7 consumer shifts: Overview
- Consumers’ lives are becoming less predictable, so brands must focus on circumstances rather than demographics
- Purchases will increasingly reflect personal values, putting sustainability and regenerative agriculture in the spotlight
- Multi-generational living will create demand for products that balance shared eating with individual preferences
- Weight management, energy and indulgence are converging into one consumer need
- Food and drink will become part of broader health ecosystems, while climate concern continues to rise
The consumer landscape is changing and changing fast. As economic pressures, climate concerns and evolving lifestyles reshape daily life, food and drink companies must rethink how they understand demand.
Using localised consumer data is key to understanding what’s coming so that brands can start adapting strategy now. Here are seven key takeaways from Mintel’s EMEA 2027 predictions for food and drink.
1) Demographics no longer rule
Consumers’ lives will become more fragmented and unpredictable because of rising costs, climate disruption and changing milestones such as declining marriage rates and delayed home ownership. This will make their priorities harder to predict, says Alice Pilkington, associate principal for Mintel. This will ultimately reshape food and drink because it will need to adapt to how consumers cope rather than who they are.
Demographics are no longer the key indicator of what consumers want. Instead, brands should be asking what constraints people are facing and how they’re trying to work their way around it.
For example, the responses to financial constraint are changing. The prevalence of ‘life hacking’ across social media means that consumers are optimising around having less money rather than just accepting it.
Consumers are finding ways to stretch budgets and their ingenuity creates opportunity for F&B – for example, 27% of Spanish adults have added pulses and vegetables to homemade meals to get more portions out of them. Brands can tap this by positioning meal-stretchers as upgrades rather than a compromise.
Brands also need to consider the appliances that consumers have access to and offer solutions to those who may not have or be able to afford to run ovens and hobs.
How consumers cope will increasingly matter more than who they are, and Mintel defines this as fixed segments changing to fluid circumstances.
2) Personal values will be expressed through purchases
“Frustrated by global climate inaction, consumers will increasingly want their purchases to reflect who they are and what they stand for,” says Pilkington. Brands can help consumers act on their values in visible and meaningful ways.
Sixty-eight percent of UK 16-34s say making environmentally friendly food and drink choices is important for their self-image. And consumers believe that their purchases can have an impact – 73% of French consumers agree that even small sustainable steps in food and drink choices can make a difference to the environment.
Brands can connect sustainable food choices with identity and tangible benefits. Pilkington highlights the “eco-activist brands” that have begun to emerge and make verified sustainability “cool, accessible and delicious”. Patagonia Provisions in the US and Wildfarmed in the UK are two such brands.
Regenerative agriculture will be a force that drives this, she adds, because the growing awareness of the link between soil health, drought resilience and food’s nutritional quality gives it a personal benefit – as well as supporting it, consumers understand what they gain from it.
3) Consumers within shared households will express autonomy
Protecting individuality in shared spaces will become a priority in 2027 and food and drink can play a large part in this.
As cost of living increases, many more young people are living at home for longer. The average leaving home age in Spain and Italy is now 30, and 37% of Gen Z in Germany who live at home say they can’t afford to leave. Add to that one in three EU residents being over 65 by 2050 and we will see increasingly multi-generational households.
With that in mind, younger consumers will seek ways to assert autonomy within the household through food and drink. The opportunity for F&B is to help consumers eat differently but together. Mintel’s own AI-powered concept generator, Mintel Spark, came up with the example of Batch Cook Boosts – a selection of seed mixes that consumers could use to customise the same meal. Other ideas include bedroom-friendly, mess-free individual desserts to enjoy away from the family.
4) Three outcomes will combine into one
Three outcomes will especially resonate for EMEA consumers: weight management, sustained energy and optimised indulgence. But they’re not separate; they’re part of one space.
Firstly, the ripple effect of GLP1-s is vast. “Their cultural impact has been profound,” says Pilkington. Forty-four percent of German 30-34s said that GLP-1 publicity has made them think more about their own weight.
As for sustained energy, Mintel lists weight-loss journeys, global turmoil, financial pressures and the AI revolution as the reasons that consumers will crave this quality in food and drink.
Optimised indulgence is well illustrated in the alcohol space. Consumers will build systems that let pleasure co-exist with optimisation and control, says Pilkington. Sixty percent of UK GLP-1 and supplement users drank dark spirits or liqueurs in a cocktail compared with 29% overall, and 63% of German Gen Z agree that enjoying life is more important than a strict health routine.
Products that combine moderation, enjoyment, hydration and recovery will succeed in spanning across consumer desires. For example, Enjoy Hydration’s Lemon & Ginger Hydrating Energy Drink can be used as a mixer or as a hydrating recovery drink.
5) F&B will be part of a system
Partnering with health tech is one way in which Mintel suggests harnessing the sustained energy outcome. This feeds in to another change in 2027 – food and drink will increasingly become part of a system that leads to desired outcomes for consumers.
It will sit alongside other parts of the system such as wearables, supplements and apps, that lead consumers to their desired results (sleep, health, weight loss, energy etc). People will start with the outcome and work backwards to incorporate whatever is needed, rather than relying on specific categories of food or drink.
A way to earn a place in this system is through function. For example, half of Spanish and Polish adults think that vitamins and minerals from supplements are absorbed less effectively than from food, which is true in most cases, so here lies the opportunity to remind consumers of the power that food can hold.
6) Intentionality will be key
Rather than packing in a whole list of functional ingredients, consumers in 2027 will be looking for synergy – thoughtfully chosen ingredients that work in harmony, such as one ingredient being chosen to enhance the absorption of another. Voelkel’s Bio C Organic Multifruit Drink in Germany is a good example – it contains organic sunflower oil to help the body absorb the vitamin A in the drink. Communicating this clearly will help consumers trust that a brand has its best interests at heart.
An untapped ingredient in this space is iron.
Social media is awash with ‘ferritin face’, an appearance of tiredness such as dark eye circles or pale skin. Ferritin is the indicator of stored iron in the body and whether the trend lasts or not, iron is a key nutrient that women in particular are often deficient in.
Plant-based diets have highlighted the need for iron, as it’s harder to obtain from plant food, but iron rarely features in food where synergistic ingredients that aid its absorption are flagged, according to Mintel, so this is an opportunity for F&B.
7) The change in consumer concern about climate is rapid
As consumers increasingly experience weather events that are out of the ordinary, the level of concern is rising rapidly. In June 2026, 38% of Brits were concerned about climate change; by August, that was up to 45% after a scorching UK summer.
At the same time, 69% say they have more pressing worries that prevent them being able to think about sustainable choices. Brands therefore need to make responsible choices accessible and easier to understand.
