While the pandemic shined a light on the role of diet and nutrition in health and wellness, it also revealed that most consumers don’t have a firm – or even loose – idea of what constitutes healthy – underscoring a need for more research and better education on the topic.

After years of slow but steady declines, juice sales in the US are rebounding in a trend that may have originated with consumers seeking wellness-enhancing products and moments of intentional indulgence during the pandemic, but which industry insiders, including PepsiCo, predict will have a long-lasting positive impact on the category.

Consumers are awakening to the idea that their dietary choices impact climate change, and while some already consider environmental sustainability when selecting products many more say they would if they had more information – creating a unique marketing opportunity for brands, according to research released last week by the International Food Information Council.

The long-awaited end of the pandemic may be nearing in the US as vaccine distribution expands and new government guidance rolls back some mask and social distancing requirements, but for the CPG industry, some of the challenges that arose and accelerated in the past 15 months will linger long after the threat of COVID-19 unless stakeholders work together

While the pandemic has helped fuel a business boom for much of packaged food and beverage industry, not everyone in the sector has benefited – with women and female-run small businesses in particular taking a hard hit that could have devastating long-term consequences for the industry unless stakeholders act now to recruit, maintain and support a diverse workplace and category.

After a surge of consumer trust in the food and beverage industry during the early days of the pandemic when stakeholders risked their health to keep store shelves stocked and supply chains moving, consumer trust in the industry globally fell a staggering 12 points over the remainder of 2020, according to the 2021 Global Edelman Trust Barometer for Food and Beverage released last week.

Taste and smell are fundamental to how consumers experience food and beverages, but most tools for understanding and measuring these senses – including a highly trained human nose – are subjective, imprecise, and expensive making it difficult to cost-effectively create products that deliver an appealing experience consistently to a broad consumer base.

After being demonized for decades and hitting a 30-year low in 2019, per capita flour consumption is on the rise again thanks in part to consumers’ increasingly sophisticated understanding of diet and health and their duel desire to fill their plates during the pandemic with food that is both nutritious and comforting.

Years before the coronavirus pandemic shined a harsh light on the fragility of long, global supply chains dominated by a handful of multinational companies, Kim Bryden founded Cureate to connect local food and beverage manufactures with large institutional purchasers to meet growing consumer demand for local products, empower entrepreneurs, and “shift the dollar back” to communities.

The coronavirus outbreak fundamentally changed how food and beverage brands are connecting with consumers – from abruptly halting live sampling and in-store promotions to altering the types of messaging consumers want to hear.