2025 Trend Heat Check: Collabs Catch Fire, Alt-Cocoa Cools
Along with the various macroeconomic forces at play, as with any other year, success or failure in 2025 will be determined in no small part by the whims of consumers. Will celebrities and influencers continue to hold sway, or has the proverbial shark already been jumped? Can innovative co-branded products attract loyal return consumers, or just curious impulse buyers? And just how much protein can we take? We asked our network for a heat check on food trends heading into 2025 — ranking nine topics as cold, lukewarm or hot — and here’s what we heard.
On Fire: Globally Inspired Snacks, Collaborations, GLP-1
Brand collaborations were hot last year — see Fly By Jing’s eye-catching team-ups, or Hot Ones’ ongoing quest to capture the entire CPG world — and the heat shows little sign of subsiding in 2025, per our survey. The consensus was that these projects can supercharge awareness and generate enthusiastic social content for the brands involved, though one respondent noted the potential risk for “devaluing the distinctiveness of each brand.” As for the Ozempic effect, the excitement is palpable: GLP-1s received the second-most “Hot” votes, and these medicines are clearly exerting influence across the food industry.
Still Simmering: Jacked Up Protein, High Fiber/Low Sugar
Protein and high fiber/low sugar are powerful individual purchase drivers in any given year, but in the context of the aforementioned rising interest in GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, they seemed to be enhanced. For high fiber/low sugar, only a single respondent felt “cold” on the trend, while “Hot” sentiment was nearly double that of “Lukewarm.”
Chilling Out: Cocoa Alternatives, Celebrity Backed Brands
Has the influencer CPG era already peaked? There’s some suggestion of that in our feedback, where celeb-backed brands received the most “cold” votes in our survey. Perhaps more than other sub-categories, this group’s impression on experts is colored by the individual success or failure of prior ventures. On that note, the crush of lawsuits and recriminations following PRIME seems to be weighing on minds, giving credence to those who see the space as delivering short-term hype at the expense of long-term staying power.
And despite some significant investment in cocoa alternatives in 2024, spurred in response to soaring ingredient prices, respondents were more circumspect regarding whether consumers will share that enthusiasm. As one noted, “When you want chocolate, you want chocolate.”
For our beverage trend heat map, click here.
See other articles from our 2025 Trend Forecast series:
