Food For Thought

With 2025 more than halfway over, and 2026 looming large on the horizon, Sally Lyons Wyatt, global executive vice president and chief advisor in consumer goods and foodservice insights for Circana, joins the Food For Thought podcast to offer an update on the trends driving consumer choice as summer turns to fall.

Where do healthy food choices fit in? How are the prices of food and beverage products changing the ways consumers are shopping today? What impacts have e-commerce had on the marketplace? And what should processors prepare for in the New Year, once the calendar changes to 2026?

Rod Hogan, senior vice president of Innovation for Sargento, walks us through the development of the company’s new Natural American Cheese Slices product — a journey through the product pipeline that demonstrated the company’s commitment to a long-term view of the business and the category overall.

Hogan also explains how Sargento continues to focus on big, bold flavors and meaningful innovation to draw more consumers, especially among the younger generations.

John Hewitt, senior vice president of packaging and sustainability on behalf of the Consumer Brands Association, joins the Food For Thought podcast today to share his insights on sustainable packaging trends and initiatives in the food and beverage industry.

Hewitt offers his take on the challenges that the industry still faces when it comes to furthering the mission of reducing the impact of product packaging on the environment, and what the industry needs to work on and support to take it to the next level.

This episode is brought to you by PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies.

Food safety presents some of the industry's most significant challenges — the kind that keep plant operators up at night and require continuous innovation. Recent research from PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies, examines food safety and sanitation as it relates to workforce challenges, technological advancement and equipment design.

Learn more about PMMI and Pack Expo Las Vegas.

Lindsey Lee, senior director, Family & Kids Yogurt at Danone North America, joins the podcast to discuss the Snack Hero campaign that the Danimals brand embarked upon earlier this summer and how it worked to keep the brand top of mind for parents looking for snacks for their kids.

Lee also took the time to share her insights into the trends driving the kids yogurt and snacks today, digging deep into the normalization of drinkable formats and the flavor trends when it comes to consumption preferences of some of the pickiest eaters among consumers.

Nathalia Macedo, senior climate and ESG consultant for NSF International, joins the Food For Thought podcast to discuss CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) reporting for food and beverage processors. What should companies focus on first? How can they improve their scores and demonstrate their sustainability initiatives are producing results that matter?

Macedo addresses these points, and she also walks through a few recommendations, tactics and tips for answering CDP’s questions when the time comes to report.

At the Food Safety Summit in May, we sat down with Tia Glave, president and co-founder, and Jill Stuber, vice president and co-founder, of Catalyst Food Leaders, to discuss food safety culture and leadership trends.

During our conversation, the Catalyst team discussed the advancements food and beverage companies have made in putting a focus on building and communicating a food safety culture in their plants — and what’s needed to grow even further.

Stuber and Glave remind companies that their workers want to be valuable, be led and be owners of the process, and proper support of the people will help them succeed. However, one of the biggest missing pieces across the board, they say, is the lack of leadership identification, training and development throughout many organizations today.

Rocco Renaldi, secretary general of the International Food & Beverage Alliance (IFBA), discusses the movement toward defining foods on the processing spectrum from “not processed” to “ultraprocessed,” and how the challenges run deeper than the superficial labels that currently exist.

In addition, Renaldi shares his ideas for how the industry can work together with science and find a way forward that not only properly categorizes foods on this spectrum, but also works to make more healthy, fresh foods more affordable and accessible for communities and consumers who need them most.

Read some of our recent content showing just how unclear the definitions around ultraprocessed foods appear to many in the industry, from our May cover story, "Ultraprocessed or Not? The Answers Aren’t Yet Clear", to our recent guest column "Ultraprocessed Foods: What Are We Even Talking About?".

Fermentation, especially precision fermentation, continues to grow as a solution for numerous challenges in and around the food and beverage industry. McKinsey & Co., a management consulting firm, recently completed research on precision fermentation, and Kate Toews and Tom Brennan joined the podcast to discuss the findings of the research, the future innovation fermented ingredients can bring to product development, and how commercialization is happening in food and beverage.

Lauren McNamara, senior vice president of business management for SunOpta, joins the podcast to discuss trends in plant-based foods and better-for-you snacking, and offers her insights into how SunOpta is preparing for future determinations on ultraprocessed foods definitions and potential ingredient bans or restrictions.

McNamara also talks about how better-for-you snacks can position themselves more prominently as solving nutrition challenges for individuals looking to indulge, but do so in a smart way. She also offers an update on where private label products stand with consumers today.