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Reality television personality Jenelle Evans (MTV’s Teen Mom 2, 2009-2019) introduced Time Of The Day, a new line of Fair Trade-sourced functional mushroom coffees. Publicly dealing with fibromyalgia, body aches, migraines, and recently diagnosed with thymic hyperplasia, Evans said she knew she had to make health and lifestyle changes to improve her well-being.

Motivated by market interest and functionality, edibles brands and manufacturers are building on customer feedback and cannabinoid research to develop products tailored for desired mood or need states.

Prepared Foods has selected six new food and beverage products introduced in October 2023. Vote to let us know which new product is your favorite!

Although plant-based has become a popular term in the dairy- and meat-free categories, it does not accurately describe all developments in this fast-moving field. There are technologies that generate “animal-free,” bioidentical ingredients such as dairy whey and dairy casein. Even so, “plant-based” continues to grow in use, with indexed average annual growth of +42% between 2017 and 2022.

At a time when the meat analog industry is in a state of flux, Yves Potvin started a new company—Konscious Foods Canada, Inc.—and has seen it grow in leaps and bounds.

Consumer interest in the role of functional foods that help support immunity is still foremost in the “Better For You” category, and forecast to continue at the very least for another 5-7 years.

Creating lower-sugar alternatives to high-sugar dairy products has becomes especially important considering that, according to the CDC’s 2022 National Diabetes Statistics Report, some 130 million Americans—around one-third of the total population—have diabetes or pre-diabetes, and more than 10% don’t even know it. But the dairy industry has not been asleep at the wheel when it comes to this crisis.

While the plant-based protein trend remains front and center in the food product development industry, it’s important to remember that animal-based whole-food proteins make up four of the Top Five most bioavailable protein sources.

While 88% of active users have a moderate to high commitment to continue their plant-based purchases, one-third of shoppers say they would like to see more plant-based offerings at stores, according to research.

The past decade has seen the rise of natural, botanical sweeteners of all types and abilities flooding the market. These plant-derived sweeteners range from zero-calorie HIS products such as stevia and monkfruit to monosaccharides like unrefined plant sugars which offer only a slight reduction in calories but bring other advantages to the table. The challenge for product formulators is to meet the demand for products with less sugar but make them as indistinguishable as possible from their full-sugar counterparts.