FMCG Innovations and Trends by Sophia Nadur

Where will you be 19-21 April? If you are a global innovator and/or brand owner targeting Chinese & other Asian consumers, you must attend the Food & Beverage Innovation Forum 2017 (FBIF): Global Innovation, Powering the Future (FBIF2017食品饮料创新论坛：全球力量，领变未来) in Shanghai. Keeping the food & drink market growing in 2017 and beyond will require new & deeper partnerships In Asia, China and India have created a huge new consumption market with the buying power of the two leading "E7 emerging economies" set to exceed that of any G7 economy by the next decade. Yet, both food & drink markets are dissimilar in logistical and demographic terms to a typical G7 market which, coupled with faster adoption of technology particularly in China, demand a very different approach to growth in most food & drink categories. The ways global behemoths like Coca-Cola and Nestle penetrated developing markets in the past simply do not work anymore. Collaboration with loc...

(c) 2012 Convergence Alimentaire blog image I cut my FMCG marketing teeth at Unilever and ended my full-time global food & drink industry career at Kraft/Mondelez. I now run a healthier drinks startup business alongside a global innovation consultancy where I work as an "extrapreneur" supporting companies wanting to remake their portfolios to better fit emerging consumer needs for healthier products......so I am perhaps in a unique position to give a point of view.  If you are Dutch or British, you feel closer culturally to Unilever and few folks living here in the UK will have forgotten Kraft's poor treatment of people & assets post Cadbury's acquisition. However, the reality is that the vision and values of both companies are not so dissimilar and both are facing the same fundamental shifts in consumer behaviour & needs in relation to "big FMCG/CPG" brands in both developed and the "developing" world. Is Warren Buffett (a Kr...