F&B insights are essential for food and beverage businesses to understand their customers’ needs and wants. With the rise of data analytics and technology, there has been an increase in the collection and analysis of customer data. However, having a large amount of unorganized data can make it challenging to extract meaningful insights. This is where taxonomies come into play.
The gap between holding consumer data and acting on it comes down to classification. This guide covers what food and beverage taxonomies are, how the consumer needs and ingredient versions differ, and how CPG and foodservice teams turn them into product and menu decisions.
Key takeaways
- Most consumer data about food arrives as unstructured text, from social posts, online reviews, recipe blogs and menu descriptions. None of it can be counted or compared until something classifies it.
- A taxonomy is that classification layer. It assigns every mention to a category and a value, so one idea recorded in twelve different phrasings is counted once and counted correctly.
- Tastewise runs two taxonomies side by side. The consumer needs taxonomy covers the “why” behind a choice, with over 1,000 values across 15 categories. The ingredient taxonomy covers the “what,” with over 6,500 ingredients and dishes.
- Synonym clusters keep the count honest. Grouping “lose weight,” “slimming” and “obesity” under weight management stops a single need from reading as three smaller ones.
- Read both taxonomies together and you get a product decision rather than a data point: which motivation is growing, and which ingredients consumers are attaching to it.
- Taxonomy data reports demand signal, meaning what people post, cook, search and order. It shows attention and intent, not units sold.
Understanding F&B Insights
F&B insights refer to the information gathered from various sources that provide businesses with a deeper understanding of their customers’ preferences, behaviors, and needs. This includes data from sales transactions, customer feedback, social media interactions, and more. Analyzing this data helps businesses with their F&B marketing efforts, menu planning, and overall F&B business strategy.
What are Taxonomies?
Taxonomies are a hierarchical system used to organize and classify data into different categories based on shared characteristics. In simpler terms, it is a way of organizing large amounts of data into smaller groups for easier analysis. In the F&B industry, taxonomies can be used to categorize customer data into groups such as demographics, preferences, or purchase history.
Why Taxonomies Matter in F&B
Imagine putting all social media posts, online reviews, and recipe blogs are all jumbled together in one giant text file. Analyzing such a huge amount of unstructured data would be almost impossible, and it stops your ability to get valuable insights into consumer behavior. This is precisely the challenge faced by many CPG and F&B companies today.
The Challenges of Unstructured Data
- Difficulty in analysis: Traditional data analysis tools struggle to make sense of unstructured data, leading to inaccurate or incomplete insights.
- Hidden trends: Valuable information can get buried within the vast amount of data, making it difficult to identify emerging trends and consumer preferences.
- Wasted resources: Time and resources spent trying to analyze unstructured data can be better allocated to developing and executing data-driven strategies.
Utilizing Taxonomies to Organize and Unlock F&B Insights
Taxonomies are like the filing system for your data. They provide a structured classification system, allowing you to categorize information based on predefined criteria. This enables researchers to:
- Identify patterns and trends: By organizing data into relevant categories, taxonomies make identifying patterns and trends in consumer behavior easier.
- Gain deeper understanding: Taxonomies allow you to delve deeper into specific topics, such as consumer needs or trending ingredients.
- Make informed decisions: With clear and organized data, CPG and F&B companies can make data-driven decisions about product development, food marketing strategies, and more.
Tastewise’s Two-pronged Taxonomy Approach
Tastewise takes a unique two-pronged approach to taxonomies, offering both a Consumer Needs Taxonomy and an Ingredient Taxonomy. This comprehensive system allows for a holistic understanding of F&B insights, providing answers to the critical “why,” “what,” “who,” “where,” “when,” and “how” questions that drive consumer behavior.
Consumer needs taxonomy
The Tastewise Consumer Needs Taxonomy is a powerful tool that delves into the “why” behind consumer choices. This taxonomy, encompassing over 1,000 values across 15 categories, helps CPG and F&B companies understand the motivations and desires driving consumer purchases.
- Health & Wellness: This category covers weight management, gut health, and allergy restrictions.
- Experience: Busy lifestyles often lead to a need for convenient and time-saving meal solutions.
- Taste: This category captures consumer taste preferences, from sweet and savory to spicy and adventurous.
By understanding these needs, companies can develop products that cater to specific consumer segments and address their underlying motivations.
Ingredient taxonomy
The Tastewise Ingredient Taxonomy focuses on the “what” of consumer preferences. This comprehensive taxonomy, with over 6,500 ingredients and dishes categorized into a hierarchical structure, provides deep insights into the trending flavors and ingredients consumers are seeking.
- Identify emerging trends: Stay ahead of the curve by spotting new and exciting ingredient trends before they hit the mainstream.
- Optimize product formulations: Leverage insights into trending flavors to optimize existing products or develop innovative new offerings.
- Understand consumer preferences: Gain a deeper understanding of the specific ingredients and flavors consumers are drawn to within different product categories.
Ultimately, these insights can lead to innovative new menu trends and products that resonate with your consumers, and if you need inspiration, you can access the recipe creator. Discover untapped ingredients, and themes, like this Rainbow Pride Cheesecake, which encompasses various categories of ingredients and themes.
From Data to Decisions
Tastewise’s robust taxonomies empower CPG and F&B companies to make data-driven decisions across every stage of the product development cycle. Here are some real-world examples:
- A leading yogurt brand identified a growing consumer need for on-the-go, protein-rich snacks through the Consumer Needs Taxonomy. This insight led to the development of a new line of single-serve yogurt parfaits with high protein content.
- A beverage company leveraged the Ingredient Taxonomy to identify a surge in demand for sparkling water infused with botanical flavors. This trend helped them develop a new line of sparkling water beverages with unique and refreshing flavor combinations.
- A CPG company used the Consumer Needs Taxonomy to understand the growing demand for convenient and healthy meal solutions among a particular demographic.
Gathering and classifying consumer preferences can be as easy as using our Survey Agency. Discover Consumer’s Taste with Tastewise like what factors are most important to your customer when considering a new product, what your audience’s favorite flavor profile is, or even what people are cooking at home. Understanding the data behind consumer’s needs can guide the way to innovative menus, recipes, and products, and in turn, how to market them.
Demystifying Taxonomy Terminology
Key terms in food and beverage data taxonomy
Taxonomy. A hierarchical system for sorting information into categories based on shared characteristics. In food and beverage, a taxonomy turns loose text about food into countable groups, so you can measure how often a need, an ingredient or a dish shows up. Without one, the same idea gets recorded a dozen different ways and none of it adds up.
Consumer needs taxonomy. A classification of the motivations behind food choices, the “why” rather than the “what.” The Tastewise version covers over 1,000 values across 15 categories, including health and wellness, experience and taste. It lets you ask which motivation is growing in your category, not only which ingredient.
Ingredient taxonomy. A classification of the foods themselves, the “what” behind a choice. The Tastewise version covers over 6,500 ingredients and dishes in a hierarchical structure, so a flavor can be tracked on its own or rolled up into the family it belongs to.
Unstructured data. Information that arrives as free text with no fixed fields, such as social posts, online reviews, recipe blogs and menu descriptions. It carries most of what consumers actually say about food, and none of it can be counted until something classifies it.
Structured data. Information already sorted into defined fields and categories, which makes it countable and comparable. Applying a taxonomy is how unstructured food data becomes structured data.
Demand signal. Evidence that interest in something is moving, drawn from what people post, cook, search and order. A demand signal shows attention and intent. It is not a sales figure, and a rising signal does not on its own mean units moved off shelf.
Consumer need share. The share of conversation in a category that maps to a given consumer need, for example gut health inside health and wellness. It measures where attention sits. It is not market share and not a record of what consumers bought.
Growth rate. How much a term, need or ingredient has moved over a set window, usually the past 12 months. Read it next to share. A small term can post a large growth rate while still sitting at a fraction of a percent of the category, which is what an early signal looks like.
What do CPG and foodservice teams do with taxonomy data?
The value of a taxonomy is not the classification itself. It is that four different teams can ask four different questions of the same body of consumer data and each get an answer they can act on.
Consumer insights teams use it to size a need rather than describe one. Knowing that gut health is being discussed is not a finding. Knowing what share of conversation in your category maps to gut health, how fast that share is moving, and which ingredients consumers name alongside it is the input a strategy deck can actually stand on. Classification is what makes that comparison possible across categories, markets and time.
Product development and R&D teams use both taxonomies together to find white space. The consumer needs taxonomy shows which motivation is growing. The ingredient taxonomy shows what consumers are reaching for to satisfy it. Where a need is rising and the ingredients attached to it are not yet on shelf in your category, you have a product innovation case that rests on evidence rather than instinct.
Brand and marketing teams use the needs taxonomy to segment by motivation instead of demographics. Two shoppers in the same age bracket can buy the same product for entirely different reasons, and the messaging that works on one will not land on the other. Mapping consumer segments to the need they are actually solving for is what stops consumer marketing budget going to a campaign built for an audience that does not exist.
Foodservice and culinary teams work mostly from the ingredient side. Which flavors are appearing on menus, at what price tier, in which formats, and how that compares to what people are cooking at home. For foodservice operators, that is the difference between adding an LTO because it feels current and adding one because demand for it is measurably building.
In every one of those cases the taxonomy is doing the same job. It turns what consumers say into something you can count, compare and defend in a meeting.
FAQs
While general industry standards exist, Tastewise’s taxonomies are specifically designed for the F&B market. This allows for a more granular and relevant classification system, capturing the nuances of consumer needs and ingredient trends within the ever-evolving F&B landscape. Our taxonomies are constantly updated to reflect these changes, ensuring you have access to the most up-to-date consumer insights.
Tastewise understands the dynamic nature of consumer preferences and ingredient trends. Our taxonomies undergo continuous monitoring and updates to reflect these changes. We leverage a combination of automated analysis and expert review to ensure our taxonomies remain accurate and relevant. This ensures you have access to the most up-to-date consumer insights to inform your business decisions.
Tastewise’s taxonomies are designed for seamless integration with various data analytics platforms. This allows you to easily leverage the power of our taxonomies within your existing workflow, unlocking deeper insights from the data you already have. By integrating Tastewise with your existing tools, you can gain a more comprehensive understanding of your target audience and make data-driven decisions with greater confidence.
By transforming unstructured data into organized information, taxonomies empower businesses to extract valuable insights, identify trends, and make informed decisions. With a well-designed taxonomy, CPGs and F&B stakeholders can unlock the hidden potential of your data and gain a deeper understanding of their target audience.
A consumer needs taxonomy classifies the motivations behind food and drink choices rather than the products themselves. It answers why someone reaches for an item, whether that is weight management, gut health, convenience or a specific taste preference. The Tastewise consumer needs taxonomy covers over 1,000 values across 15 categories, including health and wellness, experience and taste. Sorting consumer data this way lets you see which motivations are growing in your category, so product and marketing decisions line up with what people are actually looking for.
A consumer needs taxonomy covers the “why” behind a choice, such as gut health, convenience or adventurous taste. An ingredient taxonomy covers the “what,” meaning the specific ingredients and dishes people mention, cook and order. Tastewise runs both, with over 1,000 need values across 15 categories and over 6,500 ingredients and dishes in a hierarchical structure. Read together, they tell you which need is rising and which ingredients consumers are attaching to it, which is more useful than either view on its own.
Most consumer data about food arrives as unstructured text: social posts, online reviews, recipe blogs and menu descriptions. Traditional analysis tools struggle with that format, which leads to incomplete reads and buries emerging trends inside the noise. A taxonomy assigns every mention to a category and a value, so the same idea recorded in twelve different phrasings is counted once and counted correctly. That is what makes patterns in consumer behavior measurable instead of anecdotal.
A synonym cluster groups terms that mean the same thing under a single taxonomy value, so no relevant mention is missed. For example, “lose weight,” “slimming” and “obesity” all cluster under the weight management value. Without clustering, each phrasing would be counted as a separate topic and every one of them would look smaller than it is. Clusters are also how a taxonomy keeps pace with new slang and shorthand as consumers adopt it.
CPG brands, beverage companies, restaurant chains and foodservice operators are the main users. CPG and beverage teams use it to shape product development and positioning around needs that are growing. Restaurant chains and foodservice operators use it for menu planning, to see which ingredients and dishes consumers are moving toward. Insights and marketing teams across all of them use it to segment audiences by motivation rather than by demographics alone.
It can surface them early, because classified data makes a small rising term visible while its total volume is still low. When an ingredient or a need starts appearing more often across unrelated sources, the taxonomy flags the movement rather than losing it in the noise. Treat that as a demand signal, meaning consumer attention and intent, not a sales figure. It tells you a trend is worth testing, and it gives you lead time to formulate before competitors launch.
