do?
I want to hear all about this.
Yeah.
So I'm just kind of learning along with you, you know, as far as what to expect and how it's going to change my lifestyle and my eating patterns.
But I start this weekend, so I'll have started by the time this episode drops.
And I am starting on the lowest dosage because I'm trying to minimize the side effects like nausea and vomiting.
So I don't know how soon the cravings will be eliminated or the food noise will go away.
That's kind of the benefits that I'm most excited about.
It's just kind of living my life with out thinking about food as often as I do.
And I also understand that it helps control cravings for alcohol, which is another benefit that I'm looking forward to experiencing.
I've never heard anybody say they want to maximize the side effects of any drugs.
Like especially ones like that.
Vomiting sounds, that sounds pretty awful.
I feel like it would probably be like quicker weight loss results though.
So, I don't know.
No.
Our side effects are an added benefit.
This seems like a marathon and not a sprint though.
I mean, there's still a lot to learn about the long term implications of taking these types of drugs.
They've been on the market for weight loss and weight management for, I don't know, a couple years now.
So, I took about a year and a half to think about whether it was something that would be right for me and my lifestyle.
And I have a lot of friends who've started taking it recently and talking to them encouraged me to give it a try.
So, we'll see how it works.
I'm committing to 12 weeks.
And if it feels good and positive, then I'll continue until I decide I don't want to do it anymore.
So, you do the research and you decide whether it's good for your lifestyle.
Do you then set expectations or what comes next?
I don't know.
I mean, I'm keeping an open mind.
And I mean, obviously, with anything like this, you have to have good fitness and nutrition and sleep and, you know, hydration habits in place.
And that's something that I've more or less always have, you know, committed to for as long as I can remember.
But I haven't been super consistent this past year, just going through a lot of personal stuff.
And so I'm kind of looking at this as maybe a kickstart and as a way to sort of solidify some of the habits that I've been trying to become more consistent with.
So you're starting this weekend as you do your next grocery shop or maybe you have already, are you stocking up on all the protein things or are there certain things that you're buying more or less of, getting ready for the GLP Ones?
That's a really good question.
And I know a lot of brands are now starting to position around GLP Ones and ConAgra just announced it is introducing a label for its healthy choice platform that are, you know, which of their meals are considered GLP One friendly.
And a lot of the tenets of those types of products are high protein, high fiber and essential nutrients.
Because your appetite is reduced, there is a concern that you may not be getting certain nutrients or you might be malnourished.
So yeah, so I'm definitely prioritizing protein and fiber.
I've also been doing a meal delivery service just for the convenience of it.
So that'll help.
I mean, a lot of those meals are already high protein and have vegetables and are chock full of nutrition.
Which one are you going to do?
I'm currently doing Tempo by Home Chef, but I think I'm going to go back to Factor.
That was a really good one in terms of performance nutrition, I guess.
Seabed Market Basket doesn't have a meal delivery service.
Market Basket posted for New Year's.
They wrote out Happy New Year's and sushi.
Melissa bought it and cried.
I was actually thinking about this over the break.
Is there a Market Basket fan club?
I think the answer is no, because I know about it already.
And why shouldn't I start one?
You absolutely should start one.
Wow, I think you already have.
No, but I mean, legitimately, I'm the president and I need like an official roster of people who may be pay dues.
I don't know, I just want people to-
You need like a chief of sushi.
Chief of sushi.
Department of grocery cart management.
Yeah.
Well, I'm gonna work on building the Market Basket fan club.
Monica, I know last time you were here, we took you to a Market Basket and you bought some merchandise.
The next time you come back, maybe you could be the first official member of the Market Basket fan club, just to show everybody, you don't even have to live in New England to be part of it.
My wife's gonna fight you for presidency.
That'll make for some good content.
No, I think more like you should both be, you should both go to Market Basket together at some point.
We've talked about this in the past.
Right.
And just like crash carts into people.
Yeah, totally.
Like a gang.
Totally.
All right.
That is on the list for 2025.
That's one of my New Year's resolutions.
Monica, well, I would love to hear how the GLP ones go.
Maybe you could hop back on the Community Call podcast and tell us what you find out.
Well, I would also love to hear if either of you had any faves over this holiday season or into your brief start into January.
Mike, I see you're snacking on those TalkBack Spicy Shortbreads.
What do you think?
They should call them Spicy TalkBack Shortbreads.
Wow.
They're really spicy, right?
They talk back to you.
They did not skimp on the spice.
Yeah, that's a lot coming from you, Mike.
Well, I'm not used to when I eat something that's cumin in it, having it be like, this cookie, it tastes like it's 75% cumin.
These are shortbread cookies.
I was chatting with Matthew Thalicator about these.
He is the founder of TalkBack.
Sounds like a He-Man villain.
Thalicator.
He's the hero of spicy shortbread, in fact.
Oh, my God.
These are spicy.
They're so good.
They're spicy, but they're tight, like they're oddly addictive.
They taste good.
Yeah.
And you can't stop eating them because you're like, what did I just eat?
Because you have to chase the spice that's left in your mouth with more spice.
Matthew was the founder of Mighty Gum.
This is his new venture.
He said that he has been selling these at farmers markets.
The next stop is D2C.
And I asked him, how do you keep going as an entrepreneur?
So he had Mighty Gum, had some issues there, Monica, which you've talked about, basically got some really bad advice from somebody, and it turned out to have major consequences.
And I asked him, how do you keep going?
Being as an entrepreneur, it's so difficult, so many challenges, even more challenges than Mike having.
He's punished Mike with spice.
Right here with the spice.
And he said, I asked myself, what if this changes the way people eat food and look for flavors?
And I thought that was such a cool answer, and certainly ties in so well to the Talkback Spicy Shortbreads.
I thought these were really tasty.
I should call them Camp Talk Spicy Shortbreads.
I thought they were really tasty.
You know, normally, I'm a proponent of less sugar, but for these, I actually thought if they bumped up the sweetness a little bit, it would, for me anyways.
I don't like sweet shortbread though.
I mean, I want my shortbread cookies to barely be sweetened.
I just want a little, I want crunch and butter and a little bit of sugar.
That's how I like it.
And apparently, with a lot of spice, the chocolate ancho chili hits, like that checks a lot of boxes for me.
Like he says on the front that it's a sweet and spicy cookie inspired by beloved Mexican mole.
Now, I don't know if I've had mole that's spicy, but it's really good.
And then I think I dial back the cumin a little bit.
And the green chili is phenomenal, but there's just a lot of cumin happening there.
They are strong flavors for sure.
But I think that's what's kind of nice about them.
I mean, you know, with a lot of short breads, they are pretty neutral flavored, where you can just eat a bunch of them and not really feel much or like to feel like you, I don't know.
With this, it's like you have a couple of cookies and it's like, that was a good portion of cookies because it's so flavorful.
It is good for portion control.
So for Christmas, my boys got Takis in their Christmas stockings and they got the Fuego version, Crunch Crunch.
And my older kid could only eat a handful.
And he was like, oh, I can't eat anymore.
They're so spicy.
So it is a good way of achieving portion control.
But this is like, my spicy cookie, he man.
Ha ha ha ha.
I mean, like, the Alakator got me.
What's it like?
You'll win this time, Alakator, but I'll be back.
But, you know, I mean, Swayze, which is sweet and spicy, that was a term coined by the New York Times, I think it is still trending strong.
And I think that this is a really innovative and interesting concept that we haven't really seen.
Matthew was telling me that he was inspired by some cookies that he tasted while traveling abroad.
But I think the sweet heat is usually sweet and heat.
And this is like this is like sweet and heat.
These are really spicy, especially the green one.
The heat is intense.
This is good.
I like it.
You know, we got to get some we got to get some of these to Jackie.
I had my nieces try them, the nine year old and the 11 year old.
And the nine year old is a little too much for, but they both like the they like the chocolate mullet went a lot, but the green human was.
Yeah, but how many do they eat?
I think they had one of each.
I was going to say, because kids and cookies are going to try to eat five, right?
But again, portion control, nature's portion control is spice.
Yeah.
Who needs GLP ones?
Who needs GLP ones?
Just eat everything really spicy.
Actually, today for lunch, I made a big pot of chicken soup last night in an effort to cleanse.
And I doused it with People People's garlic ghost.
And I feel healthier already.
I thought GLP stood for ghostly peppers for a second there.
One of the other things that I had some of this holiday season were Bon Bon's gummies.
I don't know if either of you have come across those in the wild, but they're a Swedish candy organization.
They're out of New York City and they have these sour peach fish.
They have sour blackberry.
Those are the two that I tried.
And they also have an elderflower and wild strawberry.
But they are so, so good.
They get the softness just right.
The flavors are really intense and delicious and amazing.
And I'm kind of glad that there's no Bon Bon around me because I feel like I'd go there very often.
Did anybody else have any favorite products?
Shout out to Gumption Coffee, which is an Australian coffee brand.
I went to their coffee shop in New York.
Good coffee.
Bought some for Amanda.
Well, I can't think of a better way to kick off 2025 than with this episode of Community Call featuring Sherry Frey of Nielsen IQ.
We'll dig through the latest data on how ingredient trends and inflation shaped CPG sales in 2024 and what's ahead for 2025.
Discover the exciting growth opportunities for small, better-for-you brands, consumers' rising interest in sustainability, trending ingredients like collagen and electrolytes, the flavors we expect to see more of, like pickle, dragon fruit, and hibiscus, and the state of concern surrounding seed oils.
Please enjoy.
Today on Community Call, we are so thrilled to welcome Sherry Frey, VP of Total Wellness at Nielsen IQ.
Sherry is going to share how current market conditions are impacting the products and ingredients consumers are willing to pay for.
Inflation has slowed, but prices are still high.
Food trends are always shifting fast, especially on social media, and political changes have everyone guessing.
So today we are talking about what it all means for CPG brands and how they can stay ahead.
Sherry Frey, thank you so much for joining us on Community Call again.
It's always such a pleasure to have you here.
Wow, thanks.
Good to see you.
I just realized, Melissa, I think we have the exact same glasses.
I should have worn them and we could have been twins here today.
Next time.
Good to see you.
Good to see you too.
Again, great to have you here.
Before we jump in to all of the information, could you just remind us how Nielsen IQ collects data?
Absolutely.
Many of you are familiar with Nielsen IQ and you might even be using our visor platform.
But we capture data, we work directly with retailers.
So we capture everything that's going through point-of-sale systems.
But we also through our omni-channel reporting, we're able to capture what's happening online with consumers, what they're purchasing.
And a big part of what you always see from an NIQ standpoint or Nielsen IQ standpoint is not just what are people buying, but who are they?
And a lot of what Melissa and I are going to chat about today is, what's the why behind the buy?
Excellent.
Well, that certainly helps set the stage.
And then one more question.
You had some really interesting data on TikTok and social media.
How is that information gathered?
So we've got a couple of ways.
I'm going to show you some information today where we track at NIQ.
We actually track TikTok Shop.
And Melissa, I have to tell you, we started tracking it last September, a year ago.
And I remember thinking at the time, who's buying anything on TikTok Shop?
A lot of people.
I am.
We quickly became the number eight health and beauty retailer and the number 29 food online retailer.
So it really is kind of an important channel.
So TikTok Shop is one of the big areas that we capture in terms of kind of a social media.
We obviously capture all the major online retailers.
And then I'm also going to share with you some information today from one of our partners, Spate, where they really look at within social media, what's the conversation?
Not just what's the trend, but like what's underneath that?
And I think you'll really find some interesting insights that we've been intrigued with as we look at some of these macro trends that we're tracking.
Well, this information is clearly a mile deep, so let's get right into it.
Inflation has slowed, but prices are elevated.
Let's start off with what are the trends driving growth in CPG right now?
Yeah.
Well, you know what?
Let me just pop up this presentation.
I've put together a few slides for the conversation today.
Absolutely.
And just for everybody who's watching or listening, I'll be sharing this deck.
If it's okay with you and our Slack.
You bet.
If anyone has questions, don't hesitate to reach out to us.
So I think one of the things, Melissa, just to kind of set the stage of what's happening, we every six months track, you know, what are consumers talking about?
What are their top concerns?
And this I think is really powerful.
This is a look at the US.
And you can see food prices has been consistently at the top in terms of what consumers are concerned about.
But everything else is also things that are tied to, hey, things that are hitting their kind of weekly budget, their weekly fund, even though we see inflation kind of slowing down, we know that consumers have been impacted by just that compounding impact of inflation over time.
So it's important to kind of set the stage from a consumer standpoint, that at the very top, they're thinking about prices.
And then you could see a lot of the turmoil in the conversation and our political dialogue really ramp up in terms of where we saw some shifts and what was, I guess, concerning consumers, right?
Things like political unrest, immigration, global conflict.
We actually saw a lot more unrest and concern politically in the US than we did in any other of our places.
So this just gives you a little bit of a perspective of kind of what's been on consumer minds.
And I'm going to get to the inflationary elements.
But also thinking about consumers, we ask them every six months, where are you in terms of like, do you feel like you're thriving?
Are you struggling?
And this, I think, was kind of a bummer when the data came back in July.
And we're actually about to field the next round of research on this.
But in January of last year, almost 11% of consumers said, hey, I'm thriving, things are better.
And for us, when we were looking at that, it really said we anticipated a lot more growth around premium products and just premiumization in general.
And then you could see that July data, this again, consumers' perceptions of how they are, it went down to only 6% of consumers that said, yeah, I'm thriving, things are even better.
And the challenge is the number of consumers who are saying, I'm struggling or I'm just starting to rebound, but I'm still behaving very cautiously.
That has a lot of implications for us in terms of what's happening with their behavior, not just in store and out of the store.
And so something I think it's important to watch, right?
You can watch people's demographics and you can look at, oh, high income, low income, et cetera.
But we also know that there are a lot of people that are high income that are living paycheck to paycheck or that are kind of from a planning perspective.
And so this I think is an interesting kind of mindset for us to have as we look at just what's happening in general.
It really is significant.
If we look at January of 2022, 7.8% of the population felt like they were thriving.
That went all the way down to 6% in July of 2024.
And so many of the brands in our audience are emerging and have better for you products that tend to be more expensive than mainstream products, private labels.
So that's a huge concern.
It's a concern, but I will also tell you, and I think you're going to see it in the data that it doesn't necessarily mean that people are just going to always trade down.
And we did see a lot of behaviors, especially in 2022 and 23, where we saw people shopping more in the value channel, they were shopping more in the dollar channel.
Really it doesn't, again, that mean that they're only going to buy the lowest price thing.
Food and beverage, in many cases, is that place where consumers are willing to make the indulgence.
And I think you'll see it in some of the trends I'm going to show you on kind of what's happened in the store.
We actually think consumers are coming back and food service is seeing the impact of what's happening from this compounding inflation from a consumer standpoint.
In fact, let me show you that.
And so we think the big great news, and I say this to you in terms of great news, because being a data researcher and sharing a lot of industry trends, the trends actually have been negative in terms of units for quite a while.
So it's been kind of hard to share that information back with the industry.
So it's more fun when we can say, hey, look, people are coming back to the store, especially in the latest 13 weeks.
We're seeing a lot of great growth.
And in particular, one thing I think you'll find interesting, and I think for the brands on the call, kind of an interesting perspective, we look a little bit at what's happening in the perimeter versus what's happening in center store and non-food.
We are seeing, even as consumers are coming back into the store, we're seeing even greater growth in some of those categories that we would call maybe more ingredient categories than just convenient.
Now, again, not saying that's going to stay and be long term, but it's just kind of this interesting perspective that we do see consumers coming back.
And tied to your comment, Melissa, on the better for piece, I think this is a really exciting kind of slide when you look at this.
And so anything that is a food and beverage product that is better for someone's health, better for society and better for the environment.
So kind of meets those sorts of needs, rather than looking at, oh, just better for health or better for society or better for environment just within isolation.
We have thousands of attributes that we track.
But the reason we look at this aggregated is we've really seen in the last few years, this is how consumers are thinking about it.
They're totally tying their personal health and wellness, health of the planet, this idea of health of each other or kind of equity altogether.
So it's one kind of metric that we like to look at.
And you can really see that it's there in blue.
This is the dollar growth.
And so 2020 into 2021, you'd see greater growth and better for, and then boom, if we all remember back to 2022 into 2023, that's where we saw some of the most painful inflationary prices from a consumer standpoint.
And you could see it.
They pulled back in dollars.
Now we actually saw units a bit more resilient, but dollars you can kind of see the stark pullback up until Q3 of 2023.
And then we started to see growth come back again.
So why I share this kind of longer term perspective with you is, in that same box, we saw a lot of pullback from consumers around discretionary things, around wellness, so things like testing kids, beauty supplies.
It was kind of real tough.
Again, that's where we saw a lot of that.
I'm going to go to the value channel.
I'm going to go to the dollar channel.
Now we're seeing a bit more again, it's the shifting back.
And, you know, there's a lot of opportunity, we believe, in this space of better for.
I want to show you a little bit of what we're seeing in terms of kind of big brand, small brand, private label.
But what are your thoughts on this?
Are you seeing the same thing on your side?
You know, I'm so curious to know what is making consumers feel like they want to spend more.
I've said it a couple of times in this show already, even though inflation isn't climbing, the prices are still significantly higher than they were.
And although some people may have traded up to a higher paying job or something like that, any idea what's giving consumers more confidence nowadays?
Yeah, you know, when you really also look at like wage increases, there's been a lot of media coverage and consumer concern, but actually the wage increases, especially at the lowest levels, have been very high.
And so what we believe is happening here is we've almost reset to a new normal.
And again, you kind of think about the most painful times from a consumer standpoint.
It really was more in that 2022, early 2023 standpoint.
So it's almost like, okay, this is kind of where we are and how things are now.
And like I said, you know, there's been a little bit more of the criticism on the price of food and food service than there is in the store for many consumers, which is kind of, I think, changing the perspective.
The other piece I'll call out, we've seen such growth in Better4 across channels.
So it's not necessarily that Better4 is something that's only sold in the natural channel.
We're seeing about half of the sales of Better4 are in the conventional channel.
And I think the other piece that's been really fascinating, Melissa, is when we look at who's making up the sales and who's driving the sales.
I think this says a lot about where consumers are finding this today, but also maybe what the future looks like.
So let me orient you to what we're seeing here.
As you would expect, you know, large manufacturers make up the greatest percentage, followed by private label, then medium, small and emerging, emerging and then smallest segment.
Emerging is actually bigger in terms of the overall sales of total food and beverage on the left.
When we took a look at this, Melissa, at the better for level, here's some things that we found really interesting.
So down there at the bottom, the small brands, the emerging brands, no surprise, that 26, 24 percent of the sales of those segments are better for.
Actually, I had anticipated we would have even seen them higher, but that's where they are today.
And you can see a lot of really good and strong growth again in that four-year CAGR.
And if I were a brand I'd really be looking at and watching this, is that 9 percent of sales that are better for in private label.
So you can see it's not growing as fast as what we're seeing in some of the other segments, but the fact that already today, 9 percent of sales for a private label are better for, indicates you can see that retailers are really getting behind this topic of better for health, better for society, better for the planet, all kind of intermingled together, which you can look at this both ways.
You can say it's a real positive because more retailers are paying attention, it's becoming more mainstream.
And at the same time, you could look at this and say, ooh, we want to make sure that we've got our product on shelf, and we've got an opportunity to be there and be in a differentiated space in this better for area.
This is also fascinating.
The fact that small brands are qualified as 50 million to 200 and then emerging 10,000 to 50, they have some of the highest rates of growth of any of the brands, I mean, especially large and private label.
So that growth is hugely promising.
Is there anything that we can glean from this information that will help inform small and medium sized brands around how to compete with big CPG?
Yeah, one of the things, you know, I talk a lot with small brands, I always say, you know, that what you're going in and you've got a retailer meeting, make sure you are walking that store well in advance of what you are meeting and look at what they're doing in private label and look outside of your category.
Of course, look within your category.
You're already paying very close attention to that.
But really walk the store with the eye on what are they doing in their private label in other segments, because you will really start to see what retailers are prioritizing in terms of their idea of better for, just better for around the environment, and specifically within the environment, is it around waste?
Is it around climate?
Is it around natural resources?
You'll be able to see what they're doing in terms of, with their private label, in areas around artificial colors and flavors.
Again, you can kind of see where their priorities are falling, where they're falling from, even from like people standpoint, what are their social aspects.
And then that gives you a good indicator of where your brand actually plays, or in some cases may not play, with that particular retailer.
And I'm also wondering for the small and emerging categories here.
It's so interesting that consumers are increasingly willing to spend their dollars in those places.
Is that because we find that small and emerging brands tend to embrace sustainability measures, better for you, neutral panels, that kind of thing?
And or is it because consumers are looking to add incremental pleasure into their lives?
And if you compare better for you food and beverage products versus, I don't know, a vacation, then clearly it's easier to spend your money in a small way to add a little enjoyment to your life.
I mean, yes, and like so both of those.
Of course, we know that there's a high level of loyalty from a consumer standpoint on things around better for A, because it's kind of that place.
And we always say this.
I always feel we started working about four years ago and doing a lot of deep analysis on sustainability.
It was really interesting, Melissa, because so many industries outside of CPG wanted to see what was happening in the CPG space around sustainability, because this is that place.
There's so many transactions.
The price point is not that high.
You can really see that people are saying, I buy these products because this is who I am.
These are my values and I can day in and day out, make those purchases, whether it's around my health or whether it's around the environment.
So just that the reality of, I know we talk a lot about the price of food and how it's increased, but overall these are still within the scheme of everything the consumer is paying for, sometimes small indulgences.
And this is again, these are the places where they're like, I'm willing to pay for that, right?
I'm not going to go out to eat or I'm kind of changing X or Y behavior, but I want to enjoy this.
The second piece of what you brought up too and why there's this loyalty to these small brands is so many of the small brands are on this call.
And this is where we see such great innovation.
It's where you see such great, this is the ethos of the brand.
So it's not necessarily this is just an attribute that's being put on that might appeal to a consumer.
But it's there's actually almost always a beautiful origin story around like, this is in the market for this reason, which again, kind of builds that loyalty from a consumer standpoint.
Well, I am dying to get into the ingredient and flavor trends that are behind all of this.
Oh, right.
Let's geek out.
I was so glad you asked me to come and talk about this.
And this, I'm actually just going to give you like a few different examples of what we're looking at and how we're thinking about it and just recommendations that I would have for if you're a brand, how you might want to be thinking about watching where you may or may not play.
Melissa knows this for many of you, if we haven't met before, I'm a total data nerd.
I love bubble charts.
I love showing a ton of data on one slide at one time, so you can really put things into perspective.
You can see, for instance, way over on the far right, that kind of brownish bubble, or at least it looks brownish to me, collagen.
So we see collagen is pretty solid in terms of the size of the sales, comparatively to many of the others on the page.
It's in many categories.
And as you know, we've seen collagen.
It's in beauty, it's in food, it's in our pet, kind of across the store.
And so you again, you kind of watch this ingredient and where it falls across the store.
Why is this important?
It's important because this whole consumer awareness, there's always trendy ingredients, but really as we know, consumers start to see products, or ingredients show up in products across the store.
It increases their familiarity and their awareness.
So the other piece, Melissa, that we try and track with this is we're also trying to track like, well, what's the consumer conversation, right?
Like what's happening in terms of hashtags?
And again, this is just a look from a TikTok standpoint.
So underneath there, you can actually see there's been a decline in creatine.
And it's not in a lot of categories across the store, yet there's a pretty big consumer conversation around creatine.
And so again, it's a little bit of a way or a framework to say, well, what's happening, what's trending?
And so, you know, you can see in green there just called out for you some of the spaces where we're seeing some of the greatest growth in the number of categories across the store for those ingredients.
So a lot to unpack here, but thought I'd just kind of give you a little bit of a way that we're seeing many people kind of look at ingredients.
I also love bubble charts.
I feel like we're pushing up our glasses in spirit together.
I mean, collagen is something that certainly I've seen for a number of years.
Is collagen also something that you continue to see come up in the data as being something that consumers are seeking out?
We do.
And you know, you can see it there with the 1.5 million hashtags on TikTok.
It's not growing as much again as some of those smaller and emerging areas that you're seeing.
And electrolytes because so many of the beverage brands in our community either have electrolytes in their formulation or maybe are thinking about putting them in there.
What can you tell us about electrolytes?
So it's been really fascinating.
I will just tell you one of the major trends that we are tracking overall is hydration.
And you know, you think about how are we also unhydrated or whatever.
But in general, beverage is one of those places that we know when people ask me like, where do you look for emerging wellness trends?
I will always say, I will look first at beverages and vitamins and supplements.
Those are those places where you just see what consumers are demanding and what they're desiring.
If people ask me, and I'm actually going to show you some examples, where do people look for flavor trends?
I always say, look in the snack section.
That's a great place for some flavor ingredients or flavor trends.
So electrolytes overall, you know, I see where they are in the chart, but is there any kind of key takeaway that brands who either have electrolytes in their formulation or thinking about them should take as they approach innovation and marketing?
Oh, okay, you know, the one thing I would be watching from the standpoint.
So we, A, you know, again, huge bubble here, where I would rarely be watching electrolytes.
If I were a beverage manufacturer, I'd be really also watching where electrolytes are showing elsewhere in the store.
So obviously, hydration packets, that's a category that's kind of come out of nowhere.
The powders, et cetera.
I'd really be watching what's happening with that area.
And I'd be watching, because we're not necessarily seeing it.
How much overlap your brand, as a category, we're not necessarily seeing it, but with some brands we are, how much overlap does your brand have with those new consumers?
And by the way, there are new consumers that are coming into the electrolyte and the drink packets.
Those are new, new, new penetration, new frequency.
How much overlap does your brand have or not have with that kind of really fast growing space?
And then one last question on the electrolytes.
Do you have any idea where those new consumers are coming from?
We were just looking at something recently.
It's a little bit of different consumers for different reasons.
We were specifically looking at women and women's health and sports nutrition.
And we know there's been a lot of growth kind of in that space.
But for many of this, with those packets, that's just kind of a new, new category.
So a lot of the growth is coming across the board when we look kind of age-wise.
It's really across the board of people that are looking for hydration and the electrolytes.
And do you know if it's usually athletes or does it really touch a bunch of different consumer groups?
That's the other part of it's more than athletes.
That's the big piece, I think, that we're really seeing is it's not just people that are going to the gym or only for sports nutrition.
It's bringing in new, new consumers.
I mean, I'm actually just sitting here with something that I had just made up before a call.
OK, well, before I dragged you into an electrolyte, rabbit hole, you teased out some trends.
Let's get on to flavor trends.
Oh, love it.
OK.
We just recently had done some work with Data Essentials.
And so if you also I can send you the full deck on that.
Data Essentials is a company that actually looks at food service trends.
And so we were kind of tracking like is what's happening outside the store, also happening in the store and hot honey.
It's almost become, you know, cliche.
But this does continue to growth.
And we're seeing, you know, this is kind of one of those flavors that we're seeing grow across the store, you know, across categories within the store.
Hibiscus is an interesting one, I will tell you.
You know, this is one where we've been tracking it.
We see a lot of consumers that are searching for it.
For those of you that are on the call that are in beverages, you know, we see this in many categories.
It's been up overall, but in units over the last two years.
But in general, hibiscus, and this is a little bit of where it's kind of moving across the categories in the store, the larger numbers are down.
So it's an interesting one, I would not say, don't get out of hibiscus if that's something you're in, because we actually think those 400,000 searches, meaning when consumers are going onto a retailer website, they're typing in the word hibiscus.
That indicates a lot of consumer interest.
Dragon Fruit is a fun one.
Melissa, this is one that I think it was really the part, a lot of our work with Data Essentials was inspired by the fact that Dragon Fruit really started outside the store and it started, of course, in beverages.
And then you started to see it all of a sudden in beauty products, and then you were seeing in a candy and gum and, you know, mints and those sorts of things.
And then actually, we've seen the greatest growth in Dragon Fruit in the produce department in the last couple of years.
And so a lot of that is funny because you really think this ingredient, which is actually a produce item, grew as a flavor and then as it gained more consumer awareness and understanding, then we actually saw it grow as an actual ingredient itself.
Camu Camu and then the other one, pickle, I will tell you, you can see it with the searches, right?
People love pickles.
I love pickles.
And we just continue to see phenomenal growth in all things pickle.
For anyone who's listening to this in the podcast format, I have to say that pickle is up 1,087 percent, hot honey was up 461 percent, hibiscus was down nine, and then Dragon Fruit was up 13, Camu Camu was up 923 percent.
So the pickle, it's kind of king here, 1,087 percent increase is huge.
Yes, we're a pickle nation.
Hibiscus is really interesting to me.
I don't know how you feel about hibiscus as a flavor or ingredient.
I think sometimes it's done really well.
And then sometimes it has a tendency to be a little bit on the tart side.
And I personally haven't noticed a ton of information being associated with hibiscus as a functional ingredient, and the way that maybe we would think of goji berry as, like they have a similar kind of tart profile.
But I haven't seen as much information touting hibiscus as a functional ingredient.
No, I haven't either.
That's a great point.
With that, let me take it a little bit further.
And then I do apologize for those of you that are listening on the podcast, but you will have access to this after the fact.
What I'm sharing with you is US data trends.
So even though you're looking at a global chart, this is where we're seeing flavors grow in the US data.
So this is all food and beverage in the US, but where's it coming from across the globe?
And so as I mentioned, the hot honey, Mexican street corn and lotte, that continues to be a fast growing area.
You can see people are searching for harissa from a spice perspective, but in general, when we look at harissa as an ingredient, it's actually down overall.
Pickle, we actually couldn't figure out where on the map to actually put pickles because they come everywhere.
It loves pickles.
But then even some areas like Korean barbecue, you're seeing that in Korean overall, up 285 percent or 156 percent, so some really strong growth.
And yuzu, so again, a ingredient flavor that adds a kind of a unique profile, really strong up to over 2,000 percent.
So just a little bit of a perspective there.
And then some of the tried and trues, you know, the Pad Thai or the Sriracha, we're actually seeing some declines in the sales of those overall.
There was a Sriracha shortage just recently.
Yeah, in the last year.
I wonder if that motivated people to search for it less.
The yuzu is really interesting.
2,532 percent increase.
The first thing that comes to mind is a brand called Pockets Chocolates.
They have these nuts that are enrobed in a really delicious flavoring.
And yuzu, I think, was maybe my favorite of theirs.
So we certainly are seeing it across all categories.
I love yuzu.
I think it's a great flavor profile.
If you're a brand on the call and you're kind of thinking about, well, how are the big guys doing this?
Or how should we be thinking about looking at innovation?
You know, Melissa brought it up.
And we do think, you know, looking at TikTok and other social media, fantastic way.
These are kind of three examples, you know, that we're seeing, right, like Tahin.
You know, we know that's kind of just actually had Tahin gummy bears recently that were shockingly good.
And so you can see, of course, what's happening in terms of these new flavors or kind of new formulations of kind of whether they're desserts or just foods that are kind of from other countries or put in front of consumers.
But I would tell you, if you're a small brand and you're kind of tracking some of these areas or you're thinking about, like, do we want to play in this space?
Not just looking at what are the hashtag Tahin, but really looking at not just how many people are harding but how many people are saving down recipes.
So really, again, kind of using social media to your advantage to see, okay, what's this wildfire viral trend doing?
And then how many people are saving it to come back to it, saving to make a recipe, kind of make it themselves.
That has a lot of indication on where consumers are in terms of their larger interest.
If you see that something went viral, but it actually doesn't have a lot of likes or a lot of saves, then also is an indication too.
We have a question from LinkedIn from Brandon.
Brandon wants to know if you're seeing any pickle beverage trends.
Yes, yes.
I laugh because we've been joking internally about doing a system pickle thought leadership because pickles everywhere.
And you've even seen this historically.
You know, it used to be you would do a shot of Jameson and a pickle back, right?
Like, so that's been around for a while.
And so pickles, yes, across the store.
The joke that we were saying is we were going to try to correlate the pickle growth with the growth of pickle ball, even pickle flavored like snacks.
You know, we're seeing such a growth of even those sorts of things.
But yeah, pickles in both non-alcohol and alcohol.
Whole Foods Market used to have a private label dill pickle coated almond, which I was such a huge fan of.
They actually pulled it, which I thought was interesting.
I wonder if we'll see that jump on back onto the shelves with this information.
But then Daily Crunch picked up the slack.
They now have the sprouted nuts with dill pickle.
So I think we have what we need.
Yes, their sprouted nuts are fantastic.
That flavor is amazing.
Now, I am just dying.
I think I've asked you four times since we first started talking about doing this show.
What is happening with seed oil?
Because on the one hand, again, you know, Whole30 put them back on the menu.
I'm seeing all these influencers in my feed saying they're totally fine.
But then we have the seed oil free certification.
So what are they in?
Are they out?
What's happening?
Yes.
Okay, great question.
So seed oil is a really interesting, Melissa.
So I would say that from an industry standpoint, this is becoming more and more of a conversation.
From a consumer standpoint, we're still kind of at this emerging level in terms of consumer knowledge, consumer understanding.
A couple of things I think you will see this continue to grow and kind of more of this being a topic within our industry.
One reason is, you know, there's some new certifications, seed oil free certified, which is, you know, actually, you know, able to certify and kind of outlining, you know, harmful versus, you know, less harmful seed oils.
There's a lot of, by the way, you know, questions, concerns, but the idea of being able to understand what oils are in products.
And when we talk about soybean oil, like how many items, you know, well, there's almost 50,000 items, canola oil, not as many safflower items or peanut oil.
So it's a little bit of a perspective of like, how big is this conversation?
And by the way, the other pieces we've started to see in New York, there's some crowd sourcing where consumers are crowd sourcing the restaurant, so not in the CPG space or restaurants that are using seed oils or not using seed oils.
So again, this kind of viral movement.
The other piece, and my oils is just a bit on the top of the list, is the reality of the adulterated oils, right?
And so that becoming an increasing part of this conversation around like, it says this on the label, but is this really what I'm getting?
And just frankly, truth and transparency.
I think transparency is going to be a huge topic for our industry in 2025 and beyond.
But when you kind of look at what's the consumer conversation, we asked our friends at Spate to look at canola oil, because that was where they saw the biggest amount of conversation.
And you can see there's many consumer searches.
And then we also wanted to understand, well, what are they talking about?
Like, what are they tying seed oils to when they talk about canola?
And you can see that this conversation is really around inflammation.
It's around autoimmune.
There's some topic streams that are around, like, if consumers are tying seed oils to cancer.
So again, you know, one of the things we definitely have seen with social media is that, you know, a conversation can kind of quickly become greater than it is just based on kind of a consumer dynamic.
So let's say I'm a snack brand.
Canola oil is a lot less expensive to use than avocado oil or, you know, beef tallow, for example.
Any thoughts on what direction I might think about moving forward on, whether it's innovation, reformulation?
Is it too soon to tell how consumers feel about canola oil?
We know they're searching for it, but do we know whether they're actively avoiding them yet or not?
Yeah, so if you are a brand, I think this is something you should keep your eye on.
And again, it's here on the level of the consumer conversation, right?
It's more of an emerging topic.
I think it's something you should keep your eye on.
I think, you know, there was the recent protest at one of the major cereal manufacturers.
And, you know, we kind of did that because of food additives and did it impact them.
And we didn't necessarily see that all of a sudden, people actually did boycott the product.
So even on something that's more broad and mainstream, like some of those red dye, you know, with the food additives, we didn't necessarily see what consumers were saying versus what they actually did kind of play out.
If I were in your shoes, I'd just be watching this.
I'd kind of be, you know, keeping close to it.
And then watching as the conversation evolves, it could, Melissa, with RFK Jr., this could be something that explodes very quickly in the next year.
Well, we will certainly keep our eye on that.
So you also have some really interesting information on snacking.
You mentioned earlier that that's one of the first place that you look for ingredient and flavor trends.
What can you tell us about snacking right now?
Oh, yeah, I love snacking.
Again, snacking is one of those places where, you know, you can say like, OK, what's going on?
So there's a few things, you know, one we've seen, and it feels like you could say this every single year, but it really is true.
And that is this kind of globalization of flavors.
You know, we and we know a lot of that is being driven by younger consumers who we know to Gen Z, you know, are more diverse than any other generation, but not necessarily only Gen Z.
You know, we see this growth of these flavors across different consumer segments as well, different ages, but whether it's these flavors that you see here as a whole, like matcha or chorizo or chili lime or churro, you know, those sorts of flavors within snacking, then we've kind of boiled them up.
We've got a really great snack report.
So again, if anyone is on the call and is interested in the snack report, just ping our team or ping Melissa and we can get that to you as well.
Here's what we're seeing kind of from a savory standpoint, and I'll tell you what we're seeing from a sweet standpoint.
So one is the interesting area of this kind of like what I would call dishes as flavors.
So maybe it's a lotte flavored ax or pizza flavored rice.
So like kind of this idea that we're taking a main ingredient and making it a flavor.
That's a really up and coming area in a variety of facets for snack foods.
Again, spice, spice around the world.
So you kind of saw that even in that previous slide that I had shown around, you know, some of the different ways that we're looking at spice.
I personally, and I apologize to any brands that are on here.
I'm wondering when it's going to get too hot, right?
Our ghost peppers and all of our spice.
I'm just wondering about that.
Will we ever burn out on that?
And then believe it or not, barbecue.
And it's barbecue in kind of traditional American barbecue flavor, but also barbecue in terms of Korean barbecue.
On the sweet side, Melissa, we see more seasonal stuff.
So this ins and outs, and we all know the whole kind of limited time.
We kind of love that.
Even though we joke about how pumpkin spice season seems to just be getting longer and longer.
Beverages as flavors.
So this is something you would think about.
And we're seeing things like chai flavored or cold brew flavored, lemonade flavored.
So kind of again, this using a form as a flavoring.
And then childhood favorites.
And I personally love this one.
This is something that we're just seeing in general.
Culturally from Jen's ears, you know, this kind of interest in, and I'm a Jen Exer, so this is why I love it.
This interested in like things that we grew up with, right?
And like, so things even like cook cake batter or birthday cake and bubble gum.
So a little bit of this nostalgia in many of these childhood favorites is kind of coming back, and we're seeing that, again, percolate up in a lot of the trends in the sweet snack side.
Dishes as flavors in childhood favorites or maybe not so favorites, to me, sort of collide in Ouroboros green bean casserole flavored seltzer that came out, I think it was last year, so that's really interesting.
Green bean casserole, you either love it or hate it.
Totally, and it's that time of year, you know?
It's time to love it or hate it.
Could you just give us sort of a top line understanding of what's happening in sustainability right now and what consumers are paying attention to and what they're willing to pay more for in terms of claims?
Sustainability is a really interesting space, Melissa.
And so one of the things that we've been watching is we saw really strong growth in sustainability in 2022.
We saw it in 2019, 2020, 2021, 22, right?
Like again, that's where I was telling you a little bit of where we saw the inflationary time.
We did see a pullback from a consumer standpoint, but we're actually again, like that better for, we're seeing sustainability increasingly come back.
I will tell you, one of the things that we're kind of watching is again, with this new administration, will we see consumers put more of the personal onus on buying things that are sustainable, buying things that match their values?
Will we actually see that grow?
I'll tell you what the biggest take away is, if I were a small brand thinking about sustainability, that we've been tracking.
You know, one is that it means a lot of different things to different consumers.
So when you ask about sustainability, there are certain consumers who will say that they tend to be older.
It's about the environment, it's about natural resources, it's about pollution, it's about packaging, like very, very specific.
When we talk to younger consumers and we ask like, what does it mean?
How important is it?
What are you actually doing?
We find in the younger consumers, for them, it's much broader.
It's around the social aspects.
It's around like, how is everybody along the supply chain treated?
So they're very broad, right?
They do care about natural resources, but it's part of it.
Animal welfare is huge for younger consumers.
The other piece that we're finding with the younger consumers is, they're almost conflating things like sustainability and clean label.
So no artificial colors, no artificial flavors.
Again, for them, it kind of ties to this broader sourcing conversation and less about just the environment.
The other piece that I would kind of say that we just have seen year over year for the last few years, this interest in waste, this concern, I guess, I shouldn't say interest, I should say concern.
Consumers are, you know, they're really, it's the number one thing when we ask them, what are you trying to do?
Like, it's not the number one, but it's in the top.
I'm trying to eat leftovers.
I'm trying to not waste as much.
It's the things that they're asking brands to do more of is, which is like, how's your supply chain?
They're asking retailers to do more.
And we're seeing it again, not just in food and beverage.
I think the beauty industry, the plastic industry, like all of these things are a little bit of a precursor of what could be coming down the pike in terms of consumers' interest in how we are, you know, handling waste along the entire supply chain, even though, by the way, a lot of it is in the consumer's refrigerator.
I'm so surprised to see regenerative agriculture down towards the bottom.
I was looking forward up top and didn't see it.
Did that surprise you?
I'm so glad you asked about that one.
You have such a good eye.
I can tell you're a data nerd because you literally caught that so fast.
So if anyone has seen me present this slide in the past, you might have seen that regenerative was actually up high.
It was up more like even where like the free from herbicide words are up above on there.
Here's what's been happening with regenerative agriculture.
It's done research from consumers.
There's still a high level of interest.
Obviously, the understanding of what is it, is still being determined.
The reason it's down in the last four years, Melissa, is actually because more brands are putting it on their package.
In some instances, they're putting it on their packages, not as a certification, but in romance copy.
And many of those brands are in declining categories.
So it's actually, there's a little bit of an underneath the covers, specifically on regenerative agriculture.
So I'm super glad you asked about that, because that's one that we track really closely.
And I think it's one, that's a really good example of an attribute that consumers are interested in that's important.
But at the same time, if it just becomes a marketing claim, like the challenge of it having meaning, real meaning, will be lost.
I have one question from Alejandro.
And actually, before I get to that, Nicole wants to know if you can double-click on animal welfare with younger consumers.
And Nicole, slack.bevnet.com, I'll upload this deck right there for you.
So...
Oh, but you know, actually, Nicole, you're bringing up a great question.
And Melissa, I think you were asking me about this earlier in the week.
What claims should you put on your back, right?
Like, what should you do?
And we did a lot of research on this in terms of like, are there any claims that are the best claims?
Here's the advice I would give you.
So the biggest aha we found, we took a look at five years of data with McKinsey and Company.
We basically analyzed the heck out of all of these attributes of like, what's the optimization and is there a business case?
Here's what we found.
We found that the brands, there was no claim.
There's no like, oh, put Regenerative on and, you know, it's going to go through the roof.
There's the brands that did the best.
It's not as specifically about the claim that they had, but it was more around, if you see on that right hand side of the screen, environmental sustainability, animal welfare, social responsibility, clean label organic.
So those are kind of the buckets we have here.
If they played and they had claims in more than one, so it's not necessarily that you would go deep in environmental, but if you have an environmental and an animal welfare or a social responsibility, those brands did two times as much.
And I think it gets back to Melissa, what you were asking earlier around like, it was where small brands can really excel.
If this is your ethos and who you are, yes, we care about these things, not just the environment, we care about all of these things.
That would be one recommendation I have is to really think about, how could you play across multiple areas?
The other place that we saw, and so again, this is really where you would look at your category.
We saw that when brands had a claim that nobody else had, they did better, but as more brands, of course, they could charge more too.
But as more brands kind of came on and had that claim, their ability to do that diminished.
The third thing I guess that we're seeing, a real shift is there's been a lot of like ambiguous claims on packages.
And in fact, there's been some stuff we as data people are like, what does that even mean?
We've seen an improvement in what brands are putting on, or shift, I guess, what they're putting on.
And it's more measurable, not ambiguous words, not words like environmentally friendly, you know, really, truly like words that have meaning and can be measured.
And even in some cases, there's some shifts towards some certification areas.
And just to reiterate what you just said, a lot of these claims, environmental sustainability, animal welfare, social responsibility, those are oftentimes claims that big CPG has trouble pursuing because they're at such a scale.
So this really does present such a huge opportunity.
One last question for you from Alejandro Devoto.
The data shared, is it related to the US market or global?
That's a great question.
Thank you so much.
So everything that I've shared with you today has been US based.
We do actually, and are starting to look at many of the sustainability attributes and the health attributes in some global markets, Canada, UK., but everything today has been US based.
Thank you so much for that question and for all of the questions.
Sherry Frey, I feel like I could talk to you all day long.
We're going to have to do this again if you're up for it.
Thank you for having us.
You betcha.
Thank you.
That concludes another episode of the Community Call Podcast.
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