With award season in full swing, professionals and consumers are speculating about which movies, actors and actresses, musicians, and others from the arts and entertainment industries will come out on top. Although prognosticators are basing their winner choices from pools of five to 10 nominees, predicting which trends will impact consumer packaged goods (CPG) can be harder because of the myriad factors affecting the market.

Beverage manufacturers and their research and development (R&D) teams constantly are keeping an eye on what trends are fueling consumers’ beverage purchases in order to develop the next generation of products that will fulfill refreshment as well as functional need states. In Beverage Industry’s New Product Development Outlook 2017 Study, respondents indicated which trends they think will be the most popular in 2018.