It is a cliché often remarked that “we feast with our eyes before our mouths.” The colour of food and beverages plays a crucial role in shaping our consumption decisions. Today’s bold and loud packaging goes beyond being merely eye-catching—it is innovative, sleek, and pushes boundaries further than ever before. Beneath these striking designs, vibrant coloured products emerge to stand out, differentiate, and make a splash in crowded categories.

The 2026 Colour of the Year, selected by Pantone, is Cloud Dancer, an off-white, rather neutral colour. A colour which stands as a contrast to an array of colourful launches in 2024 and 2025. In those years, PepsiCo launched an “Electric Blue” soft drink, and Prime introduced a fluorescent “Glowberry” beverage. Pink, orange, and other bright colours continue to captivate with their vibrant and attractive allure. 2025 was the year when many new launches featured Pink Grapefruit, Pink Lemonade, Pink Dragonfruit, and even pink shelves in new retail concepts.

In 2020, Del Monte Fruits introduced a Pink Pineapple, a product that took over a decade to develop. It wasn’t long before the first pink pineapple-flavoured and coloured CPG products appeared on American shelves. Meanwhile, in late 2025, Dole launched Colada Royale, a real-life fruit cultivated to match the tropical flavour profile of the iconic Piña Colada drink. Tropical flavours make the top 10 for flavours and are assumed to continue to dominate FMCG.

Healthy living as a mega-trend driver and the functional era will continue their growth in 2026. In a market dominated by health and lifestyle trends like Holistic Health and Longevity, as well as the macro health challenge of obesity, a few trends stand out. Gut health is dominating the consumer zeitgeist. The correlation between the microbiome and mental health is part of a bigger holistic health agenda, where consumers are using food as medicine to ensure the best balance between mental and physical health from top to toe. Capturing the holistic health demand, powdered formats like IM8, AG1, and Super Greens are either expanding or continuing their strong revenue momentum. Holistic health comes in many formats, gummies too, where Grüns emerges as the equivalent of the many “green powders,” only in a convenient and kid-friendly gummy bear application. The rise and success of the multifunctional powders pose an intriguing question: When will we see a multifunctional RTD version? In late 2025, Huel launched its first line of Daily Greens RTDs in the UK. As part of the new longevity agenda spearheaded by authors like Peter Attia, Andrew Huberman, and Siim Land, who advocate for a high protein intake as part of a longevity protocol, protein-enriched foods continue to grow in terms of NPDs and sheer market volume, e.g., in the US, where protein-rich products grew 9.7% in value and 4.8% in volume share in 2025.

Tapping into key human need states identified by Euromonitor, which highlight consumers’ needs for both energy and cognitive boosts, caffeinated energy drinks continue to surge as a category, supported by strong and promising CAGR momentum. In 2025, the category expanded into new formats such as energy stick packs, clean-label energy drinks like Mateína using green tea–derived caffeine, and botanical-forward, caffeine-containing innovations such as Rockstar Focus in the US.

Research shows that consumers often link hydration to health, energy levels, and cognition. In the hydration category, four different subcategories exist: isotonics like Powerade Mountain Blast, electrolyte enriched water like Power Water, caffeinated drinks with electrolytes like NOCCO Electrolyte and Sugafree sports drinks enriched with electrolytes like Gatorlyte Zero.