Future Food Tech. MISTA. Expo West. BevNET Live. IFT regional. SupplySide. World of Coffee. Our trade show season has kicked off with a bang. Beverage R&D directors comparing stabilizer data, ingredient distributors working the aisles, brand founders pitching their Series A. Between booth shifts we walked the floor, sat through demos, and smiled politely through more experimental fungi-based samples than any team should have to endure! But the conversations were worth it. Here are the five trends that kept coming up.
1. Clean label went from dabbling to deadlines
A few years ago “clean label” was a marketing word. This season it showed up as engineering specs: retailers sending back labels, category buyers flagging specific stabilizers, long ingredient declarations blocking market access. People were handing over lists of ingredients that needed to come off, with dates attached. Gellan gone from plant milk. Carrageenan out of dairy products. Synthetic colors gone before a retail reset. More than ever, clean-label is a business imperative.
“About 80% of consumers are asking for brands to be reformulated to include better-for-you nutritional profiles.”
— Brad Schwan, ADM @Expo West
And the pressure isn’t just coming from consumers. Multiple brands told us their category buyers are counting ingredients and using label length as a screening criterion for shelf placement.
“As a buyer, I’m pushing brands to stay with what they do well, and guiding them towards what their next SKU should be.”
— Whitney Herrara, Whole Foods @Expo West
2. Protein continues to be everywhere, and it’s misbehaving
No surprises here. Clearly, we are far from peak protein. High-protein claims have moved well beyond sports nutrition into RTD coffees, creamers, ice cream, and plant-based milks. The higher loads are creating all kinds of challenges for R&D teams and poor consumer experiences.
The story we heard most often involved brands chasing 30g+ protein per bottle and running into physics that their current stabilizer systems weren’t designed for. Whey concentrates that won’t stay suspended through thermal processing, plant proteins that go chalky above 20g per serving, and dairy systems where hitting the protein target means sacrificing mouthfeel. The protein gold rush is creating a reformulation bottleneck that the industry hasn’t fully reckoned with yet.
“We also develop highly specialized maskers for popular proteins, like collagen and whey, supporting our customers in formulating higher-protein applications without the typical astringency or off-notes.”
— Vivien Sheehan, Kerry @Expo West
3. Regulation is doing what consumer pressure couldn’t
This came up more this season than any show circuit we can remember. MAHA, FDA synthetic color guidance, expanding state and retailer ingredient bans. Brands are actively reformulating ahead of regulations that may force their hand. Clean-label used to be purely a consumer-pull story. Now it’s also a regulatory-push story, and that combination is compressing reformulation timelines across the board.
4. Fiber
Fiber kept showing up where it didn’t used to live — RTD coffees, creamers, protein shakes, functional sodas. The GLP-1 wave is pulling satiety and gut health into categories that were never designed to carry a real fiber load, and the formulation science is a step behind the marketing story. Soluble fibers spike viscosity before you hit grammage. Insoluble fibers settle or go gritty. Inulin wrecks your sweetness curve. More than one R&D lead described their current fiber system as “the thing we’re least happy with on the deck.”
5. Single-source supply chains are losing trust
After years of disruption from acacia gum shortages, shipping delays, and crop failures, formulators and procurement teams are actively rethinking ingredients that depend on a single geography or a small number of suppliers, whether that’s acacia gum, certain citrus fibers, or specialty starches. The question has shifted from “does this ingredient work?” to “can I source it reliably twelve months from now?” What used to be a procurement conversation is now showing up in formulation briefs from the start.
