AI is reinventing every beverage link—concept, flavor, production, channel, consumer. PepsiCo rolls out Salesforce Agentforce, embedding autonomous AI agents. ChaPanda's "AI + DevOps" model uses LLMs to lift R&D efficiency by 24%. Live cases fuel a practical Beverage AI Transformation White Paper that merges trends with step-by-step guidance.

Store expansion typically comes at the expense of efficiency and cash flow. Yet in China’s highly competitive coffee market, NOWWA’s joint-operation model is challenging this assumption.

By 2025, NOWWA surpassed 10,000 stores, adding around 1,000 locations per month (peaking at 1,800), while delivering 4× year-on-year GMV growth and 3× cup volume growth, indicating scale without value dilution. The model has also proven resilient under stress, with a nationwide campaign driving 458% order growth and over 600% in multiple regions, while systems and supply chains remained stable.

This session will unpack how NOWWA sustains efficiency and cash flow at scale through a lightweight store model, full-day operations, integrated supply chains, and a delivery- and digital-first approach.

Many growth challenges in the beverage industry do not come from weak products, but from applying the same product assumptions to very different demand contexts.

In mature markets, beverages drive growth through functional substitution and new consumption occasions. In growth-stage markets, the priority is establishing everyday consumption, requiring R&D to focus on cost, flavor universality, stability, and scalability.

This means the same beverage represents different businesses at different market stages, shaped less by formulation than by demand maturity, consumption frequency, and channel context. Understanding how demand evolves across city tiers, channels, and category stages is critical for effective R&D decisions.

From an R&D perspective, for the herbal plant-based beverage category to break through formula homogenization and weakly perceived functionality, innovation must go beyond ingredient combinations. It requires not only the use of authentic ingredients and differentiated, often rarer herbal sources at the raw-material level, but also the reinforcement of functional efficacy through the integration of process design and formulation science.

LOLO Herbal range follows this pathway. Guided by the principle of medicinal–food homology, the brand combines traditional slow-simmering techniques with a clean-label formulation strategy—low sugar, zero artificial flavorings, and no added additives. By emphasizing real ingredients and clean formulations, LOLO Herbal establishes differentiation while aligning with the low-sugar trend. Leveraging its existing channels and organizational capabilities, the brand continues to expand distribution, while strengthening its online presence through packaging and format innovation.

Looking ahead, growth in the herbal plant-based beverage category may shift from a competition over “who is healthier” to one centered on precision, verifiable efficacy, and drinkability.

IWSR projects global low- and no-alcohol beverage sales will grow by $4 B by 2028. Suntory leads innovation with its ALL-FREE line, using plant extracts to build layered taste and "everyday drinkable" appeal. Asahi Zero surpassed 600,000 cases in 2024, doubling output to meet rising demand. De Soi, a French-style non-alcoholic sparkling brand, uses botanicals to offer a "lightly tipsy" experience. No-alcohol drinks are evolving beyond substitutes, establishing a "fourth occasion" between tea, soft drinks, and alcohol through plant extracts and natural fermentation.

(Image source: Suntory)

In the Starbucks-and-Luckin price-speed race, Peet's Coffee takes a measured approach. Skipping low-price promos and gimmicky menus, it builds trust with hand-brewed coffee from beans roasted within 21 days. In China, its "less-but-better" line, small-batch roasting, and in-store experiences drove double-digit 2024 sales growth and a 23.8% organic EBIT increase—proving growth beyond price wars and scale is possible.

DFSY, after a two-year hiatus, launched its "Chenpi White Tea," combining premium white tea with aged tangerine peel to deliver a fresh and approachable flavor in a niche segment. Master Kong entered the segment with "Fresh Green Tea," leveraging low-temperature fresh-brewing techniques to enhance tea aroma. "Ripe Fruit" distinguished itself with a floral tea base and a smooth, naturally sweet profile, becoming the only top-five brand to achieve four consecutive quarters of growth.

This session will focus on flavor optimization and health functionality in unsweetened teas, exploring how brands can overcome the "low-sugar, bland taste" challenge and identify the next wave of growth within a mature market.

Innovation in traditional plant-based beverages is no longer driven by flavor adjustment alone. The key challenge today lies in systematically extending flavor architecture, product formats, and consumption occasions, while preserving core flavor identity.

Herbal tea, formulated from multiple botanicals with food–medicine homology, derives its value from a holistic herbal flavor system, rather than a single sweet or bitter note. Based on this characteristic, WALOVI has developed the "Herbal Tea Plus" approach, positioning herbal tea flavor as a transferable base that can be integrated into different categories and usage scenarios, including coffee, snacks, and foodservice.

From an R&D perspective, this session explores how herbal tea flavors can be adapted through sugar reduction, concentration, and cross-category applications, and how balance is achieved between flavor stability, carrier compatibility, and scalable commercialization, outlining a practical pathway for category expansion.

In 2023, HPP cold-pressed juice brands such as VCLEANSE achieved annual sales exceeding RMB 500 million. Meanwhile, Freshippo’s HPP red-fleshed apple juice saw a 400% year-on-year surge in 2024, and its newly launched HPP shot-sized products have frequently appeared on “sold-out” lists. As superfoods like turmeric, ginger, and spirulina trend, HPP is expanding beyond fruits and vegetables. The challenge: using this technology to balance function with flavor innovation.

Ice cup sales are booming, with Freshippo, Nongfu Spring, and Lawson joining the trend. By June 2025, coffee ice-cup sales rose 60% YoY, fueling a new "ice-cup-plus-beverage" wave in coffee and tea. Commercial ice uses slow-flow freezing and layered techniques to create dense, slow-melting ice. Durable cups and heat-shrink lids ensure stability at -18 °C to -20 °C. Korea's GS25 pioneered the format in 2021 with its 7 cm Big Ball ice cup. This session highlights innovations in ice making and how ice cups are reshaping beverage consumption.

Carbonated beverages remain a key battlefield in the beverage industry, as evidenced by Nongfu Spring's sparkling iced tea, Dayao's annual sales exceeding 3 billion units, and Pepsi's 100,000-ton expansion project. The challenge lies in seamlessly integrating complex multi-flavor profiles with carbonation while maintaining CO₂ stability and long-lasting effervescence in tea, juice, or dairy-based formulas.

As High-Pressure Processing (HPP) has been widely adopted in premium juice and beverage production, questions around processing time, energy consumption, line integration, and scalability have become increasingly relevant. Against this background, PEF has emerged as an alternative processing pathway with distinct engineering characteristics.

Pulsed Electric Field (PEF) processing applies short, high-voltage electric pulses to liquid products, disrupting microbial cell membranes through electroporation within microseconds and enabling fast, low-heat, continuous processing. With more than 270 industrial PEF systems installed globally, Elea has advanced PEF into a mature, energy-efficient technology for continuous beverage and juice processing.

This session introduces the scientific and engineering principles behind PEF and explains how they translate into real-world operation on modern beverage lines. Drawing on Elea’s commercial experience, industrial case examples from juices and functional beverages will highlight key process-engineering considerations to illustrate where each technology fits best in premium beverage production.

As the "visually unified" blockbuster product effect weakens, R&D in freshly made tea beverages is increasingly shifting toward localized flavors. GOODME has created differentiated tea sensory profiles in Fujian and Guangdong with products such as Aged Tangerine Peel Oolong and Rice-Soup Tea Base. Through a fully traceable quality control system from farm to factory, the brand has elevated the once-regional "rustic tapioca" found in Lingnan dessert shops to the national stage.

As the third mainland Chinese tea beverage company listed in Hong Kong, GOODME saw its share price surge by more than 8% at one point after market opening, reaching a new historical high less than two months after its IPO.

This topic will focus on innovation pathways driven by flavor localization in freshly made tea beverages, re-examining the value of regional tastes and offering new perspectives for brands seeking to expand into regional markets and build strong local identity.

As the health beverage market becomes increasingly segmented, many “healthy” ingredients remain confined to niche or short-term consumption scenarios. Moving beyond functional recognition to become part of everyday drinking occasions has emerged as a key challenge for ingredient scalability.

Cranberries are a representative case. Long positioned as a seasonal ingredient or a symbol of women’s health, their pronounced tartness and strong functional associations have limited broader adoption in mass-market beverages. Ocean Spray’s industrial practice is gradually reshaping this perception: sustained research into cranberry’s core bioactive component—A-type proanthocyanidins (PACs)—has built a solid scientific foundation for its antioxidant and anti-adhesion mechanisms, while systematic flavor blending and process optimization have transformed sharp acidity into a layered, refreshing, and approachable flavor suited for daily consumption.

This session examines the R&D pathway through which cranberry beverages have evolved from a niche functional product into a high-frequency daily drink, highlighting how ingredient science, flavor innovation, and consumption scenarios work together to unlock long-term ingredient value.

Across the global beverage industry, innovation is shifting from single-point breakthroughs to parallel validation of product concepts. Diverse consumer needs, processing technologies, and flavor systems are creating new growth opportunities—while placing higher demands on R&D and application design.

The FBIF2026 Concept Product Launch does not define a single challenge. Instead, it highlights four high-relevance innovation pathways, giving shortlisted participants the flexibility to choose the direction best aligned with their strengths and to present commercially applicable product concepts that respond to real market needs.

Four Innovation Pathways

1 | Sports Nutrition

As the sports nutrition market continues to expand, innovation is moving beyond powders and shakes toward RTD, daily-use, and low-burden beverages. This pathway focuses on proteins, amino acids, electrolytes, and functional blends, with emphasis on taste, stability, and usage scenarios.

2 | HPP & Cold-Pressed Technology

With growing demand for minimally processed products, HPP technology is gaining traction across juices, functional beverages, and premium RTDs. This pathway explores flavor retention, formulation stability, and differentiated expression under HPP processing.

3 | Coffee Ingredient & Application Innovation

Coffee is evolving into a broader ingredient system spanning flavor, functionality, and everyday occasions. This pathway highlights innovative uses of coffee ingredients in RTD, functional, low-burden, and cross-category applications.

4 | Flavor & Sensory Innovation

Flavor has become a key driver of emotional connection and consumption context. This pathway encourages distinctive flavors, regional profiles, and multi-sensory designs, exploring how flavor can define product identity and competitiveness.