15 Nov 2025 NNB’s 10 Key Trends in Food, Nutrition & Health 2026

Focusing on the long-term opportunities, this report pinpoints the 10 most important growth opportunities in food, nutrition and health. [It should be required reading for every food industrialist! Ed]

And while it may be called 10 Key Trends 2026, it is in fact focused on what’s going to matter for your business not only in 2026, but also for the next five years.

Written in an easy and accessible style, lavishly illustrated with charts and graphics, 10 Key Trends sets out: 

• What strategies you can use to implement each trend in your own business, with mini-case studies illustrating what brands are already doing.
• Which trends will grow, and why. How much they will grow and why. And which are higher risk, which are lower risk.
• And what strategies you can use to implement each trend in your own business, with mini-case studies illustrating what brands are already doing.

“This report is called 10 Key Trends 2026, but in truth we’re focused on what’s going to matter for your business not just in 2026 but for the next five years,” writes NNB MD, Julian Mellentin. “There’s no realistic trend analysis that can look beyond that time-frame. If someone shows you one, you can be sure it’s a low-information forecast.

“Our trend list does not change dramatically every year and that is because we focus on the drivers of the most important long-term trends – the ones we think will stick around.”

Two changes this year are worth highlighting, he adds:

Protein quality: Animal protein remains the most important growth trend for now and to the end of this decade. There’s a strategy that companies can adopt to drive further growth, one we have been highlighting since November 2020. That is to communicate to consumers about protein quality.

This is animal protein’s untapped competitive advantage, particularly for dairy protein. We have been at Day Zero of this strategy for five years, but someone in the industry had to lead the way, and that has now happened in Asia, with companies like Danone and Meiji making the first steps. It’s no longer necessary to wait nervously on the sidelines to see who goes first.

Weight wellness & metabolic health: We have for many years addressed this as a Mega-Trend. This year, in a big shift, we also address it as a Key Trend. That’s in large part because GLP-1 has entered the conversation. Contrary to what the big consulting firms are saying, GLP-1 is more of an opportunity than a threat to the food industry, because there are low-risk and effective strategies that companies can follow.

But this drug focus is just the tip of the iceberg and we look in detail at what strategy opportunities are coming in the future.

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