23. June 2023
Trends and developments in the beverage industry in 2023
The beverage industry is constantly coming up with new, surprising and innovative products to meet consumer tastes. As consumer preferences change ever faster and become ever more individual, the market is reacting with new product concepts full of innovative flavours, attractive designs and impressive functionality. Health aspects and sustainability are also playing an increasingly important role. The use of functional ingredients and natural, sustainably cultivated plant-based ingredients has made the beverage industry a key trendsetter in the food market.
Innovative and multi-sensory taste sensations
In the dynamic market of the beverage industry, products need to demonstrate their uniqueness and excite consumers in order to stand out.
Consumers do not simply want to consume food and beverages, but to experience them. The way all its sensory properties work together is what distinguishes a product from the others. Döhler works hand in hand with its customers to create multi-sensory experiences that appeal to all the senses. This close collaboration makes it possible to create unique products that cater to everything consumers want and need.
Younger consumer groups play an especially prominent role in shaping current trends in the beverage segment. Striking colours and exotic flavours are a key focus here – bright, intense colours make a product visually attractive and help it stand out at the point of sale. New beverages in striking colours like 2023’s Viva Magenta excite consumers and encourage them to make impulsive purchase decisions. These myriad fascinating impressions bring colour and taste together in new combinations and create unique sensory experiences.
In the field of taste development, too, the desire for uniqueness and creativity continues unabated. Special, sometimes limited edition, products offer an exciting and interactive customer experience – such as “mystery” concepts, where consumers are encouraged to guess a hidden flavour and share their experience on social media. The limited cola edition “pixel-flavoured”, which stands out with a 0% sugar content and a mysterious taste is a good example of this development, offering additional excitement and unmistakability.
Traditional taste profiles vs. new taste adventures
Familiar taste profiles like traditional citrus fruits are as popular as ever. Associated with higher health value by 60% of consumers, citrus flavours remain the leading flavour on the market. Away from classic fruits, exotic citrus options like pomelo, yuzu and kumquat are also trending, adding exciting new taste notes to a broad spectrum of beverages from classic soft drinks to energy drinks, nectars and fruit juices.
Döhler works with state-of-the-art processing plants in the countries of origin in this field, such as Brazil. Together with an international network of specialists, they create bespoke and sustainable taste solutions. Döhler combines local expertise with global trends to deliver unique and authentic flavour solutions specially tailored to the needs of customers and their products.
Alongside citrus, floral flavours have become increasingly important in the beverage segment, impressing with interesting new taste profiles – with hibiscus, jasmine, rose and elderflower leading the way. As functional beauty products enriched with plant-based essences become more popular, acceptance of and desire for beverages with the same interesting floral flavours are also growing, supporting the boom in the market.
The sustainability factor
In 2022, 58% of consumers demonstrated an increased preference for sustainable food and beverages as a way of expressing their commitment to an environmentally conscious lifestyle.
As a leading provider of high-quality natural ingredients, Döhler guarantees a transparent supply chain through its global procurement network – enabling access to a diverse portfolio of raw materials that are cultivated and extracted sustainably. By cooperating closely with partners all over the world and procuring and processing products locally, Döhler pursues a sustainable and quality-conscious approach to raw material procurement and the entire supply chain. This not only provides the basis for sustainable and high-quality products, but also secures reliable planning outlooks.
Functional and healthy beverages – a category with increasing demand
As healthy lifestyles become more significant, natural and sustainable products – such as those that contain less sugar or that offer functional ingredients or a clean label declaration – have gained enormously in popularity. However, it is important that these health-related aspects do not cause the taste to be neglected. Working with an international team of experts, Döhler has developed an extensive portfolio of taste modulation products, such as for low-sugar products. These include natural sweetening, flavour, masking and texturising products and solutions that ensure excellent sensory properties in the respective applications and support a clean label declaration.
Under its MultiSweet® Plus umbrella brand, Döhler also offers an extensive portfolio of sweetening systems that are ideal for reduced-calorie and calorie-free products in a host of different applications. This portfolio includes both artificial high-intensity sweeteners (HIS) like MultiSweet® Classic and natural sweetening systems like MultiSweet Fruit® and MultiSweet® Stevia.
Döhler also offers MultiSense® Flavours – products that can enhance the sensory properties of sugar-reduced products. MultiSense® Sweet flavours, for example, help to reduce a product’s sugar content while still ensuring full taste.
MultiSense® Masking flavours, on the other hand, mask the aftertaste of sweeteners, proteins and other unwanted taste deviations, while MultiSense® Mouthfeel flavours can improve the mouthfeel of calorie-free or reduced-calorie beverages.
Functional beverages, which offer consumers added health value through natural vitamins or the use of botanical extracts, are also gaining in popularity. From functional energy drinks to sport drinks and beauty drinks, innovative concepts combined with exciting flavours give rise to diverse positioning options here.
Döhler is setting new standards with its extensive portfolio of natural ingredients, such as those designed especially for functional beverages. The range includes health-promoting vitamin and mineral combinations, plant-based proteins and trendy botanical extracts like moringa, baobab, ginseng, green tea and guarana.
These ingredients not only offer optimised nutrient quality, but also impress with their outstanding taste profile.
In line with the company slogan “We bring ideas to life,” Döhler works closely with its customers as a provider of extensive ingredients, ingredient systems and integrated solutions. This collaborative approach allows innovative and sustainable concepts to be implemented – from the initial idea to the finished product on the shelves.
