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...

(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...