2021 Food and Beverage Trends

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You don’t have to be an expert in, well anything, to know 2020 was a year like no other.

For the past few years, we’ve noted in these pages that digestive health, and the probiotic bacteria and prebiotic fibers and starches that support it, would continue to be the hottest trends in “better for you” food and beverage development.

In 2020, the world as we knew it was turned upside down. Coronavirus changed the way consumers shop, socialize, entertain and more which is why it will be the biggest driver of food and beverage trends in 2021.

Futurist Nancy Giordano opens Prepared Foods’ annual predictions issue with a look at the “next” normal for food and beverage processors.

Consumer commitment to reduce sugar consumption continues to drive industry opportunities to develop non-nutritive sweeteners that perform and taste like table sugar. Blending nutritive sweeteners with high-intensity sweeteners (HIS) has become the standard, with stevia being the common go-to, typically in blends with everything from corn-derived sucrose or dextrose to maltose or tapioca sugar, or recent arrivals like coconut sugar.