Food & Beverage Asia June/July 2020

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ON THE TABLE
When a snack manufacturer in South East Asia was looking to
launch a flavour extension of an existing snack brand, it needed
support researching taste trends and creating a final formulation,
and was hopeful the new product could be developed and
launched in record time. The snack manufacturer then used Kerry
Trendspotter, which uses machine learning and natural language
processing to turn millions of social media posts into insights
about upcoming food and beverage trends.
Earlier in January, Kerry released its 2020 Global Taste Charts
that highlight what will drive trends across the world, including in
the US, Canada, Europe, Mexico, Brazil, Southern Cone, Central
America and APMEA. The 2020 Taste Charts represent the
company’s annual review of the food and beverage landscape
utilising sales performance, consumer trends, foodservice
influencers, and internal culinary and mixology expertise to predict
trending tastes for the coming year.
The result, according to Kerry, was that the snack manufacturer
took less than three weeks to successfully identify what snack
flavour was trending in the country of sale, reducing the product
development time by more than 50%.
Patel elaborated, “We leveraged insights from Kerry Trendspotter
to identify emerging flavours, and suggested a few for further
exploration. A typical process such as this might take 4-6 weeks,
but with the help of Kerry Trendspotter, we were able to get back
to the customer within five days with viable product concepts.”
After a discussion based on objective data and insights from
Kerry Trendspotter, the snack manufacturer narrowed down two
possible ideas for flavour extension, which were tested with their
core group of customers. Patel reported that the entire process
from ideation to commercialisation took less than two months,
as opposed to the six to nine months typical of this process. The
snack manufacturer had access to AI-enabled data from Kerry
Trendspotter that gave them the confidence to move ahead at a
quicker pace, helping them to quickly gain market share with their
new launch in the process.
He said, “As a food and beverage player, being able to launch a
product ahead of its trend helps create a runway for the success
of the product, and almost ensures that the customer is going to
be the sole player. As such, chances of success are high. Through
this launch, we aim to reduce the lead time for innovation and the
chances of failure of new product launches, while increasing the
probability of success by focusing on trends that are emerging
but not yet mainstream.
Coralie Garcia-Perrin, Global Senior Strategic Marketing Manager,
Sweet and Modulation Taste, Kerry Taste & Nutrition, elaborated,
“Kerry’s research and development team uses the annual Kerry
Taste Charts and supporting research to help deliver new and
innovative concepts to our customers. The Kerry Taste Charts are
a fantastic source of knowledge and inspiration for our internal
team, and for food and beverage manufacturers in every region.
“With these Taste Charts and additional internal research, Kerry
is able to predict for our customers which exciting new tastes are
emerging in the very near future, and therefore, we can support
customer innovations as they seek to keep pace with changes in
the global marketplace. We have used this Taste Charts approach
for several years, and have assisted our customers to achieve
some significant success in their markets.”
Kerry’s predictions forecast that 2020 will bring further specificity
to the origin of flavours and ingredients as consumers seek tastes
that delight, surprise and excite them.
Particularly in the APMEA Kerry Taste Charts, the report
highlighted the lifecycle of coconut. Coconut, whose rise in
popularity resulted in proliferation of coconut as a flavour as
well as an ingredient, has experienced growth via coconut milk,
coconut water and coconut oil since 2008. In 2013, it appeared
on Kerry’s charts as a “Key” taste in sweet and within “Up and
Coming” in beverage and culinary. Coconut has then steadily
grown to become a mainstay taste influencer on the charts, with
a renewed interest among consumers following the boom of the
ketogenic diet.
“As a taste and nutrition company, the advantage Kerry offers
is that we can take the insights and create solutions for our
customers, rather than just providing insights alone.”
The future of taste
Besides innovating in the digital space, Kerry is committed to
discovering taste experiences made from ingredients found in
nature. The company curates its Taste Charts annually to research
flavour trends and translate findings into actionable insights for
its customers.
Another ingredient the report looked into is ginger, which appeared
in the Kerry Taste Charts in the beginning of 2013. Ginger first
appeared in “Culinary” and “Sweet” mostly as an “Up and Coming”
flavour, but quickly made its way into beverages in 2017 as a
“Key” flavour. The latest report further pointed out a 4.3% growth
between 2015 and 2018 of US menu items with ginger flavour.
Besides taste, flavour and nutrient authenticity also have its
respective role to play in food choices. Garcia-Perrin went on
and pointed out that it is the ingredients that influence the
FOOD & BEVERAGE ASIA JUNE / JULY 2020