This is the fourth installment in our “2015 Emerging Food Trend Forecast” series exploring food and beverage mega-trends.

4. The grand ingredient play – exotic spices, salts, sauces and other flavor enhancers to entice adventurous palates in the cupboard and fridge

For years we’ve watched the craft beer industry grow by leaps and bounds while factory beer sales erode. We’re now at the edge of the craft food movement as specialized, smaller scale food and beverage ideas gain notoriety. The U.S. food industry in many cases is built to serve scale. Bigger is better. However…

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Consumers are making food and beverage brand decisions based on perceptions of healthier choice.

How are you aligned with rapidly shifting attitudes about healthier choice?

By Bob Wheatley

We have arrived in the midst of an unprecedented era where accelerating shifts in contemporary food culture are rapidly impacting changes in consumer demand. Said another way, cultural dynamics are at work that will impact food and beverage preference and purchase decisions. Consumers are in full march to separate:

• The real from the fake
• The better quality from the ordinary
• The good from the bad

This post is intended to break down and summarize the conditions that will move businesses forward or backward based upon their consistency and compatibility with mental markers consumers now infer on their food choices.

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