Foodservice Battle: Key Innovation Levers

“Experience has become more important than the food itself,” OysterLink’s Milos Eric told FI. The sentiment is echoed across foodservice and grocery stakeholders, and signals how consumers are shifting priorities in the current market. For ...

Foodservice Battle: Channel Deep Dive

As the competition for dining out dollars continues to take shape in 2026, the industry itself is rethinking how full-service, quick-service and fast-casual, and alternate convenience channels fit together. Erica Conte, brand director at The ...

Foodservice Battle: The Landscape

“We’re seeing consumer behavior become much more situational. People are making that decision in the moment based on convenience, price, and what’s nearby,” Swiftly CTO Sean Turner told The Food Institute. “That puts grocery, convenience, ...

The Healthy America: Protein, Fiber, GLP-1

“Protein and fiber are winning because they sit at the intersection of multiple durable consumer needs: weight management, satiety, metabolic health, and ‘food as medicine,’” L.E.K. Consulting’s Manny Picciola told FI. The modern consumer is ...

The Healthy America: F&B Landscape

Although regulatory actions and a new food pyramid are pressing food manufacturers to rethink their product formulations, consumer demand is propelling the drive towards a healthier food system, giving food companies little choice but to ...

The Healthy America: Dietary Guidelines

Americans want real food. That is the thesis of the Dietary Guidelines For Americans, 2025-2030 (DGA), released in January. Over the ten-page report, the USDA and HHS work to define real food as offerings close ...

The Labor Market: Future Considerations

The job market is entering an inflection point with technology integrations restructuring how business is conducted and how supply chains are managed. “These evolving labor models will do more than simply optimize costs; they will ...

The Labor Market: Novel Tech

New technologies are changing how businesses conduct their daily operations and their hiring processes. However, leaders are dubious of over-automation in hiring and day-to-day processes. Nevertheless, experts agree that technology and AI have a place ...

The Labor Market: Operational Impact

Staffing concerns have compelled businesses to shift the way they operate. Beyond the difficult market, minimum wage increases, particularly in states such as Washington, California, and New York, continue to eat into operators’ already tight ...

The Labor Market Today

Labor concerns have become a sticking point for food and beverage businesses across CPG, retail, and foodservice. But not all problems are created equal. For many entry-level jobs, turnover has always been high because of ...

Social Media Breakdown: New Tech

Technological advancements are what keep social media exciting. Real-time social listening tools, for example, can help businesses identify the salient conversations on social media, and help them decide how to engage with a given topic. ...

Social Media Breakdown: Virality

Although going viral on social media may feel like catching “lightning in a bottle,” — a feat akin to winning the lottery — there are some simple rules that can help increase a brand’s odds ...

Social Media Breakdown: By Platform Roadmap

“All social media platforms are different; they have different users, stories, and tones,” Agustina Branz, senior marketing manager at Source86 told FI. As such, she suggests taking a measured approach to each channel, tailoring content ...

Social Media Breakdown: Top Considerations

A comprehensive, cohesive social media strategy is the key to business success in today’s market. CPGs, retailers, and foodservice establishments can all benefit from organic online growth, and a deeper consumer connection. To harness the ...

State of the Consumer: Loyalty Means Nothing

The savvy shopper is willing to sacrifice a bit of their routine purchases and convenience to ensure they are getting the best deal. As a result, private label is growing, as well as discounters, hypermarkets, ...

State of the Consumer: Health, Always

Health and wellness are top of mind as consumers consider their food and beverage purchases.

State of the Consumer: Private Label, Challengers

The biggest stress in the market is coming to mid-priced offerings. In grocery, this means national CPGs are feeling the stress with their legacy brands. In foodservice, full-service is beginning to buckle. The new value ...

State of the Consumer: Value Obsession

There is no escaping today’s reality: consumers are stressed. This has made the CPG, grocery, and foodservice value propositions more important than ever. Although a value focus is coming to every consumer, irrespective of socioeconomic ...

F&B Marketing Playbook: Major Shifts

Coming out of the pandemic, the food and beverage marketing landscape has changed dramatically; plus, technological capabilities have opened doors for personalization and data collection. We are in a new era, and brands need to ...

F&B Marketing Playbook

The tools in every marketer’s toolbox today boils down to one simple characteristic: understanding your audience. The reality: today’s consumers are in flux. “Many consumers are becoming more value-conscious and brands are forced to rethink ...

Has Amazon Found Its Grocery Solution?

In 2022, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy sounded warning bells in a watershed letter admitting defeat on the chain’s grocery business. Earlier this year, he updated shareholders with a “very bullish” future. Today, we have a ...

2026 Innovative Trends: AI, A Best Friend

In the new food and beverage environment, innovations to artificial intelligence will give brands able to adapt the upper hand in 2026. Some of these changes border on dystopian. Tarun Chandrasekhar, chief product officer at ...

2026 Innovative Trends: Value-Obsessed Shopper

More often the state of the economy is shifting consumers to a value-oriented model, one that prioritizes cheaper national brands, private label, and products that offer a compelling proposition related to quality or other factors ...

2026 Innovative Trends: Geopolitical Impact

“Global trade feels very fluid at the moment, offering little certainty. For food and beverage, that uncertainty is real: tariffs, climate shocks, and shifting policy can change cost structures overnight,” David Gray, CEO of FedUp ...

2026 Innovative Trends: GLP-1

There’s an interesting thing happening in the grocery aisle: assortments are changing to meet the needs of the maturing GLP-1 consumer, but these assortments have a larger mass appeal. “We’re seeing… protein and ‘whole food’ ...

2026 Innovative Trends: Clean Label

Since the pandemic, the market has gradually shifted to empower consumers to consider the health and wellness implications of their food choices, with a “food as medicine” approach that has compelled many to consider ingredient ...

LATAM Influence: Future Considerations

LATAM communities have become American tastemakers across all of culture, and as the demographic’s population grows, so will its impact. Hispanic consumers already represent a large portion of growth in the grocery space, and they’re ...

LATAM Influence: Unpacking CPG Impact

Latin American foods and flavor profiles are now deeply ingrained in American culture, with brands like Topo Chico, Tajín, Jarritos, and Takis available at traditional grocers, convenience stores, and specialty stores alike. Younger generations, too, ...

LATAM Influence: The Latin American Consumer

Latin American (LATAM) and Hispanic consumers in the United States have a profound impact on domestic food and beverage sales. “The Hispanic/LATAM demographic forces in the United States are unmistakable and enduring,” John LeVert, managing ...

Forces Shaping Foodservice: Biggest Trends

It’s no surprise that consumers are dining out less, citing myriad reasons for this behavior, with the most compelling signaling a return to affordability. TouchBistro 2025 U.S. Diner Trends Report Still, consumers are willing to ...

Forces Shaping Foodservice: QSR Value Wars

The quick-serve restaurant value wars have never been more important to chains that are losing market share to prepared foods sections at grocery stores and full-service establishments. Concurrently, consumers are rejecting higher fast-food prices resulting ...

Forces Shaping Foodservice: Attracting Discerning Shoppers

Economic headwinds are shaping consumer shopping behaviors, with looming tariffs affecting consumers’ perceptions of imported foods…

Forces Shaping Foodservice: State of the Industry

The foodservice industry has faced countless headwinds in the years following the pandemic, battling persistent accelerated inflation compared to food-at-home (FAH) spending, labor retention and cost issues, and an overall environment of economic uncertainty that ...

Tips for Capitalizing on Plant-Based Products

Lead with Delicious and Prepare for Scrutiny Robyn Carter, CEO of Jump Rope Innovation “I think the most important thing for CPG companies to consider when they’re innovating around plant-based options is that it’s critical ...

Numbers of Note: The Millennial Shopping Basket

On-the-go millennial parents favor products that balance convenience and consistency with splashes of innovation. “According to IRI, categories that rank high for millennials include fresh products, such as fresh fruit, meat, and muffins, as well ...

A Closer Look at Frozen Fruit

Import, Export Volumes Drop Both imports and exports of frozen fruits exhibited a drop in quantity during the Jan. 1-Feb. 28 period despite increasing value during the period, according to Food Institute analysis of Bureau ...