Daniel Goetz

F&B innovation doesn’t initiate at Google. It commences in the lab. Most food & beverage brands believe innovation comes from Google searches, trend reports, and competitor analysis. While online research can spark ideas, true F&B innovation begins where Google searches end, inside the lab. Analytics-oriented innovation rarely reflects real manufacturing conditions. Google cannot predict how ingredients react under heat, pressure, carbonation, storage, or transportation, especially in Indian market conditions, where temperature and logistics play a vital role. Online research may inspire concepts, but it cannot test:- -Ingredient interaction -Sensory balance -Shelf-life stability -Scalability at the production level Without lab validation, brands often face:- -Ingredient incompatibility -Poor taste consistency -Shelf-life failure after launch Difficulty in scaling from trial to commercial batches At Foodsure, every product idea is validated through structured lab trials before moving toward market launch. Acknowledgement to all the brands that experience fewer failures, manage costs better, and have more certainty before going into large-scale production. Planning a new food or beverage product? Comment “Innovation” or DM us to start with lab-backed development. #FBInnovation #FoodRND #FoodStartup #BeverageDevelopment

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👀 Shelf insight from Whole Foods Market: a snapshot that tells a bigger story. The top two rows are private label (Whole Foods Market 365 brand), but several items are completely out of stock — making the category look messy at first glance. Interestingly, when the lowest-priced option is unavailable, shoppers often trade up to the next brand — in this case, Applegate. That’s a natural opportunity for increased sales. On the Applegate shelf, the gap isn’t just missing product — it’s actually two facings of gluten-free product, one full and one empty. A quick fix by store associates can prevent it from looking out of stock, keeping the shelf visually appealing and maximizing sales potential. __ Our key takeaway from this 👇 Shelf performance guides shopper behavior. Even small gaps or empty facings can signal out-of-stock, disrupt perception, and impact category performance. Attention to shelf details drives both clarity and sales! __ Shelf Issue Spotted: 👉 Snack: Whole Foods Market and Applegate 👉 Store: Whole Foods Market, Upper West Side, New York, NY __

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AI can predict a trend. It still can’t crave a snack. In food innovation, speed is helpful, sure, but relevance is everything. AI can help teams spot patterns, test ideas, and narrow down what consumers may want next. That can save time and open up new possibilities. But the final question is still very human: would someone actually want this? Great products are not built from data alone. They come from understanding the moment, the mood, the flavor, and the reason someone reaches into the freezer or pantry in the first place. AI is a great tool… Human taste is still the strategy.

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Premium spirits are having a difficult year. Travel retail is telling a different story. The $100-plus bottle segment in the US fell close to double digits in the first quarter alone. Tequila, the category which has been popular for a decade now, dropped too. People are choosing less expensive bottles. Except for one channel - #TravelRetail. IWSR's latest numbers show travel retail spirits grew 7% in value last year. Scotch was up 10% by volume. Japanese whisky was up 37%. So what's actually different at the airport, which is driving the numbers up? It's the thirty minutes before a flight. Someone walks you through a whisky you've never tried. There's a story behind the bottle, not just a price tag. The traveller is in a good, shopping mindset. This does not happen in a supermarket or an app. If your brand is already in duty-free, this is the reason to put your special edition front and centre, not your regular bottle. The environment is already doing half the work of selling it. The same bottle from the local store doesn't belong there. If your brand isn't in travel retail yet, this is worth thinking about. People are still willing to pay more for a premium bottle, and travel retail gives brands the best environment to make that happen. Of course, travellers still trade down when the value isn't clear. That hasn't changed. But travel retail rewards the brands that make premium feel personal, rare, and easy to choose; not just expensive. Waiting for the home market to bounce back could take a while. In travel retail, the job is simpler: give travellers a reason to discover and pay for something they can't get at home. What are you seeing in your category? #TravelRetail #GlobalTravelRetail #DutyFree #PremiumSpirits #PlatinumLiquids

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The brands that die are the ones that get married to trends. I've watched it happen over and over in CPG. Keto was a seven-year run. Everyone thought it would last two. The brands that put "keto" in their actual name? Many of them are gone now. CBD? Exploded in 2019. Most of those brands evaporated by 2022. Here's the framework I learned from watching dozens of brands succeed and fail: Ride trends, don't ignore them. Some of the biggest brands in the world caught a wave at exactly the right time. There's nothing wrong with that. But never get so attached to a trend that your identity depends on it. When the trend dies... and it will... you need to be able to pivot to what's next without losing your core customer. The evergreen stuff never goes out of style: great taste, clean ingredients, fair pricing, beautiful packaging, and solving a real problem or "job to be done." If you nail those fundamentals, you can surf from trend to trend without ever wiping out. What trends are you watching right now? Drop them in the comments. #cpg #marketing #trends #brandbuilding

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Searching for growth? General Mills has announced plans to boldly go after the over 55s in their quest to increase volumes. While much of CPG chases 18-45s or the latest wellness fad, General Mills is placing its bets on three under-the-radar, high-leverage consumer groups: - Adults aged 55 +, who account for nearly half of U.S. households and have enormous spending power. - Consumers using GLP-1 medications (up to 12%+ of U.S. adults), who’re eating less but seeking more protein, more functional nutrients, smaller portions. - Hispanic shoppers, where General Mills plans to ramp up innovation and engagement by ~40% in FY26. This move takes product renovation in new directions - redesigning products and formats to match how people now live, eat and feel. They’re innovating for smaller households (smaller pack sizes), higher-protein need states, functional nutrition and not just indulgence. And this isn’t an isolated move. It’s part of a broader CPG reboot as the absence of growth looms. Full article by Elizabeth Crawford here: https://lnkd.in/eC7uqJSk #CPG #Innovation #ConsumerTrends #GeneralMills #Wellness #GLP1 #MidlifeConsumers #BrandStrategy

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What does a Whole Foods national rollout launch strategy look like? Amy Zitelman shared what this looked like for Soom Foods on Shelf Help: The Tactical CPG Podcast. Check the comments for the full episode.

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BONES COFFEE APPOINTS EX CELSIUS CEO TO BOARD Florida roaster Bones Coffee Company named former CELSIUS CEO Gerry David to its board. Founded in 2015 by Travis Rule and Tyler Nelke, Bones has expanded into RTDs and has no reports of outside funding. David ran Celsius from 2011 to 2017. He inherited a near-dead OTC beverage company and left it with five straight years of record revenue. Bones is sold dtc on Shopify and thousands of doors reportedly doing $25M+ in 2025. The board already has John B. Richards, former president of Starbucks North America.

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