Understanding the Contrasting Market in Food & Beverage Innovation

Why modern food development must balance consumer perception, product reality, sustainability and measurable market insight

Food and beverage innovation is often presented as a linear process: identify a trend, create a concept, develop a prototype, validate the product and bring it to market. In practice, the path is far more unstable. Most product launches fail, consumer expectations change quickly, communication often exaggerates what products can actually deliver, and the gap between what people say they want and what they buy remains one of the greatest challenges for food companies.

The FoodTech Village webinar Understanding the Contrasting Market in Food & Beverage Innovation explored this complexity as part of the launch of FoodTech Village, the digital ecosystem developed by Chiriotti Editori for the food and beverage sector. The first part of the session introduced the platform as a virtual meeting point designed to combine publishing, digital marketing, webinars, roundtables, company profiles and year-round visibility. The second part, led by Prof. Sebastiano Porretta, focused on the deeper question behind food innovation today: how can companies understand a market that often behaves in contradictory ways?

The answer, according to the webinar, lies in moving beyond assumptions. Companies need to measure expectations, decode consumer drivers, distinguish perception from reality, avoid simplistic segmentation and treat sustainability not as a slogan but as an operational and economic challenge.

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FoodTech Village as a year-round digital ecosystem

The webinar opened with Alberto Chiriotti presenting FoodTech Village as more than a publishing initiative. After 75 years of history, Chiriotti Editori was described as an integrated digital network combining print, digital content, brand visibility, marketing tools and participatory publishing.

FoodTech Village was introduced as a virtual destination open throughout the year, designed to connect food and beverage companies without geographical barriers. Its structure is built around thematic areas where companies can maintain updated profiles with multimedia content, text, images and videos. The platform is intended not as a static directory, but as a dynamic environment animated by direct email marketing, product presentations, virtual roundtables, webinars, workshops and feedback tools.

This positioning is important because it reflects a broader transformation in B2B communication. Trade publishing is no longer only about magazines or occasional fairs. It increasingly involves continuous digital visibility, community building and measurable engagement. For food companies, ingredient suppliers, technology providers and service firms, platforms such as FoodTech Village respond to a real need: to remain visible, explain innovation, generate contacts and participate in technical discussion beyond physical events.

The launch context also framed the second part of the webinar. If FoodTech Village is meant to support innovation, then companies must first understand what innovation actually requires in a market that is changing quickly and often contradicts itself.

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The strange logic of today’s food market

Prof. Porretta opened his contribution with a deliberately external point of view: imagine an alien entering a modern supermarket. What would that observer see?

The shelves would appear contradictory. Products with more ingredients and products with fewer ingredients coexist. Enriched products stand next to free-from products. Foods with added proteins, vitamins, minerals or functional compounds are displayed beside foods without lactose, gluten, caffeine, sugar, alcohol or fat. In some cases, the “poorer” version — the product from which something has been removed — costs more than the richer one.

This “less is more” logic is one of the defining paradoxes of the current food market. Alcohol-free beer may cost more than regular beer. Caffeine-free coffee may cost more than standard coffee. Plant-based alternatives may be priced above the products they are meant to replace. At the same time, consumers ask for naturalness, tradition, functionality, sustainability and convenience.

For product developers, this creates a difficult environment. Innovation can no longer be based simply on technical possibility. It must respond to perceived value. But perceived value is unstable and often irrational. A claim that works today may become weak tomorrow. A trend may be powerful in one market and irrelevant in another. A product may communicate strongly but fail sensorially. Another may perform well but lack the right narrative.

The webinar therefore placed innovation not at the end of a process, but at the beginning: in the early phase when the product does not yet exist and companies must decide what it should become.

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The dangerous gap between perception and reality

One of the most practical concepts discussed was the gap between product perception and product reality.

Many companies do not have a clear understanding of how their own products are perceived. Marketing, packaging and advertising may create expectations that the product cannot fulfil. When the consumer opens the package or tastes the product, the experience may be weaker, different or even contradictory compared with the promise.

This is a serious problem because consumers may forgive a mismatch once, but rarely twice. A product that overpromises and underdelivers can damage trust, even if the product itself is not objectively poor. The problem is often communication rather than formulation.

Prof. Porretta suggested that companies should measure expectation and experience through sensory methods. One approach is to test the expectation generated by packaging or communication and then compare it with the actual sensory perception after consumption. The difference between the two indicates whether the product needs improvement, the packaging needs adjustment or the communication must be made more honest.

This is especially relevant in categories driven by strong claims: functional foods, free-from products, rich-in products, plant-based alternatives, healthy snacks, beverages and sustainability-led innovations. When a claim raises expectations, the product must be able to support them.

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Why focus groups are not enough

The webinar offered a critical view of focus groups, one of the most familiar tools in product development.

Focus groups are easy to organise and can generate useful language, impressions and qualitative insights. They may help identify possible attributes or consumer concerns. But they often fail to reveal the true drivers of choice. They do not quantify the weight of each attribute, and they can be strongly influenced by group dynamics, dominant participants or what consumers think they should say.

For early-stage innovation, this is not enough. Companies need to understand not only what consumers mention, but what actually influences preference. They need to know the relative importance of price, claim, channel, packaging, functionality, naturalness, health positioning, taste cues and other variables.

The lecture therefore introduced more quantitative approaches, including conjoint analysis and mind genomics. The strength of these methods lies in presenting consumers with combinations of attributes that resemble real-life decision-making. People do not choose products by evaluating one feature at a time. They make trade-offs. A consumer may accept a higher price if the functional benefit is credible, reject a supplement-like positioning if they want a normal food, or value supermarket availability more than a premium specialised channel.

In product development, understanding these trade-offs is essential.

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Mind genomics and the measurement of product concepts

Prof. Porretta described conjoint-based methods as a way to reduce complexity without oversimplifying the consumer’s mind.

If a company wanted to test every possible combination of product attributes — for example naturalness, functionality, organic positioning, health claims, price variation and sales channel — the number of combinations could become enormous. An exhaustive design might require thousands of possible product concepts, far more than consumers can realistically evaluate.

Orthogonal experimental designs solve this problem by selecting a smaller set of combinations that still allows the researcher to estimate the contribution of each attribute. Instead of asking consumers to evaluate attributes separately, the method presents complete concept cards: for example, a functional antioxidant drink sold in supermarkets at a price not more than 30% above traditional juice.

Consumers score each concept, and the analysis identifies positive and negative utilities. The result shows which attributes increase acceptance and which reduce it. This is powerful because negative drivers are often as important as positive ones. Knowing what should not be present in a product can be as valuable as knowing what should be emphasised.

The practical outcome is clearer product design. If the research shows that consumers value freshness, visible fruit pieces and a certain type of functional benefit, these elements can guide formulation, packaging and communication. Instead of relying on intuition, companies can build prototypes from measured consumer response.

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The end of simple demographic segmentation

Another major theme was the inadequacy of traditional demographic segmentation.

Age, gender, marital status, nationality or income may still provide some useful context, but they rarely explain contemporary consumption behaviour on their own. Prof. Porretta illustrated this with a provocative comparison: two individuals may share similar demographic descriptors — British, male, successful, well-known, born in the same year — and yet represent completely different lifestyles and consumption patterns. Demographics can group King Charles and Ozzy Osbourne together, but that grouping tells us little about food choices.

Modern segmentation must therefore be behavioural and situational. The relevant groups are not simply “young people” or “women” or “families”. They may be people who eat at their desk, people who drive for hours, people who consume meals on the move, people who want plant-based alternatives, people looking for free-from foods, people seeking functional benefits, people who eat outdoors, or consumers who want convenience without abandoning sensory pleasure.

This shift matters because food is increasingly consumed outside traditional meal structures. People eat in cars, offices, parks, public transport and in front of screens. Products must adapt to these occasions. Packaging, portioning, stability, convenience and mess-free consumption become part of product design.

The market is no longer only about who the consumer is. It is about what the consumer is doing.

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The major trends: on-the-move, plant-based, free-from and updated tradition

Several trend areas emerged from the lecture.

On-the-move consumption is one of the strongest. It does not simply mean takeaway food. It means eating everywhere, at irregular times and in non-traditional contexts. This affects product format, packaging, shelf life, temperature requirements, nutritional positioning and sensory expectations.

Plant-based foods were also identified as an important segment, though not as a standalone solution for every market. Their growth is connected to health, sustainability, ethical positioning and changing consumer habits, but they must still solve issues of taste, texture, price and trust.

Free-from and rich-in products represent another major trend, reflecting the same paradox introduced at the beginning. Consumers want products without certain ingredients and with added functional value. This creates opportunities, but also risks of overclaiming.

Perhaps the most interesting trend discussed was “updating tradition”. Traditional foods often carry strong emotional and cultural value, but they may not always match modern needs around health, functionality, sustainability, convenience or nutrition. The challenge is not to abandon tradition, but to reinterpret it. A traditional food may need a new format, a healthier formulation, a different packaging system or a more contemporary consumption occasion.

This idea is particularly useful because it avoids the false opposition between innovation and heritage. Tradition can be a source of innovation, but only if companies understand which elements must be preserved and which can evolve.

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Adaptation and the risk of losing authenticity

The webinar also addressed the adaptation of foods across markets.

Italian food is globally admired, but many products sold abroad as Italian are not actually part of Italian culinary tradition. Sometimes this happens because raw materials are unavailable, sometimes because recipes must adapt to local taste, and sometimes because foreign consumers have developed expectations that differ from the original product.

Fettuccine Alfredo was used as an example: widely perceived abroad as Italian, but largely absent from Italian restaurant culture in Italy. Espresso was another example of adaptation, where the same name can refer to different sensory experiences in different countries.

Adaptation is not inherently wrong. Food cultures have always changed through travel, trade and reinterpretation. But adaptation becomes problematic when it misrepresents the product or disconnects it completely from its origin. For companies, the task is to adapt intelligently without destroying identity.

This applies not only to Italian food, but to every traditional product entering global markets. Localisation must be managed carefully. A product may need to change to succeed in another country, but the company must understand what can be changed and what defines authenticity.

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Sustainability: the keyword everyone uses and few know how to pay for

The lecture closed with sustainability, described as one of the central keywords of contemporary food development.

Sustainability is now expected by retailers, institutions and consumers. Many products claim it, many companies promote it, and in some cases the claim approaches greenwashing. The problem is not only whether a product can be made more sustainable, but who pays for that sustainability.

Sustainable sourcing, shorter supply chains, improved processing, waste valorisation, better packaging and lower environmental impact often involve costs. Consumers may say they want sustainable products but resist paying more. Retailers may demand sustainability but maintain price pressure. Producers may therefore be left absorbing the cost.

This economic contradiction is one of the most difficult aspects of sustainable innovation. A sustainable product that cannot survive commercially will not scale. A sustainability claim without measurable substance damages trust. A process that improves environmental performance but increases price beyond consumer acceptance may remain marginal.

The webinar therefore framed sustainability as a product-development problem, not only an ethical aspiration.

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Tomato waste as a model of circular innovation

The final case study focused on tomato-processing waste.

In tomato industries, a significant quantity of seeds and peels is generated during processing. At industrial scale, even a small percentage becomes a large volume. Traditionally, this material may be used as feed, but it can be valorised in more interesting ways.

From tomato seeds, oil can be extracted using conventional oil-extraction systems. Depending on the presence of skin residues, the oil may appear yellow or red. It can be filtered and potentially used in food applications such as canned foods, tuna or tomato-based products. The remaining pellet can be burned for energy, reducing waste.

Tomato skins can also be fermented to produce a tomato “wine”, which can then be transformed into vinegar. By combining the oil and vinegar through homogenisation, it becomes possible to create a tomato-based dressing for gastronomic or daily use.

This example illustrates circular innovation in concrete terms. Waste becomes a source of new ingredients, energy and products. The value is not only environmental. It is also economic and narrative: the final product can be linked entirely to the tomato chain, turning by-products into a coherent extension of the original raw material.

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Conclusion: innovation begins before the product exists

The webinar’s central lesson is that food innovation fails when companies treat the product as an isolated object. A successful product is not only a recipe, a package, a claim or a technology. It is the result of aligned expectations, measured consumer drivers, credible communication, sensory performance, appropriate segmentation, realistic pricing and operational sustainability.

The market is contrasting because consumers themselves are contrasting. They want less and more at the same time. They want tradition and novelty, naturalness and functionality, sustainability and low price, convenience and authenticity, health and pleasure. Companies cannot resolve these contradictions through intuition alone.

They need better methods at the early stages of development. They need to test concepts quantitatively, understand utilities, identify negative drivers, compare perception and reality, and design products for real behaviours rather than abstract demographics.

FoodTech Village was introduced as a digital ecosystem for connection, visibility and technical exchange. In that context, Prof. Porretta’s lecture served as a reminder that innovation is not only about having new ideas. It is about choosing the right ideas before investing in the wrong ones.

The future of food and beverage innovation will belong to companies capable of reading the market with more precision, communicating with more honesty and designing products that satisfy not only trends, but real consumer experiences.