Beverage Industry Is Fizzing With Innovation Like Never Before

ROCKVILLE, Md. — Never have beverage options been more diversified for consumers, who now have a seemingly endless variety of coffee, tea, energy drinks, soda, juices, dairy and dairy alternatives, bottled water, and more to choose from.

Packaged Facts’ newest report, Ready-to-Drink Beverage Trend Forecast 2017: Culinary Trend Tracking Series, found that innovation in beverages is at an all-time high. The study chalks up the unprecedented innovation to three main factors:

• Consumers' desire for better-for-you products and clean labels;
• New ingredients, production processes and technologies; and
• Adventurous millennials getting closer to becoming the dominant consumer demographic.

"Ideas are flowing like perhaps they haven't in decades, if not a century. Indeed, until recently, the beverage industry had remained untouched by radical transformation. That is not the case any longer," said David Sprinkle, research director at Packaged Facts.

The new study, which evaluated all categories within the beverage segment — including meal replacement beverages and specialty health beverages — found that innovation is happening even outside of the more trendy new offerings. It's also happening in soda and juice, two categories that have lagged behind as of late.

"Innovation is touching every aspect of the beverage industry today, and there is a lot more on the horizon," Sprinkle noted.

Packaged Facts is a division of MarketResearch.com. It publishes market intelligence on a range of consumer market topics, including: consumer demographics and shopper insights, consumer financial products and services, consumer goods and retailing, consumer packaged goods, and pet products and services.