FMCG Innovations and Trends by Sophia Nadur

The new "sweet spot" for soft drinks today After many years' marketing/innovating brands for global food & drink companies (including Coca-Cola and Unilever), I opted to launch a beverage #startup in order to respond quicker/better to evolving health & wellness trends. After reviewing numerous consumer, retailer & market research data and chatting with folks up and down the country on what they were looking for in a healthier drink while testing prototypes, it is clear that consumers are looking for 3 things these days from their beverage choice, namely (i) less of the "bad stuff", (ii) more innate, natural functionality, and (iii) something that can be "daily habit forming". Being able to deliver on all 3 consumer "wants" is in my view the "sweet spot" for a soft drink today. The essence of this "sweet spot" is shown here: A retailer response that would make Marie Antoinette proud Getting to...

It’s #WorldObesityDay today. 2/3 of Britons are overweight or obese, up from 1/2 just 20 years ago. I am one of those statistics but am doing my best to change things, for me and for communities here and abroad. A research physician & I invested our life savings to develop a truly healthier drink to help wean us off our sugar habit. It’s better than virtually all of the new drinks offered by big companies to retailers.  WATCH this 1 min World Obesity Day VIDEO However, a big UK supermarket told us yesterday that unless we spent £££££s with them, we would not be stocked. Despite all the promises made to be more responsible, retailers are continuing to fill shelves with certain food & drink, simply because big companies have deeper pockets. These restrictive practices happen not just in the UK but all over the world.  This plea is not about a drink I want to promote. There will be other startups with better products too. How much money do retailers, manufactu...

My mother has Type 2 Diabetes. Like 20 million Brits, I am at risk to get it too if I don't lose weight and/or change what I eat and drink. But changing behaviour is really hard.  We all want that healthier food and drink to look good and taste good too. However, what we're seeing on store shelves are lots of drinks  being reformulated to take all/some sugar out and put instead lots of aspartame, sucralose and weird ingredients in that actually none of us want or need in our diet. We also see lots of healthier drinks are quite expensive and, even though health should have no price attached to it, we still have very tight wallets so we do want healthier food drink to be available at an accessible price. So the real " sweet spot " - the "holy grail" - is a drink that is  nutritionally sound, naturally functional and available at an affordable price. Like Tg green tea .  A drink that was inspired by ancient Chinese...