Current Trends in Food and Beverage Manufacturing
In February 2026, Shaun Wilken (Strategic Solution Specialist) and Eralp Calhan (Food Market Analyst) hosted a webinar on the current trends in food and beverage that manufacturers need to be tracking this year. Drawing on food industry market research and real-time market signals, they broke down five forces reshaping the food and beverage manufacturing industry — and what businesses should be doing about each one. Here are the key takeaways.
What the data says about GLP-1s, trade, and regulation
2026 was never going to be business as usual. When Valona Intelligence and A-INSIGHTS polled webinar attendees earlier this year, 87% said they didn’t expect it to be — and the data is proving them right. GLP-1 drugs are reshaping grocery baskets. Commodity cycles are compressing. Regulation is accelerating on multiple fronts at once. For food and beverage manufacturers, the challenge isn’t identifying the disruption — it’s moving fast enough to stay ahead of it.
1. GLP-1s and food demand: what the data shows for manufacturers in 2026
What’s happening: In a US study tracking 150,000 households, spending on groceries dropped by an average of 5% when one household member was taking GLP-1s. For calorie-dense categories like ultra-processed snacks and desserts, the impact was far more dramatic — dessert consumption down 84%, alcohol down roughly a third. Currently around 11% of US households have someone on these drugs. In the UK it’s 4%, but both numbers are rising quickly and the data is still maturing.
What it means for food manufacturers: The demand shift is real and category-specific, which means the same strategy won’t work across your whole portfolio. The most important variable to track right now is penetration by geography and time — because the impact on, say, bakery in the US looks very different from bakery in Southeast Asia, where GLP-1 uptake is just beginning but obesity rates are rising rapidly. Companies already moving include Bekaudrin (emphasizing high-protein, high-fibre), Zeelandia (incremental fortification), and CSM (sugar reduction solutions). The strategic priorities emerging across the category: protein-forward reformulation, smaller portion formats, and shifting marketing messaging toward health credentials.
2. Food trade trends 2026: tariffs, FTAs, and what multi-polar trade means for your supply chain
What’s happening: The volatility in tariffs (raised, lowered, raised again) is getting most of the attention. But the bigger structural shift is the move toward a multi-polar trade world, driven by a wave of bilateral and multilateral trade agreements. The EU-Mercosur deal, agreed in January 2026, is already back in the courts and won’t resolve for at least another 12 months. BRICS has expanded significantly. And trade agreements vary enormously in their tariff regimes, timelines, and which commodities actually get preferential treatment — not all tariffs go to zero, even in comprehensive agreements.
What it means for food and beverage manufacturers: You need a comprehensive, continuously updated view of which tariffs and FTAs affect your specific products in your specific markets not a general read of the headlines. The complexity is asymmetric: a single agreement might have multiple layers of adjustment affecting different parts of your supply chain at different times. If you don’t have this mapped out now, you’re managing risk retrospectively.
3. Food commodity price volatility 2026: margin pressure, cocoa, dairy, and frozen potato
What’s happening: Commodity prices have been on a prolonged inflationary run since 2022, driven by energy costs, geopolitical instability, and supply disruption. Cocoa went from around €2,000 per tonne to nearly €11,000 — and is now back down to roughly €2,700, illustrating how fast these cycles move. In frozen potato, Belgian contract prices are expected to drop 70% in the next season. In dairy, supply is increasing while demand is softening, weakening price positions. At the same time, consumers are under affordability pressure, pushing back on price increases. The result is a margin squeeze from both ends.
What it means for food and beverage manufacturers: The companies that came through the cocoa crisis best — Nestlé, Mondelez, Barry Callebaut — had different strategies (reformulation, packaging changes, long-term R&D into cocoa alternatives), but what they had in common was that they weren’t reacting from scratch when prices spiked. Scenario planning on your key input costs, with regular updates, is the difference between a response and a scramble. El Niño conditions in 2026 add further unpredictability to dairy in particular, where heat stress can cause yield declines to accelerate sharply.
4. Ultra-processed food regulation 2026: what manufacturers need to know
What’s happening: The UPF debate has been building since Brazil’s NOVA classification in 2016, but regulatory action stalled for years because of difficulties with precise legal definitions. That’s changing. California has banned ultra-processed foods from its school feeding system. The UK’s advertising watershed ban on less healthy foods is in effect. The WHO and UNICEF are actively calling on governments to limit UPF availability. A survey of 10,000 people across 17 European countries found that at least 65% believe UPFs are harmful — and the overlap with GLP-1 trends is accelerating the category’s decline in high-income markets.
What it means for food and beverage manufacturers: The direction of travel is clear even if the specific regulations aren’t fully defined yet. The companies that treat this as a compliance issue will spend 2026 reacting to whatever gets legislated. The companies treating it as a food and beverage innovation opportunity — moving toward more natural ingredients, authentic formats, and health credentials — are building the portfolio resilience that will matter in 2027 and beyond. The key strategic moves: reformulation toward less sugar and fewer artificial ingredients, protein and fibre enrichment, and messaging that leads with what’s in the product rather than what’s been taken out.
5. Food packaging regulation 2026: PPWR, front-of-pack labelling, and what changes this year
What’s happening: In 2026 alone: the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation comes into full effect in August, the UK has its extended producer responsibility scheme, and approximately 40 countries have front-of-pack nutrition labelling on the agenda — with Canada, the US, Australia, and India all introducing new requirements. PFAS are being phased out of packaging materials, which has implications beyond food (fire extinguishers used at a Belgian processing site 11 years ago have left surrounding agricultural land still unusable). The regulatory picture varies enough by region that packaging that works in one market may need significant redesign for another.
What it means for food and beverage manufacturers: This is no longer just a compliance burden — it’s a commercial and operational planning issue. The workload falls across marketing, product development, and commercial teams simultaneously. The companies that get ahead of this are the ones that have already mapped the regulatory changes affecting their key markets in the next 18 months, rather than discovering them at the point of launch. There is currently no “USB-C equivalent” for front-of-pack labelling — regional fragmentation is here to stay.
Five food market research questions to keep asking throughout 2026
The food and beverage manufacturing industry doesn’t stand still, and neither do these challenges. Shaun and Eralp closed with a practical checklist rather than a neat summary — because these are ongoing food market research and monitoring questions, not one-time problems to solve:
- How is GLP-1 penetration evolving in the geographies most important to your portfolio?
- Do you have a comprehensive, up-to-date view of the tariffs and FTAs affecting your products across markets?
- Do you have supply and cost scenarios built for the commodities that most affect your margins?
- How are you tracking regulatory changes — as a compliance exercise, or as an opportunity to move first?
- Do you have visibility on packaging regulation changes across your key regions before they become launch blockers?
Watch the full webinar recording on our YouTube channel.
A-INSIGHTS and Valona Intelligence help food and beverage companies move from reactive monitoring to continuous, decision-ready competitive and market intelligence — combining financial performance data with real-time market signals so you can see what’s coming and act while the opportunity window is open.
