Q3 2025 Food and Beverage Trends: What’s Driving Consumer Demand This Summer
Food and beverage trends in Q3 2025 are moving faster than ever. If you’re developing new products, planning marketing campaigns, or innovating in R&D, understanding where consumers are headed isn’t optional—it’s your edge.
Q3 2025 Food and Beverage Trends: The Power Shifts Defining Summer
Food trends don’t just shift—they accelerate. In Q3 2025, the pace of change is sharper, the stakes are higher, and the brands that thrive are the ones turning insight into action faster than ever.
The Tastewise Q3 2025 Food and Beverage Trends Report is your guide to that pace. It distills billions of real-time data points—across recipes, social media, menus, and eRetail—into four major consumer shifts that will define what ends up on shelves, menus, and marketing campaigns this summer.
If you’re in marketing, product innovation, or R&D, these aren’t just interesting trends. They’re launch triggers.
What’s Inside the Q3 2025 Food and Beverage Trends Report?
High-Protein Comfort Goes Mainstream
The resurgence of cottage cheese is more than nostalgia—it’s strategy. With a 30% YoY growth in demand, it’s emerging in bowls, frozen desserts, and portable snacks.
According to our data, Gen Z is leading the charge, and consumers on GLP-1 medications are 17x more likely to seek high-protein options. This aligns with broader shifts in personalized nutrition tracked by IFIC’s 2025 Food Trends report, emphasizing the continued prioritization of protein, energy, and mood regulation.
Use it to: Launch high-protein formats that feel indulgent but functional—snack cups, ice cream alternatives, and even cookout-ready dips.
Better-for-You Swaps Go Big
Consumers are replacing seed oils with beef tallow and olive oil—not because of perfectionism, but because of practicality. Likewise, ingredients like matcha, lion’s mane, and turmeric are gaining traction for their brain-boosting and stress-calming effects.
This trend shows up across menus and home cooking, reflecting a broader movement away from legacy “clean eating” and toward everyday ingredient intelligence. This shift also mirrors Mintel’s reporting on the rise of functional ingredient demand.
Use it to: Offer swaps that are intuitive, not aspirational—products that make wellness feel effortless.
Functional Drinks Meet Nostalgia
Beverages now carry more than hydration—they carry meaning. From prebiotic creamsicle spritzers to matcha rootbeer floats, the drinks of summer 2025 blend flavor memory with functional benefits.
Tastewise data shows that 77% of consumers now seek functional benefits in their beverages. This is where emotional need meets functional expectation, and it’s becoming non-negotiable for brands.
Use it to: Tap into the momentum of drinks that are both mood-setters and wellness tools. Flavor-forward, benefit-backed.
For examples of how beverage brands are already leading this charge, explore Poppi or Olipop—and see how pairing gut health with playful formats is redefining functional drinks.
Crunch Gets Strategic
Indulgence is getting a texture upgrade. Dubai chocolate’s 3,000% YoY growth has sparked a wave of multi-layered, globally inspired, crunchy confections.
From pistachio-laced popcorn to kataifi-wrapped frozen treats, these experiences offer emotional payoff—sound, bite, indulgence, and shareability. They’re not just snacks; they’re brand moments.
Use it to: Create texture-driven innovation that hits multiple senses. These aren’t gimmicks—they’re pathways to premium perception.
Explore more about how these experiential trends connect to ingredient development inside the Tastewise platform, where you can track real-time interest in flavor, texture, and occasion.
Why These Trends Matter
Each trend in this report reflects a deeper change in consumer expectations—toward emotional relevance, simplicity, and function-with-flair. They’re not driven by algorithms; they’re driven by behavior. And with real-time insights from 10.9M consumers and 186M dishes, you’re not working from guesswork—you’re working from signal.
This report helps brands do what most can’t: execute faster than the trend curve.
Download the Q3 2025 Food and Beverage Trends Report
If you’re launching new products, repositioning SKUs, or building seasonal campaigns, this report is built for you. Get the full breakdown, including use cases, trend validation, and actionable ideas.
👉Download the full report here
Here’s what’s gaining ground—and what it means for your brand.
Protein Comfort Goes Mainstream in Food and Beverage Trends
One trend leading the summer charge? Cottage cheese. Once overlooked, it’s now fueling high-protein innovation across snacks, bowls, and desserts.
Consumers want function, but they also want ease and flavor. Cottage cheese offers both—and it’s proving itself far beyond the breakfast table.
Better-for-You Swaps Get Practical
Seed oils are on the decline. Tallow, olive oil, and other familiar fats are rising in response. At the same time, nootropics and natural adaptogens are gaining traction—driven by everyday concerns like stress, focus, and balance.
What we’re seeing isn’t a perfection mindset. It’s a practicality shift. Consumers are looking for ingredients that match how they actually live.
Functional Refreshments Get Playful
Today’s top beverages deliver more than hydration. They boost mood, support hormones, and bring back familiar flavors in fresh, functional formats.
Rootbeer floats, matcha spritzers, and aguas frescas are leading this evolution—offering emotional connection and daily utility in a single sip.
Crunch Gets a Makeover
From viral Dubai chocolate to pistachio popcorn and kataifi-wrapped treats, crunch is back in a big way. Texture is becoming a core product feature—driving indulgence, visual impact, and shareability.
Brands that lean into multi-sensory innovation are finding new ways to stand out, even in crowded categories.
Download the Full Q3 Report
These four trends are just the beginning. The full Q3 2025 Tastewise Trend Report explores why these patterns are emerging, where they’re showing up across foodservice and retail, and how you can act on them—now.
Get your copy of the report and stay ahead of the market this summer.