Kerry’s 2026 Taste Trends provide a forward-looking view of how global consumer behaviors, cultural shifts, and economic pressures are shaping the future of flavor. The trends outline why tastes are changing — capturing the emotional, functional, and lifestyle forces influencing what consumers crave across food and beverage categories. Complementing that perspective, Kerry’s Taste Charts translate those big ideas into the how: the specific flavors, profiles, and combinations gaining traction today and expected to accelerate over the next several years.
For food manufacturing leaders, keeping an eye on both is critical. Taste Trends help signal where demand is heading, while the Taste Charts help teams prioritize which flavors are most likely to succeed in real products — whether the goal is breakthrough innovation, faster renovation, or smarter premiumization under cost and operational constraints.
In this Q&A, Shannon Coco, Senior Sales and Marketing Director at Kerry, translates those trend themes into practical implications for food manufacturers: where demand is heading, what kinds of product moves are resonating, and how to think about innovation and renovation without losing sight of operational realities.
Q: Maximalist Flavor: Can you share a real example where bold, layered flavor grew sales? If a big brand does this, which numbers should they watch?
Shannon Coco: Maximalism is no longer a visual trend. It’s a flavor movement. Think bold, layered, multisensory creations that defy restraint. From spicy ice creams to loaded ramen and 20-course tasting menus, this trend celebrates shock, awe, and originality. Its flavor is turned up all the way, and it’s everywhere from CPG brands to street food and even fine dining.
In foodservice, layered bold flavor launches captured consumer attention across categories with top-scoring launches including: Little Caesar’s Cheesesteak Crazy Puffs, Farmer Boys Parm-Crusted Burger, TGI Friday’s Whiskey Buffalo Sauce, Checkers and Rally’s Fried Strawberry Cheesecake Bites, and Sonic’s Bourbon Caramel Iced Coffee.
A standout bold, layered flavor showing no signs of slowing is Hot Honey. What began as a pizza collaboration, the “Hellboy” from Paulie Gee’s Brooklyn Pizzeria and Mike’s Hot Honey, quickly captured early adopters’ attention, appearing on just 1% of menus in 2015. Its momentum accelerated in June 2022, when Wingstop launched its Hot Honey Rub as an LTO, boosting menu penetration to 4.2%. The item became Wingstop’s best-performing LTO of all time, returning three times before becoming a permanent core profile in 2024. Today, Hot Honey is on 11% of menus (2025) and is projected to more than double to 26% by 2029.
So, what sparked this unending surge? The layered complexity of sweet heat. Wingstop’s profile pulled consumers in but was only an LTO when launched in 2022. Their best performing LTO of all time and a fan-favorite on the chicken sandwich, it was the consumer love for the profile that brought it back three times before becoming a core profile in the summer of 2024.
While Hot Honey’s rise sees no end in sight, other flavor combinations are coming for the Sweet Heat crown. Layered combinations that leverage duality of flavor from fruity and spicy (e.g. pineapple sriracha, spicy margarita) to sweet and creamy (dirty sodas, dirty chai) continue to drive consumer intrigue and interest across categories.
Q. Category Crashers: As snacks, drinks, and meals blend together, how can a large portfolio add “hybrid” products across categories without confusing consumers or diluting the brand?
SC: Consumers are no longer confined by traditional food and beverage categories, and neither are brands. Category Crashers celebrates the rise of hybrid products that defy expectations: think savory energy bars, dessert-inspired sparkling waters, or coffee-infused condiments. This isn’t about intensity or overload — it’s about format innovation and unexpected pairings that reflect how people eat today. As mealtimes blur and routines shift, these cross-category creations meet consumers where they are: curious, flexible and ready for something new.
I believe large portfolios and brands with signature flavor profiles have an advantage in this trend as they can translate their top profiles across categories. An exceptional example of this is PepsiCo’s Flamin’ Hot profile. This “cult favorite” profile grew and grew within the Cheetos brand before testing with adjacent categories such as chips, tortillas, and popcorn. As success continued, the brand gained permission to push further into snack categories such as meat snacks, nuts, and crackers. Continued success led them to expand further afield into more adventurous spaces, such as soda and mac and cheese, keeping Flamin’ Hot as a newsworthy profile now across a wide set of brands and categories. Each category expansion led them into a slightly further space, so by starting with the closer-in categories, they primed the consumer to expect to see Flamin’ Hot leveraged into new spaces.
While not every brand may have the extensive profile and format breadth of PepsiCo, recognizing the occasions, food/beverage pairings, and benefits consumers turn to your brand for can open potential to bring adventurous hybrids to life. From savory bone broth negronis with dinner to coffee-infused energy bars offering consumers breakfast with a caffeine boost on-the-go, understanding the ecosystem in which your products are consumed can provide a strong testbed for potential line and category expansion.
Q. Simplicity Amplified: How can brands keep strong flavor with shorter, cleaner labels? Which tools (fermentation, extracts, taste modulators, etc.) work best, and how do they typically affect cost-in-use, efficiency, and sustainability in practice?
SC: Simplicity Amplified is at the convergence of rapidly changing consumer habits, regulations, and continued cost of living pressures. All while consumers have more access to information than ever before. As consumers seek transparency, this trend celebrates whole foods, fermented flavors, and clear labeling, shifting the conversation from being about what’s removed towards what’s revealed.
When it comes to this trend, one size doesn’t fit all. Consumers prioritize different aspects and behave differently depending on the category. Because of this essential fact, Kerry completed research to develop a deeper understanding of the best product options for various consumer groups when it comes to nutrition, color, and preservative claims in the USA (Kerry Proprietary Research 2025, conducted with 4,500 US nationally representative consumers). Among our findings were that consumers care most about the ingredient list when purchasing: Nutritional Bars (36%), Condiments (31%), and Soup (29%). The top 3 nutritional facts that they care most about across Food and Beverages are: 1) Protein, 2) Sodium, 3) Total Sugars. Despite the increased risk of heart disease among a large aging population, we were surprised to see that sodium has surpassed sugar as a nutritional concern. At Kerry, we leverage our Taste expertise to deliver salt perception or sweetness optimization using our Tastesense™ Natural Flavors portfolio to help manufacturers meet consumer demands and regulatory reformulation needs.
Brands can embrace transparency while maintaining flavor impact by leveraging flavor from food solutions: extracts (e.g. cocoa, citrus, coffee, botanicals, herbs) and umami/yeast created through natural fermentation processes. Leveraging fermentation-based solutions, which are known for being exceptionally clean-tasting, can drive depth of flavor. This can potentially generate savings for customers while reducing the carbon footprint by up to 40%, offering both less cost and lower emissions.
Natural sources of food protection and preservation and smoked ingredients harness pantry-friendly ingredients such as our vertically integrated vinegar and smoke creation process to provide the power of natural ingredients to the market. For example, smoked ingredients impart a robust, traditional hardwood smoke flavor with the potential to enhance the color of meat products, particularly in clear casings. This dual benefit of taste and color can enable other manufacturing and ingredient efficiencies, offsetting costs for customers.
Q. Heritage Reclaimed: How are companies using AI and sensory insights to reimagine heritage flavors into products that can scale? What approaches do you recommend for sense-checking consumer understanding and authenticity early on (e.g., digital tools, insight platforms, concept testing)?
SC: Today’s consumers are remixing tradition with innovation. From AI-curated spice blends to third culture cuisine, this trend reflects a new kind of nostalgia — one that’s personal, tech-enabled, and globally inspired. It’s not about recreating grandma’s recipe; it’s about reimagining it for a new generation, blending heritage with identity and creativity. Unlike past trends that focused on honoring or modernizing tradition, this is about rewriting it — where cultural memory meets digital tools, and authenticity is defined by the individual.
Travel, social media, and geopolitical conflict are bringing a spotlight to previously unseen flavors and cuisines. During times of uncertainty, the need to connect and share food grows, reflected in foodservice and format innovation.
As AI-driven capabilities advance quickly, I see models such as “digital twins” providing a real-time approach for sense checking how consumers perceive and understand emerging cuisines and flavors.
At Kerry, we’re embracing AI as part of how we approach consumer research, market insight, and product development. Two of our proprietary tools include:
- Internal Insight tool, Sage, which collates all of our proprietary research into one search engine, enabling us to distill and analyze across extensive data sources, trends, and insights quickly.
- Kerry Kalaido, a multi-dimensional product ideation and concepting tool that allows users to generate, formulate, and visualize product prototypes based on prompts that incorporate category, channel, consumer, and product insight.
Our goal in employing AI in these manners is enabling the industry to streamline portions of the development cycle significantly while building confidence levels around product launches. We see a tremendous runway for growth as this technology continues to advance.
Q. Chain Reaction: With climate and supply swings, which alternatives, extenders, or flavor solutions are most ready now for at-risk ingredients? How do you manage risk on price, supply security, and taste expectations across regions?
SC: Volatility in the supply chain has led to increased prices of at-risk ingredients. According to Datassential Report Pro, more than 1 in 4 consumers have purchased less chocolate, sugar, and oranges/orange juice due to price increases or shortages, which are just a few of the many ingredients that consumers are cutting back on.
Cocoa:
- A key ingredient in consumer-loved snacks, desserts, drinks and more, sustainable sourcing is an ongoing challenge. Producers have long struggled with issues such as deforestation, child labor, and economic instability. These challenges have driven unprecedented price increases in cocoa commodities, from ~$2,200 USD/T in January 2023 to a high of ~$12,000 USD/T in April 2024, with prices sitting at ~$6,000 USD/T as of December 2025.
- A 2024 Kerry study found that 83% of consumers would choose a drink made with Rainforest Alliance Certified cocoa over one without certification (across the Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa).
- The multi-pronged crisis and skyrocketing price of cocoa drives the need for innovative alternatives. That’s where the industry has created cocoa boosters, flavors, and extracts to enable cocoa powder reduction and cost optimization while delivering consumer taste expectations and sustainability impact.
Citrus:
- Citrus greening disease and extreme weather events are disrupting global production, putting pressure on availability and pricing. As year-on-year citrus production fluctuates, citrus profiles remain the #1 flavor in global beverage launches. As nature struggles to keep pace with demand, brands are seeking innovative, nature-positive solutions to stabilize supply and maintain flavor consistency.
- Similar to cocoa, citrus pricing is volatile. The industry has created a range of citrus extenders, flavors, and extracts that can improve cost consistency and supply security. The Citrus Extenders in particular allow customers to use a reduced quantity of citrus oil, improving cost-in-use while maintaining a vibrant and fresh, true-to-fruit taste.
- Increased restrictions around trade can also complicate supply chains. Overreliance on one region can leave manufacturers potentially vulnerable to supply crises or cost implications. Now is a prime time to reassess recipes for reformulation needs: from raw material sources to manufacturing and ingredient efficiencies, to identifying secondary suppliers and manufacturing contingency. All with the goal to reduce risk to business continuity, product quality, and cost.
Q. Elevated Staples: What’s the simple playbook to “premiumize” everyday items, especially using flavor/seasoning delivery and smart line extensions? Can you share a couple examples of formats or profiles that make the biggest impact?
SC: This is one of the most exciting trends, as elevated staples are a relatively low-cost way to bring joy to the ordinary. Consumers are elevating their daily choices with high-quality, comforting staples. Think premium pantry items, chef-inspired frozen meals, and indulgent takes on everyday favorites.
Driven by economic pressures and the resurgence of home cooking, this trend merges convenience with a touch of luxury, making the ordinary feel a bit more special.
Value retailers have won with this strategy, capturing +5% share with good/better/best tiering as consumers are value-seeking, not only price-seeking, demonstrating that they are willing to pay for quality, convenience, and health.
How to make premium everyday items without compromising on manufacturing speed or quality relies heavily on flavor/seasoning delivery. Some approaches we recommend include:
- Familiar favorite formats with global profiles (e.g. Ramen-flavored potato chips)
- Line extensions that drive indulgent, chef-inspired takes on classics (e.g., bacon with applewood smoked ranch or stout onion cheddar mac and cheese).
Q. Everyday Escapism: How are brands tapping “relax/energy” moments in food and beverages without compromising taste? What practical approaches (flavors, extracts, positioning cues) are working, and what should teams watch as they move from pilot to broader rollout?
SC: 71% of US consumers say they have looked to improve their mental wellbeing over the last two years, driving consumers to choose food and beverages aligned to their feelings through moments of Everyday Escapism. As a result, we have seen +26% YoY growth of new beverage product launches with “destress,” “calm,” or “relax” positioning. Top beverage categories with mood-enhancement claims in 2025: Hot tea, Flavored waters, Sports powders.
When consumers want to feel energized, they look to the following flavors: coffee, tropical fruits, and berries/summer fruits. When consumers want to feel relaxed/calm, they look to the following flavors: sweet, herbal, and fruit/superfruit.
Potential solutions include using natural flavors and extracts that evoke the flavors consumers associate with emotional need states. Dual purpose solutions, such as Green Coffee Extracts, can also provide a natural, clean-label source of caffeine suitable for beverage application, delivering the functional benefit without taste or regulatory hurdles.
For a deeper dive into these seven macro trends, explore Kerry’s full Taste Trends report.
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