Between the late 2000s and the early 2010s, the coffee industry turned its attention to ‘craft’, elevating the beverage to a gourmet offering. When it came to brand storytelling, flavour notes, provenance and sustainability became key components. These features came to define what’s now known as ‘third-wave coffee’, which pre-dates the gamified science-infused ‘fourth-wave coffee’ movement in terms of textures...
In the last five years, canned cocktails have become ubiquitous, with offerings from MOTH: (packaging by Pentagram) and Whitebox (cans created in-house) among the strongest designs competing on the shelves of off-licenses, delis and bottle shops. Convenience and a post-pandemic demand for ‘on-the-go’ experiences have helped drive this trend, with Mintel data demonstrating that sales of spirit-based ready-to-drink beverages increased...
What does ‘healthcare’ look like today, especially when we’re increasingly talking about preventative treatment? For Parsley Health and GlycanAge, which promote functional medicine, it’s serene – all blush pink, forest green and rounded corners; for Modern Age, which focuses on longevity, it’s more clinical, with high-resolution botanical imagery and classical icons; Ezra, which offers full-body MRIs as cancer prevention, goes...
Sauces, oils, seasonings and condiments are consistently thriving categories in direct-to-consumer packaged goods. These high-margin, shelf-stable products can be easily differentiated with unique flavours and ingredients, and have high branding potential that can quickly adapt to trends. Right now, hot sauce its having its moment, with celebrities from Ed Sheeran to Brooklyn Beckham jumping on the band wagon, following trailblazers...
Bezi was founded by Ilay Karateke – an Istanbul-raised, New York-based, ex-McKinsey consultant turned cheesemaker – and Hasan Bahcivan – a Berkeley-trained engineer from one of Turkey’s largest and most legacied cheesemaking families. Both grew up in large families, with their lives punctuated by big family-style meals shared with friends and neighbours. Labneh, a Middle Eastern spreadable cheese, was ever...
Wholy Greens is a B-Corp certified Dutch food brand dedicated to transforming the way people perceive and enjoy vegetables. Its mission is to create a mindset shift from ‘having to eat veggies’ to ‘genuinely loving veggies’ – and it uses pasta as its primary vehicle. It’s a smart set up, not least because, frankly, what experiences aren’t more enjoyable when...
Since 2019, sales of beauty products labelled ‘clean’ have soared in popularity, and – as with all consumer trends, from interiors to fashion design – parental preferences influence the marketplace for children’s products as much as adults’. Enter Uoga Uoga (which translates to ‘Berry Berry’), a Lithuanian natural beauty and skincare company founded in 2010 that produces mineral-based makeup as...
Hanbury is an American architecture firm, founded in 1979 and based in Virginia. According to international agency Base Design, which recently delivered a rebrand for the practice, the last decade has witnessed a ‘transformative’ period of growth and diversification with the team increasing from 40 to 160 individuals, and expanding from one to eight office spaces. For Hanbury, which started...
There has never been more awareness of allergens and inflammatory ingredients, with lupins and sulphites now on the mainstream radar alongside common culprits like gluten and dairy. At the same time, nostalgia and anemoia (‘a feeling of yearning for a past that you never experienced’) have become driving forces shaping contemporary tastes. Direct-to-consumer cereals neatly bridge a gap in this...
Demand for dairy alternatives continues to surge. In the United States, plant-based milks and proteins are reportedly popular among a third of adults thanks to their perceived health benefits, as well as consumers’ increasing environmental awareness and plant-based lifestyles. Soy, of course, was the OG substitute, until almond milk came to dominate the market. But now, it’s all about oats....
Since the pandemic, sexual wellness offerings have carved out a space on the shelves of beauty and pharmaceutical retailers, from Sephora to CVS in the US, and even Boots in the UK (founded 1849). According to business insight platform Crunchbase, that’s thanks to ‘an increased cultural shift that embraced sexual pleasure as a crucial component of physical and mental health’....
With trend-forecasting agency WGSN identifying ‘multi-species homes’ as one of the ‘top trends of 2024’, the global market for pet products is project to hit £28.75 billion by 2025 – and this excludes the food category. Even furniture design is increasingly influenced by the penchants of our four-legged friends. Catering to this pet-first design movement, Liberty London, Prada, Louis Vuitton...