5 Macro Trends from 7 Trade Shows
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.
Our take
These five trends are converging. Every line on a label is simultaneously a supply chain dependency, a regulatory surface, and a formulation constraint. The brands reformulating right now aren’t responding to any single pressure. Clean label has hard deadlines attached, regulators are restricting ingredients, protein and fiber targets are both climbing, and supply chains are less predictable than they used to be.
The conversation continues
After the BevNET floor closed on the last night, we ended up on a rooftop in LA with a group of beverage founders, watching a sitar player performing over the skyline (seriously!). Half the conversation was about nano-dispersion technology. The other half was about clean-label emulsifiers. Suffice to say, the functional ingredients category is having a moment!
If you were at any of those shows and we didn’t finish a conversation, or if you’re working through these same challenges, we’d love to hear what you’re seeing.
Catch us at these upcoming trade shows in 2026 and follow us on LinkedIn for the latest news:
Beverage Forum — April 28–29, 2026, Manhattan Beach, CA
Sweets & Snacks Expo — May 19–21, 2026, Las Vegas Convention Center
BevNET Live NYC — June 10–11, 2026, Metropolitan Pavilion, New York
IFT FIRST — July 12–15, 2026, McCormick Place, Chicago
SupplySide Global — Oct 28–30, 2026, Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas
Fi Europe — Nov 17–19, 2026, Messe Frankfurt, Germany