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 ( drinktg.com ) 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 people living 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 a...