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Insight by Gama Compass
MANCHESTER – 31st January 2025: Functional botanical ingredients such as flowers, berries and plant roots continue to blossom in the food and drink sector, the latest Insight By Gama Compass can reveal. This trend for botanicals ties into ongoing demand for wild, ancient and functional ingredients, pared back formulations and premium concepts, as well as complex and adventurous flavour combinations.
Use of botanical ingredients in food and non-alcoholic drinks has been increasing over the past ten years, with 8.9% of new products reported on Gama Compass featuring botanicals in 2023/24, compared to just 5.2% in 2013/14. Botanicals saw an especially precipitous rise between 2013/14 and 2017/2018 – coinciding with burgeoning interest in plant-based and vegan formulations in general – and have not diminished in popularity since, demonstrating a degree of longevity not always enjoyed by other ingredients that rapidly rise to prominence in food and drink.
Compared to food, growth of the use of botanicals in non-alcholic drinks has been especially marked, with an almost 250% increase between 2013/14 and 2023/2024. Aside from tea, where botanicals have an inevitably strong showing, functional drinks and carbonated soft drinks are the leading categories for botanical ingredients across food and drink NPD as a whole, underlining the important role plant-based ingredients have played in the premiumisation trend in soft drinks in recent years.
Read this Insight by Gama Compass in the next issue of Gama News.
“While premiumisation, functionality, and natural formulations remain key innovation drivers, the success of botanical ingredients looks set to remain undimmed: indeed in some categories, such as functional drinks and flavoured water, they may even become the ‘new normal'”, commented Gama insights director Tom Warden. “In this scenario, the requirement for brands – in what is likely to be an increasingly crowded category – will be to continue to find avenues for differentiation, either through the identification of lesser-known botanicals, uprated health benefits or distinctive branding and marketing”.
Source: Gama Compass
About Gama Compass
Take a more informed approach to product strategy, increase profitability and reduce costly mistakes with Gama Compass, Gama’s premium subscription service for the FMCG sector.
Developed with the industry’s leading names, Gama Compass offers powerful insights that allow you to unlock new opportunities and streamline your innovation pipeline.
To learn more about Gama Compass, contact Tom Warden, Gama insights director, at info@gamaconsumer.com.
About Gama
Gama is a global provider of business information and services specializing in product innovation and international trade. Through our worldwide network of over 100 experts in more than 50 countries, we offer high-quality news, research, analysis and partnering services. We deliver actionable insights, enabling you to make more informed decisions and supporting you to unlock new business opportunities.
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