It is that time of year again where all your favorite CPG brands gather to show everyone in the industry what new, exciting things are on the horizon that will be hitting grocery store shelves soon. This event is called Expo West. The innovation is endless and overwhelming at times, but there always seems to be noticeable trends happening within the Expo halls. We captured what some of these trends are so you don’t have to feel the FOMO.

Natural Sweeteners

Step aside stevia and monkfruit, brands are now focusing on using the most natural sugars to sweeten their products – dates & honey. This is part of a larger trend of eating more natural foods with less ingredients as well as whole foods.

Global Flavors

What seemed to start to blow up in 2023, has expanded even more in 2024. What seemed to dominate amoung the global cuisines was Korean food and flavors. There were a lot of frozen kimbap, which Trader Joe’s famously started carrying last year, so much so that even vegan brand Konscious Foods made a plant based version. Other cuisines included Indian and African.

Innovative Plant Based Dairy Alternatives

We aren’t saying that oatmilk, or the classic almond and soy are going away anytime soon, but there was a lot of innovation within the dairy alternative space in a variety of different categories. From bambara groundnut, macadamia, pistachio and pecan, we love all these companies’ creativity!

Regenerative Farming

There was a huge emphasis on regenerative farming at the show following the push towards sustainability. In short, regenerative farming strives to work with nature rather than against it creating a positive environmental impact.

Functional Beverages

With Olipop and Poppi taking over the beverage fridges of the grocery stores, no wonder other brands are trying to follow in their foot steps. Even Heath Aid, once just a kombucha company, has jumped on the band wagon creating a prebiotic soda called Sun Sip. While a lot of these functional beverages focus on gut health – a big trend seen through out the show – others focus on energy and mood boosting. All of these beverages follow this new wave to replace the traditional, full of sugar sodas and energy drinks with a healthier alternative.

Non Alcoholic Beverages

Going hand in hand with the functional beverage trend is the trend to drink N.A. beverages. While some try and mimic traditional spirits, cocktails and aperitifs – Parch and Ghia, others are almost closer to a functional beverage often making claims such as mood boosting, giving one a euphoric feeling just like alcohol, such as Kin Euphorics.

Other Trends Included –

Meatless and Plant Based Made with Plants and Veggies (Bringing it Back to Basics), Women’s Health, Bars Focused on Protein, Fiber and Caffeine, Collagen, Moodboosting and Gut Health