Top 40 Innovation Areas for Global FMCG Brands

The University of Cambridge recently ran a Dragon’s Den style pitching event matching up innovators with a panel of senior execs from global FMCG brands; Bacardi, Mars, Unilever, GlaxoSmithKline, Heinz…

As part of the briefing, this insightful list of top 40 innovation areas for global FMCG brands was provided by the panel of brands.  Top themes coming through are the usual suspects of health, sustainability and digital, but there’s more to the list. As creative insight for innovation projects, this list is gold dust, representing the collective wisdom of top global consumer brands about where the future of successful FMCG innovation lies. If you prefer your insight a little more visually inspiring, download our word cloud covering the top 40 priority innovation areas for global FMCG brands (below).

1. Ingredients with proven health benefits
2. Packaging interacting with consumer
3. Natural Sugar/Salt replacers
4. New process technologies (especially cooking / sterilisation)
5. Highly differentiated, innovative ingredients
6. Reaching social media savvy younger generations
7. Batch-of-one / Flexible manufacturing
8. Sustainable supply chain ingredients
9. Natural Preservatives
10. Preserving food naturally
11. Texturants
12. Digital marketing
13. More advanced film/paperboard hybrid structures
14. New packaging materials
15. Solutions for reduction in fat & calories
16. “Packaging free” products
17. New raw materials technologies (eg for packaging or protein)
18. Oxidative/microbiologically stable ingredients
19. Alternatives to glass & PET containers
20. Water management solutions
21. Solutions for healthy ageing
22. Fibre ingredients
23. Sweeteners
24. E-science / managing large data sets
25. Opacity without titanium dioxide
26. Compostable packaging
27. Natural/Clean label ingredients
28. More printable packaging materials
29. Water quality solutions
30. Efficient/Small packs
31. Variable high speed bar code and text printing
32. Food state sensing inks
33. In line printing and customisation of packaging
34. Industrial plug and play
35. Stem cell use
36. Targeted GMO
37. New ingredients to fight viruses
38. Dispensing for high particulate containing formulas
39. Child resistant ophthalmic dispensing
40. Alternative animal feed solutions

Original list