The Top 30 Food & Beverage Trends of 2025

First, here’s a look at the fastest-growing food & beverage topics of the past year:

Now, let’s move beyond keywords to explore the top food & beverage trends that our analysts have identified will shape 2025 & 2026.

Hiking habits fuel freeze-dried boom

Cereal companies are often at the forefront of adopting new kinds of preserved fruit. Since freeze-dried fruit has low water content, they're mostly sugar, so buyers like the taste and cereal companies like the fact that they can say “no sugar added” by removing the non-sugar components of an ingredient. These strategies help cereal companies address the growing group of consumers shying away from cereal in favor of a more healthy breakfast option.

Freeze-dried foods have become a key food & beverage industry trend that benefits from the rise in camping and hiking, as people look for convenient outdoor meal options. COVID also accelerated this trend, as people bought preserved foods and experimented with more baked goods.

In parallel, the "ugly produce" business is booming; Imperfect Foods and Misfits Market have collectively raised over half a billion dollars to grow their business of selling produce that tastes better than it looks. As it turns out, the "ugly produce" business has existed for a long time: soups, sauces, and baked goods are often made with pieces of produce that wouldn't look good on a shelf but that taste fine when chopped up and processed. Freeze-dried strawberries are another example of how the food industry repurposes food products that wouldn’t otherwise have strong shelf appeal.

The economics of strawberry production also tie to the rise of freeze-dried strawberries. Strawberries are a very labor-intensive product, with labor representing 50x the share of costs relative to a more mechanized product like corn. When strawberry pickers pick an excessively ripe strawberry, they usually discard it, because it won't stay fresh in time to get to a grocery store. Since the labor component of cost is so high, waste is less of a problem—but it is an opportunity. Freeze-drying strawberries is not only a way to deal with the lower visual appeal, but also a way to preserve them. This has gotten easier since the development of a more complex cold chain, which allows more foods to be transported through cheaper forms of transit that may take longer.

Functional beverages redefine social rituals

People aren’t just cutting back on alcohol or caffeine—they’re replacing them with something more intentional.

Functional beverages—infused with CBD, THC, adaptogens, or nootropics—are increasingly being used to manage energy, stress, and focus on demand. The appeal isn’t just the ingredients; it’s the promise of control. Unlike coffee’s crash or alcohol’s hangover, these drinks are marketed as tools for fine-tuning how you feel—calm, sharp, balanced.

Wearables, one of the largest wellness trends, have played a quiet but crucial role. Devices like Oura and WHOOP have made sleep disruptors visible—late-night cocktails and afternoon espressos are no longer abstract culprits but data-backed mistakes. This visibility has opened the door for functional drinks to move from niche to normalized.

And it’s not just solo use. Functional drinks are becoming part of social rituals, especially among Gen Z, where 4 in 10 now avoid alcohol entirely. Brands have responded by designing beverages that look like canned cocktails but offer clarity instead of intoxication.

What began as a wellness adjacent category is now reshaping the beverage aisle. These drinks aren’t about indulgence or escape—they’re about small, strategic shifts in how we feel, perform, and recover.

Toddler food mirrors adult values

The modern baby food aisle looks less like canned mush and more like a curated wellness section.

Brands like Little Bellies are reshaping expectations for what babies and toddlers eat—driven by a generation of millennial parents who came of age reading ingredient labels and questioning legacy brands. Where once convenience reigned, now the focus is on transparency, developmental design, and clean ingredients.

Little Bellies, founded by two Australian dads, is a case in point. They publish heavy metal testing results for U.S. products—a quiet but powerful response to growing distrust in mainstream baby food. Their snacks evolve with motor milestones, shifting in shape and texture to support self-feeding. Even the mess is intentional: the brand encourages food play as a form of sensory development, reframing a scattered highchair tray as a learning tool, not a cleanup chore.

This shift ties directly into broader snack trends, where food isn’t just consumed—it’s curated. Parents now expect baby snacks to multitask—to nourish, to teach, to align with their broader parenting values. And they’re sharing it all online. The “what I feed my toddler” genre has become a performance space for clean labels, compostable packaging, and cute, camera-ready finger foods.

This isn’t just a trend about baby food. It’s about control, trust, and the extension of adult wellness culture into the earliest stages of life.

Coffee culture fuels milk alternatives

Most people aren’t quitting milk—they’re diversifying it.

Oat, almond, pistachio, macadamia—all new beverage trends. Milk alternatives have exploded not because of a mass exodus from dairy, but because consumers want more ways to personalize what goes into their coffee, cereal, and smoothies. In fact, 9 in 10 plant-milk buyers still drink traditional dairy. This isn’t rejection—it’s rotation.

Part of the shift is health-related, or at least perceived to be: 32% of Americans say they have food allergies or intolerances. Whether clinically diagnosed or self-assumed, that belief is enough to drive behavior. Dairy, often seen as inflammatory or hard to digest, has become a common swap target—even for people who don’t strictly need to avoid it.

Meanwhile, milk’s cultural role has changed. As cereal declines and coffee rises, alternative milks have found a new home in cafes—where baristas use them as a canvas for differentiation. Pistachio lattes and oat milk foam aren’t just functional; they’re flavor-forward, aesthetic, and on-trend.

And there’s a logistics layer, too. Many alt-milks are shelf-stable before opening, making them ideal for e-commerce. Almond milk, for example, is 98% water—so shipping a shelf-stable concentrate makes more sense than refrigerating the full blend.

In the end, this trend isn’t about removing something. It’s about expanding the toolkit. Consumers aren’t just buying milk—they’re curating it.

Protein snacks replace full meals

Lunch is no longer sacred—and snacks have stepped in to fill the gap.

As traditional mealtimes blur, more people are building their diets around what fits in their bag, not their schedule. Today, 64% of adults say they replace at least one meal a day with a snack. But this isn’t about chips or candy bars. It’s about control. Portable, protein-rich, fiber-packed. Nutrient-dense snacks are being positioned as small, intentional choices that punch above their weight.

This shift aligns with broader fitness trends, where protein tracking and performance fueling have gone mainstream. You don’t have to lift weights to count grams anymore—just grab a bar. At the same time, nutrition trends are moving away from restrictive diets and toward functional ingredients: snacks that promise energy, gut support, or steady focus.

Label literacy has also grown. Consumers now scan sugar counts and ingredient decks the way they once checked calories. And in an age of burnout and decision fatigue, a “smart snack” offers a rare sense of efficiency—health without planning, progress without effort.

Mushrooms turn caffeine into clarity

Coffee used to be about energy. Now it’s about balance.

Mushroom-infused coffee blends are gaining traction not because people want less caffeine—but because they want smarter caffeine. Fueled by rising anxiety levels and a broader shift toward wellness trends that prioritize calm and clarity over stimulation, consumers are rethinking their daily coffee ritual. Products that once promised energy now offer focus, immunity, and mood support—often in the same cup.

At the core are adaptogenic mushrooms like lion’s mane and chaga. Long used in traditional medicine, they’re now being folded into existing routines, not as pills but as sippable habits. It’s part of a larger shift in supplement trends, where the line between functional food and daily ritual continues to blur.

The rise of “clean caffeine” is also a response to sleep disruption, burnout, and the growing self-awareness around hidden lifestyle stressors—like that second or third cup. And it hasn’t happened in isolation. Brands like Four Sigmatic rode the podcast wave, embedding themselves in the routines of biohackers, creators, and early adopters who didn’t just endorse it—they made it part of their morning show.

This isn’t just about a new kind of coffee. It’s about how supplements are being reimagined, rituals redesigned, and the quiet merging of performance with well-being.

Parents push FDA dye bans

American parents helped start the dye-free food movement. The FDA just made it federal policy.

In April 2025, U.S. regulators announced a plan to phase out petroleum-based synthetic dyes—like Red 40 and Yellow 5—by the end of next year. The move brings U.S. standards closer to Europe’s, where many of the same dyes require warning labels or are outright banned. For American consumers, the contrast has been hard to ignore. Parents, in particular, have long raised concerns over links between food dyes and hyperactivity, even as those same ingredients remained legal in children’s snacks and cereals.

Now, the industry is catching up. PepsiCo says it will eliminate artificial dyes from all U.S. food products by the end of 2025, and over 60% of its portfolio has already made the switch. Natural colorants—beet juice, spirulina, annatto—are stepping in, powered by improved shelf stability and consumer trust. The tradeoff? Colors are often duller. Costs are sometimes higher. But in the eyes of today’s label readers, fewer additives mean more credibility.

This shift doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It mirrors a broader cultural movement toward ingredient transparency—one that spans grocery aisles and skincare shelves alike. Just as current beauty trends revolve around “clean,” “free-from,” and “non-toxic,” food is following suit. The logic is simple: if it’s not essential, it shouldn’t be there.

What started as parental anxiety has evolved into regulatory action. And in doing so, it’s reshaping not just what we feed kids—but what we consider acceptable, edible, and trustworthy.

Food delivery apps drive analysis paralysis

The rise of food delivery apps has led to unprecedented analysis paralysis, with consumers taking to TikTok and Reddit for advice. Posts titled, “What should I eat?” rack up millions of views.

Some apps like Tiny Decisions and Food Picker (Featured in Feb 2023) are designed to help users break the deadlock for the sake of deciding, producing answers that are either truly random or close to it.

The Which One app has emerged as a blend of decision-making meets social media. Users can post polls for questions like, “What book should I read next?” or “Which picture should I post on Instagram?”, providing a dual opportunity both for posters to make decisions and scrollers to feel their voice is heard. If your favorite creator or artist pops a question, it even presents a unique chance to be on the inside of their creative process.

While any opinion may be valuable for lower-risk decisions, others require more trustworthy input. Emerging as a modern replacement for business consultants, some startups are developing apps that use AI to provide trustworthy guidance, capitalizing on modern technology trends. Platforms like Rationale help business owners and managers to think through the possibilities using simplified analysis.

An increasing number of tools could soon support decision-making across a wide range of fields and perhaps, ironically, introduce a paradox of choice in selecting the right app for the job.

High protein everything

Protein has moved from the margins of bodybuilding culture to the center of the grocery store. Once reserved for powders and bars sold in specialty shops, it now shows up in cereals, chips, and even ice cream—rebranded for everyday life, not just the gym.

Much of the momentum comes from health-conscious consumers looking to simplify. Protein carries a health halo that spans goals: weight loss, muscle maintenance, blood sugar stability, and even aging well. Unlike fat or carbs, it’s rarely villainized. It’s functional, familiar, and increasingly built into routine foods.

Weight management plays a central role. High-protein foods are consistently linked to satiety—helping people feel full with less. This effect isn’t just theoretical; many consumers report that protein-heavy meals reduce the urge to snack and make calorie tracking feel less like a chore.

Convenience is also critical. The rise of high-protein snacks—grab-and-go yogurts, jerky, RTD shakes—caters to people who want healthier options without cooking or planning. It’s food that fits into time-strapped routines without compromising on health goals.

Importantly, the audience has expanded. Once targeted at athletes and dieters, high-protein foods are now marketed to office workers, parents, older adults, and Gen Z shoppers who see protein not as a performance booster, but as a daily baseline, leading it to become one of the top diet and nutrition trends.

Tallow rises as butter substitute

Mass adoption of electric lighting in the 1900s is, surprisingly, the reason consumers first switched from cooking with animal fats to cooking with vegetable oils.

At that time, Proctor & Gamble was largely in the business of making candles and candle demand was falling as electric lighting took off. P&G’s massive infrastructure for processing cottonseed oil, the key ingredient in their candles, was in danger of becoming obsolete so they started using the same material to produce shortening, turning into the massively popular cooking product Crisco in 1911.

Consumers were initially hesitant to switch from their seemingly healthy and natural lard to what they saw as processed candle wax, but P&G pushed hard to convince the world that Crisco was superior. To do so, they sent samples to food scientists and hospitals then later advertised the fact that hospitals and schools used it. They also embarked on a massive campaign to put out cookbooks with recipes that called for Crisco.

More recently, it’s becoming popular again to cook with animal fats like beef tallow. Aside from the supposed health benefits of tallow, demand for butter alternatives is on the rise. As more consumers buy food online, there’s a clear advantage to tallow–which has a long shelf life without the need for refrigeration, helping it fit into the standard ecommerce supply chain better than food like butter.

Interest in beef tallow regained momentum when factory farms attempted to figure out how to repackage their byproducts into something they could sell. Some brands, like Ancestral Supplements, lean directly into the saying that “one person’s trash is another person’s treasure”. The company has a unique business: taking the parts of agricultural farm animals that are usually discarded, and selling them for a premium as ”Grass Fed Beef Brain Supplements”. Their top products, including Beef Organs and Beef Liver, each have several thousand reviews on Amazon and are one of the top supplements & vitamins trends.

Convenience culture fuels liquid meals

For many consumers these days, time is the ultimate currency. And while meal replacement shakes have been around since the 1950s, it's the marketing that has shifted to focus on productivity that has given this category a comeback.

Back then, meal replacement products were marketed with great success as weight-loss tools — today’s iterations are marketed instead as healthy meal alternatives to productivity-minded professionals and on-the-go consumers. Metrecal, which led the craze half a century ago, likewise used convenience as a selling point, encouraging customers in one ad to keep the cans in their car’s glove box.

Today’s other category leader, Soylent, first sold itself as the non-food of choice for too-busy-to-eat Silicon Valley workers, but it’s now facing a rising tide of competition.

Huel says its customers include doctors, students, and shift workers on top of fitness buffs and efficiency-obsessed tech executives. The focus is on offering "nutritionally complete" meals rather than low-calorie products — a message that mirrors the broader cultural shift toward health and wellness over weight loss.

Related is the growth of snacking trends as consumers aim to eat enough without spending as much time in the kitchen.

Home setups rival coffee shops

Recently, many coffee shops have updated their layouts to include retail sections, selling everything from high-end tea kettles to exotic coffee filters. It’s all part of the emerging, fast-growing coffee trend of middle-end products: priced below the $20,000+ machines used by Blue Bottle and Starbucks but above the instant at-home coffee makers many consumers now have on their countertops.

While coffee is the world's second most-traded commodity, after oil, a growing number of consumers want a very non-commoditized experience. In fact, while coffee has been consumed for half a millennium, it wasn’t until roughly 50 years ago that the coffee world generally started to differentiate by origin or beverage type. Until then, instant and undifferentiated coffee dominated the market. Many restaurants offered free refills.

Today, specialty coffee hasn’t just taken over commercial coffee houses but also made its way into the home in the form of specialty beans, advanced grinders, special filter systems, and purified water. Part of this category is the single-dose grinder. While most coffee grinders need to be cleaned each time the bean type is switched, single-dose grinders grind just one serving and don’t leave any residue. It helps move away from needing to set up a whole bag and finish it over the course of weeks, letting consumers more easily alternate between different flavors and setups.

From single dose grinders, to coffee pucks, the influx of specialty coffee and equipment into households has gained considerable momentum.