According to the Taste Tomorrow survey, consumers worldwide clearly show a desire for new concepts and innovative ideas whilst at the same time cherish familiar flavours. The future of bakery products goes hand-in-hand with history and tradition. Providing variation is key.

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Consumers want it all: Tradition and innovation

Innovation through variationConsumers want to keep the old and embrace the new. The main driver behind this conundrum is that today’s consumers appreciate the freedom of choice: consumers enjoy balancing new and old flavours and thus create unique flavour combinations depending on their mood and specific situation. They are balancing their hunger for innovation and tradition, looking for the best of both worlds. So how does the consumer embrace innovation in food? In essence, it all comes down to food variation.

Grandma recipes or new cuisineThe Taste Tomorrow research alsoshows how important it is to considerthe local and traditional food culturewhen launching an innovation:

In Brazil, 47% of consumers prefer ‘grandma’s cooking’ over new cuisine whilst 46% of consumers embrace the idea of trying new flavours.

Only 20% of UK consumers prefer ‘grandma’s cooking’, suggesting that they are the least attached to traditional eating habits when compared to consumers from other countries in the wider European region.

In the USA, preparing food based on traditional recipes (38%) is just as important to consumers as trying something completely new (38%).

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3 ways of adapting traditional foods and flavours:

The data is property of Puratos N.V. We share this to boost your business. Want to learn more? Visit www.tastetomorrow.com or contact your local representative.

The future of food innovation in terms of bread, patisserie, pastry and chocolate will lie in its variation. Consumers crave different flavours, different ingredients or different food structures. Depending on the food culture and the tradition and heritage of a country or a region, food will be adapted to local needs, integrated into country-specific recipes or assimilated without change.

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• It’s the combination of new ingredients that makes people curious and which appeals to their hunger for a variety in food experiences.

• For example, in Italy and France but also in China, there is a tendency towards integrating new or different foods into existing eating habits. With these countries rich food culture and heritage, integration rather than assimilation seems to be the best concept to use.

Food assimilation:taking a considerable amount from other culinary cultures and keeping food as close to the original as possible.

• It is the tendency to assimilate new types of products without changing them to a large extent. In Turkey for instance, presenting a completely new product to consumers could trigger their curiosity and stimulate their interest in new and different food types

• Take another example, Japan: international food is largely fully assimilated in its original format rather than integrating it into existing dishes. In Japan, consumers seem to want foreign food to be as authentic as possible.

Food adaptation:making a personal, customized version of a ‘foreign’ or new product peanut butter macaroons XXL

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Food integration:integrating and slightly adapting from other cultures leading to fusion innovations

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• The idea is that people enjoy surprises and like to explore. They like food that looks like something they know, but that is actually made of something else.

• Adaptation is the most appropriate way to introduce new food items to the Brazilian and Mexican markets where an important share of dishes and food products are the result of this process; foreign food items that were adapted with local ingredients.

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