Driven by consumption upgrades and growing health demands, the dairy industry is shifting from simply “filling up” to truly “eating well,” with nutrient density emerging as a new benchmark for dairy value. Nutrient density encompasses not only the content and bioavailability of core nutrients such as protein, calcium, and vitamins, but also extends to formula optimization, ingredient upgrading, and precision nutrition solutions for different consumer groups. As a global leader in dairy and nutritional science, Nestlé has made “nutrient density” a strategic priority for 2024, aiming to deliver higher nutritional value across its product portfolio within limited calories, while maintaining taste and sustainability.

This session will explore how nutritional density can drive a leap in dairy product performance—from scientific research to formulation to consumer education—offering actionable insights for the industry.

Food science is evolving from lab discovery to large-scale impact. As consumers seek evidence-based and personalized health solutions, the challenge is to make science both accessible and actionable.

Danone is meeting this challenge through initiatives such as OneBiome, precision fermentation partnerships, digital nutrition platforms, and sustainability-driven R&D. By scaling microbiome and nutritional science globally, Danone is redefining what it means to connect science, health, and everyday life.

In closely following the development of Yoplait China, we have come to see a highly representative growth journey—from a period of pressure, to a return to profitability, and now to a new phase marked by capital transition and brand evolution. This is not only a financial achievement, but also a reflection of strategic judgment and organizational resilience.

In today’s intensely competitive dairy market, where growth logic is being redefined, such experience is particularly valuable for the industry.

From human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) to functional probiotics, from novel cheese structure design to AI-driven formulation development, Yili Innovation Center Europe has spent the past decade advancing its vision of “driving industry through science, serving health through technology.” The center has achieved a series of influential breakthroughs across multiple frontiers of nutrition and technology. This journey is not only a real-world exploration of integrating scientific research with dairy innovation, but also a valuable model of cross-border R&D collaboration for dairy companies in China and around the world—demonstrating how science, industry, and consumers can form a positive cycle to build an innovation ecosystem for the future.

Chilled dairy has become one of the most dynamic arenas for product innovation. Consumers now seek not only core nutrition but also functional alignment with active lifestyles and delightful consumption experiences across various moments.

This session explores how to build the next generation of chilled dairy innovation through the synergy of:

-Nutrition enhancement as category foundation

-Functional differentiation to unlock new growth territories

-Experience-driven scenarios from daily nourishment to better-for-you indulgence

-A structured innovation model that sustains category momentum

A practical deep dive into how brands can lead future growth by optimizing across nutrition × function × experience.

8M, 100M, 230M, 500M, to 1B (RMB). At a time when the dairy industry is navigating structural shifts and cooling growth, Öarmilk has delivered a powerful track record, achieving a 100-fold growth trajectory over the past five years.

While many brands rely on trendy flavors to attract younger consumers, Jiufeng has taken a more restrained approach—building a refined everyday dairy experience through thoughtful ingredient selection, balanced flavor, and strong visual expression. Even at a price point of RMB 8.8 per bottle, its matcha milk sold 500,000 bottles within three months, showing that when product quality and aesthetic appeal are both delivered, consumers are willing to pay for it.

Flavor innovation in yogurt is moving beyond “sweet and fruity” toward bolder and more cross-category experiments. Beyond the craze for local fruits such as guava and passion fruit, vegetable-flavored yogurts are quietly emerging—kale, beetroot, and even bitter melon are becoming new favorites on the ingredient list. This not only challenges consumers’ palates but also helps yogurt transcend its role as a “snack,” bridging into the realms of “light meals” and “functional dining.”

Semaglutide has once again claimed the top spot in global pharmaceutical sales for the second quarter. GLP-1 drugs are reshaping consumers’ understanding of “weight management” and “metabolic health,” while also driving the food industry to shift from appetite stimulation toward precision nutritional support. As a major source of natural protein and micronutrients, will dairy be sidelined by the “appetite-suppressing” trend, or could it pivot to become a key provider of nutritional support for GLP-1 users?

In this “lifestyle revolution” triggered by pharmaceuticals, dairy brands may face challenges—but they could also be among the first categories to rebuild consumer trust and perceived value.

Amid the global protein boom, Danone’s Oikos brand has successfully emerged as one of the most representative high-protein yogurts in the North American market. In 2024, Oikos’ retail sales surged 40%, surpassing USD 1 billion in annual revenue for the first time. Through precise market positioning, dual optimization of taste and nutrition, and engaging, lifestyle-oriented brand communication, Oikos has not only won over the sports and fitness community but also made its way onto everyday family tables—becoming a star example of dairy functional upgrade.

How has Danone transformed a traditional dairy subcategory into a “high-protein daily nutrition solution” for the mass consumer?

The global GLP-1 market is projected to surpass $150 billion by 2035, yet 40% of users suffer from side effects such as nausea and muscle loss. This "unhealthy weight loss" pain point presents a major strategic opportunity for the dairy industry, leveraging its natural advantages in high-quality proteins and prebiotics. FrieslandCampina Ingredients will explore how a “Triple Engine”—comprising Premium Protein Blends, Gut Comfort, and Satiety Boost—can mitigate side effects, positioning dairy Ingredients as the essential “Nutritional New Infrastructure” for hundreds of millions of weight-loss consumers worldwide.

GLP-1 drugs are sweeping the globe, reshaping the weight management landscape.

Yet as questions around efficacy, side effects, cost, and accessibility emerge, growing attention is shifting to the “post-GLP-1 era.” Diverse approaches—ranging from nutritional interventions and functional foods to metabolic health formulations—are entering the field.

What structural changes has the GLP-1 boom already triggered? And as the market normalizes or cools, where will the next wave of innovation and business opportunities in weight management arise? Where are the advantages and opportunities for dairy enterprises?

As food technology continues to evolve at unprecedented speed, even the most established categories — including ice cream — are being redefined by new innovation paradigms. From novel ingredients and processing technologies to digital tools and artificial intelligence, R&D is entering a new era of precision, speed, and complexity.

In this session, we will explore how global ice cream leader 『Magnum』 is reimagining innovation through the lens of technology and AI. The discussion will examine which emerging technologies truly unlock scalable value, how AI can accelerate consumer insight generation and flavor development, and where human creativity, sensory judgment, and strategic decision-making remain irreplaceable. The session will also address how large organizations balance bold innovation with commercial viability, transforming ice cream R&D from inspiration-led development into a disciplined, future-ready system.

Against the backdrop of fierce competition between ice cream and freshly made dairy brands in China, and rapidly shifting consumer preferences, DQ has continued to deliver stable and resilient growth. In 2025, with a network of more than 1,800 stores, DQ launched over 150 new products. These new offerings accounted for more than 60% of total annual sales, while average sales per store increased by over 11% year on year.

Behind this performance is not a reliance on a single blockbuster product or short-term marketing campaigns, but a highly focused, well-paced, and long-term-oriented product strategy.

In the highly competitive and seasonal ice cream market, Pobeice has carved out a distinctive growth path. Since its founding in 2020, the brand has quickly expanded from a regional player to a national presence across over 150 cities and 1,150+ stores. Leveraging a combination of “freshly made products + hit items + visually appealing designs,” it has stood out among young consumers.

Amidst a market characterized by price wars, innovation races, and visual competition, how has Pobeice managed to break through and differentiate itself in the freshly made ice cream segment?

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.

In 2025, how did NOWWA Coffee leverage the "Store-in-Store" model to reach the 10,000-store milestone? How did they manage to open an average of 1,000 new stores per month without being crushed by price wars—and instead, see their cup volume triple?

Many beverage brands hit a growth ceiling not because of a bad product, but because they try to force "Tier-1 demands" onto lower-tier markets. The reality is that the same drink, once it enters a new market, becomes a completely different business model.

By leveraging "slow-brewing and low-sugar" formulations alongside innovations in packaging and distribution, "Lulu Herbal" saw its new product sales hit 500,000 bottles on the first day. This legacy brand is successfully stepping outside its "Almond Dew" comfort zone to find new growth engines.

Energy drinks are moving beyond the "universal bottle." Instead of trying to please everyone, brands are winning by creating the right drink for a specific person at a specific moment. By doubling down on niche scenarios, these precision formulas are rewriting the industry’s profit logic.

Peet's Coffee is the industry's steady “marathon runner.” With its “21-day freshness” rule for hand-poured beans and a lean, curated menu, Peet's has charted a unique growth path by mastering the art of “doing less.”

WALOVI is deconstructing the essence of herbal tea and fusing it with coffee, snacks, and catering. From sugar reduction and concentrated extracts to cross-category applications, the brand is ensuring that herbal tea isn't just confined to the 'Red Can'—it is evolving into entirely new consumption scenes and formats.

With IWSR predicting $4 billion in global growth by 2028, non-alcoholic drinks are shedding their "substitute" labels. Giants like Suntory are driving independent market trends with botanical-rich series like ALL-FREE. By moving beyond the bar to create a "Fourth Drinking Scenario," they are capturing health-conscious consumers who refuse to compromise on flavor.

In 2023, HPP cold-pressed juice brands like VCLEANSE saw annual sales surpass 500 million RMB. The explosive popularity of HPP has sparked a more imaginative proposition: its potential extends far beyond fruit and vegetable juices. How can brands leverage this breakthrough advantage to empower beverage expressions that prioritize both "efficacy and flavor"?

With ice cup sales surging by 300% for two years straight, brands like Freshippo, Nongfu Spring, and Lawson are all ‘diving into the ice water.’ What exactly is the secret behind why these ice cups melt so slowly?

Long confined to "health symbols" and "holiday ingredients," cranberries were once a classic niche raw material. Ocean Spray broke this barrier by deep-diving into the science of Proanthocyanidins (PACs) and perfecting flavor compounding to strip away the "tart" and "function-specific" labels. No longer just a functional ingredient, it has transitioned from a specialized supplement to an everyday beverage by delivering a refreshing taste that fits any occasion.

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.

With 81% of its stores in Tier-2 cities and below—and notably avoiding Beijing and Shanghai—Guming has opened 13,000 locations! How does GOODME provide stable quality and affordable milk tea for lower-tier markets? And how did they successfully scale the local Tong Sui (dessert soup) flavors of Guangdong and Guangxi to the rest of the country?

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.

"Health" is one of the most complex — and often misunderstood — themes in snack innovation. For some, it means clean labels and simple ingredients; for others, nutritional benefits or weight management; and for many, a sense of guilt-free enjoyment. Starting from consumer insight, this session unpacks what "healthy snacks" truly mean to different groups, and explores how brands can translate that value through ingredients, processing, and packaging design.

Many confectionery brands succeed with one iconic product. Storck took a different path — building strong brands across multiple categories, from boxed chocolates and wafers to candies and jellies. The key lies in clear brand positioning. Each Storck brand plays a distinct role in consumers' lives. merci, for example, turns chocolate into a simple yet meaningful way to say "thank you," while Knoppers positions itself as a satisfying energy boost for busy mornings.

With these clearly defined brand roles, supported by high-quality production and technology from Germany, Storck has built confectionery brands that resonate with consumers in more than 100 countries. This session will explore how Storck creates lasting brand relevance across categories, markets, and generations.

Quality trust is becoming the core driver of high-quality growth in the healthy snack sector. The industry now faces three key challenges: substantiating health claims with science, building end-to-end compliance systems, and creating differentiated product competitiveness. Building a systematic trust framework, based on scientific transparency, standardized testing, visible processes, and traceable quality, is the path to long-term brand growth. It enables brands to move from self-claims to third-party endorsement and secure lasting growth in the healthy snack market.

Based on Mordor Intelligence projections, the AI market in the food and beverage sector is expected to reach USD 29.94 billion by 2026, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) exceeding 45.8%. With AI, sensory analysis is no longer limited to subjective evaluation. It can accelerate product development, shorten innovation cycles, and improve the accuracy of predicting consumer acceptance. From E-Nose and E-Tongue to deep learning, and neurophysiological technologies, this session explores the latest AI-driven sensory analysis tools.

Traditionally, chocolate is associated with a rich, smooth, melt-in-the-mouth texture. Freeze-drying challenges this convention by removing moisture at low temperatures, creating a stable, porous structure with a crisp and lightweight bite. With low moisture content, freeze-dried chocolate remains stable at room temperature and requires no refrigeration. This also reduces structural dependence on sugar and fat, enabling cleaner formulations. This session explores how freeze-drying may shape the next generation of chocolate innovation.

Diverse flavors have become the core driver of winning consumers' taste buds. From cross-category mashups to niche ingredients and the global reinterpretation of local cultures, new ideas keep emerging. But how can brands identify which trends are truly worth investing in? Drawing on the latest global snack innovations, this session will decode the 2025–2026 flavor landscape, and explore following questions. How to spot the next big flavor? Which ingredient innovations truly resonate with consumers? And how to balance regional preferences in global R&D strategies? The answers will help make innovation investments more forward-looking and efficient.

Want to taste specialties from across Japan? Just visit a supermarket and pick up Koikeya's "Pride" chips. From Kobe beef and Kyoto yuzu to Kyushu seaweed soy sauce and Kumamoto grilled meat, Koikeya transforms iconic dishes into layered, flavor-rich snacks using local potatoes and corn. With a commitment to Japanese ingredients and meticulous flavor crafting, the brand reached ¥59.38 billion in consolidated sales in FY2025. How does Koikeya engineer taste? From flavor selection and ingredient sourcing to precise formulation—this is how chips rivaling real cuisine are born.

(Source: Koikeya)

Well-known regional ingredients such as Dandong strawberries, Lipu taro, and Wuchang rice have become popular choices in snack and bakery development, thanks to their consistent quality and strong origin recognition. For R&D teams, these ingredients offer distinctive flavor profiles and built-in quality credentials; for brands, the stories behind their origins, local food cultures, and craftsmanship provide rich material for communication and differentiation. This session combines expert insights, product showcases, and guided tastings to explore how regional ingredients create value in product innovation. Through real-world cases, speakers will break down practical approaches to leveraging origin, flavor, and storytelling - helping brands and R&D teams develop products innovative, credible, distinctive, and scalable.

AI is not just transforming data—it’s redefining how we understand the human body. What once seemed impossible in precision nutrition—decoding the complex interplay of genes, biomarkers, and metabolism—is now within reach.

Pioneers like Viome Life Sciences (AI + RNA, $175M funded) are proving the power of intelligent nutrition, using RNA sequencing to detect early health risks and deliver personalized dietary solutions that have clinically reduced IBS symptoms by 58% and anxiety by 31%.

In this new era, AI becomes more than a tool—it’s the nutritionist’s “cyber colleague,” bridging science and human vitality in ways never before imagined.

“Let food be thy medicine,” the timeless principle of Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, has shaped Europe’s approach to daily self-care for centuries. Elderberry anthocyanins, a flagship ingredient within this food-as-medicine tradition, have long been used to support the body through seasonal changes and everyday health maintenance.

In November 2025, elderberry anthocyanins were officially approved as a new food ingredient in China, marking the beginning of their legitimate application in the domestic functional food market and opening new opportunities for immune health and cross-category innovation. In the European and U.S. markets, elderberry has already established itself as a top-selling immune-support ingredient, backed by scientific research and consumer recognition. Its polyphenols also modulate gut microbiota, offering “non-traditional prebiotic” potential, extending its benefits from seasonal immune support to daily health management.

Tonic and food-as-medicine products have long been seen as high-barrier, low-frequency offerings for a niche group of informed consumers. Leveraging Hema’s retail ecosystem, supply chain capabilities, and data-driven insights, 「Hebubu」 applies modern FMCG logic to reframe traditional tonics into everyday, easy-to-use functional foods. This shift is helping move the category from an elite niche into everyday life—and redefining how tonic and functional foods can scale for the mass market.

Focusing on high-potential consumer groups such as young mothers, the “new silver generation,” and pet-owning households, this panel will examine real-life usage scenarios and the decision logic behind everyday consumption, and explore how products based on food-medicine ingredients can be better positioned and communicated. Bringing together academic researchers and industry practitioners, the discussion will also address how traditional Chinese medicine principles, modern food technology, and product development can work together in practice, while bridging gaps between R&D, distribution channels, and data feedback.

As the oral beauty market shifts from surface-level care to internal nourishment, the absorption efficiency of glutathione has become a critical bottleneck. The patented crystalline glutathione Emothion® improves bioavailability through structural optimization, demonstrating greater stability and utilization within cells and offering a new technological pathway for cellular-level antioxidant protection and skin health management. This session will examine its application potential and commercial implementation opportunities in oral beauty products from both consumer demand and technological innovation perspectives.

Cellular health is the cornerstone of longevity science, and mitochondrial decline—as the cell's energy hub—is one of the core hallmarks of aging. As nutritional intervention enters the molecular era, bypassing biological barriers to achieve precision intervention for specific organelles has become the key to extending healthspan.

What are the core mechanisms of mitochondrial targeting technology? How can scientific innovation be transformed into tangible consumer value? These are the essential questions that brands and products must answer in this new era of cellular health.

Japan’s Foods with Function Claims (FFC) system is reshaping how the health food industry approaches both R&D and market strategy, with scientific evidence becoming the core foundation of product value. As the first case to receive an approved claim for “Immune Care,” "IMMUSE" demonstrates a full pathway from long-term scientific research to market success. This session will examine the evolution of the FFC system, emerging opportunities in the immunity sector, and how companies can build sustainable product and brand competitiveness through science-based evidence.

As sports nutrition evolves from simple “supplementation” to science-driven performance intervention, MYACTION is pioneering a systematic R&D approach that fills a critical gap in China’s professional sports nutrition market. Grounded in energy-metabolism mechanisms, diverse training scenarios, and empirical data from professional athletes, MYACTION has built a comprehensive development framework covering ingredient selection, efficacy validation, scenario-based product design, and performance evaluation.

This session will explore how MYACTION transforms scientific research into practical solutions that enhance athletic performance, accelerate recovery, and optimize energy utilization. It will also examine future innovation pathways for China’s sports nutrition landscape.

Creatine’s global rise illustrates how a niche functional ingredient can break out: originally focused on fitness and sports nutrition, it gained mass awareness through viral social media, especially TikTok, boosting category sales and brand penetration.

According to SPINS data for the 52 weeks ending December 29, 2024, total creatine supplement sales in the US reached $378 million, representing a 22% CAGR from 2023–2024, with gummies being the standout growing at 360% YOY $ growth.

Positioned as "High-Performance Nutrition Pro+," BYHEALTH is dedicated to making "Nutrition Quantifiable, Results Perceptible." The brand has not only turned its liver support pills—featuring a "1-to-20" potency ratio—into a workplace essential with over 1 billion sold, but has also expanded its "high-performance toolkit" with 98.9% purity fish oil and 3-second fast-dissolving sleep tabs. This session reveals how BYHEALTH translates hardcore R&D into straightforward selling points to precisely penetrate the high-pressure demographic aged 25-40.

With fragmented information and complex behavior, capturing true brand insights is harder than ever. Surveys often say “health first,” yet real choices show “price and taste first,” leading to misjudgments.

In the face of a reality where data is accurate, behaviors are fragmented, and motivations remain hidden, how can brands reconstruct their insight framework? By integrating results, behaviors, and psychology, how can brands identify false needs and uncover underlying motivations, reconnect with human nature, and ultimately strengthen decision-making capability and ROI?

KitKat, originally a British chocolate brand, has sustained strong sales for over 45 years while developing a unique path in Japan. Through the phonetic link between its name and “good luck” (Kitto Katsu), it has become a symbol of encouragement during exam seasons. This has extended into mail-able gift packs, regional editions, and seasonal launches, with over 400 flavors to date—evolving into a collectible and a cultural icon embedded in everyday rituals.

This also highlights a key insight: data can tell us what consumers watch and buy, but not why a brand gains emotional and cultural meaning. In a category shaped by emotion and culture, consumers are not just buying products, but a lifestyle and a sense of identity.

So the questions are:

• How can brands go beyond data to identify and amplify cultural resonance?

• How can cultural narratives be translated into product experience and content?

• How can brands avoid common pitfalls and build lasting cultural relevance?

Kraft Heinz North America’s CMO notes that in today’s flood of information, consumers feel emotionally detached. To stand out, brands must act as a “harbor” offering stability and hope. The competition ahead is less about function or price, and more about who can win emotional resonance.

Saturnbird’s coffee capsules are photographed and shared as lifestyle symbols; Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” bottles spark identity recognition through names; Ben & Jerry’s ties consumption to values like peace and sustainability.

So, how can brands use visual language, content, and values to move beyond features, forging emotional bonds that shift users from simply “choosing” to truly “identifying” with the brand?

As "consumer insights" are repeatedly mentioned and gradually become a safe but hollow buzzword, marketers may need a more honest conversation that does not shy away from real-world friction:

 - When insights enter the decision room, are they truly the starting point of decisions, or merely used afterward to justify outcomes?

 - When insights conflict with growth targets, resource constraints, or personal judgment, how do brands actually make trade-offs?

 - And which insights, seemingly right in direction, fail to be executed due to timing, organizational, or cost constraints?

This panel brings together consultants and leading brands to discuss both methodology and frontline practice. Focusing on how insights are generated, evaluated, prioritized, and executed, the session will explore a critical question: in an increasingly uncertain business environment, how can consumer insights genuinely support key decisions and be translated into sustainable growth capabilities?

In the era of short video and social media, content is the main battlefield for brand growth. Yet many still follow the old “produce, post, wait” logic, resulting in short-lived, low-efficiency work. An effective system should be productized—modular, multi-platform, and reusable.

Coca-Cola’s Share a Coke created a global template; McDonald’s built modular “Hash Brown at Breakfast” assets; Saturnbird unified its story under “Sustainable Coffee Living”; Eastroc activated modules like “hard work” and “late-night hustle.” Each turned content into repeatable growth assets—extending lifecycle, broadening reach, maximizing ROI.

In a culture chasing virality, how can brands build a sustainable content system that transforms one idea into a long-term, reusable asset?

In a fast-moving creative landscape, brands are often caught in a cycle where attention peaks quickly and disappears just as fast. Yet brands that truly commit to long term personality building are rarely those making bigger marketing moves. Instead, they focus on turning small, but punchy creative ideas into lasting assets — ideas that become memories, transcending the familiarity of everyday life so relationships between people and brands flourish long term.

 - At a music festival, we Unusual Service reframed marshmallows as “emotional remedies”. Through role play, culinary doctors delivered playful diagnoses and prescribed marshmallow treatments such as heartbreak menders or scurvy busters, replacing transaction with care and building emotional connection.

 - To mark the launch of a new book, one brand translated mischievous storytelling into a multi-sensory chocolate experience, turning narrative twists into unpredictable flavour moments and words into mouthfeel, allowing the story to move off the page and into the body.

 - Addressing a real frustration for their target audience in shared living environments, Domino’s transformed disposable pizza packaging into a reusable security device, shifting the brand from a one-off consumption moment to a lasting presence in the home.

 - To celebrate both a historical and cultural holiday a pizza brand wanted to transform a savoury cult classic into a portable brand artefact that travelled beyond the meal occasion, keeping the flavour “on the lips” in both a literal and cultural sense. Come and try it for yourself. Also you’ll have the chance to blind taste test some familiar flavour in an unfamiliar form. Curiosity required.

In this interactive session, the UK-based Unusual Service team will share their long term perspective, offering brands inspiration for fun, concrete creative actions that do not just generate attention, but stay, are used, and become part of everyday life.

 * Includes a tasting session where we reimagine the format of convenience food.

In 2025, China’s consumer market is shifting from scale driven growth to value driven growth. Yet many new products still fade quickly after launch, and the success rate of innovation continues to decline. While almost all growth opportunities point to innovation, brands are increasingly trapped in a paradox of working harder while earning less amid homogeneous competition.

Although 85 percent of CEOs view innovation as a core strategy, only 10 percent are satisfied with their company’s innovation performance. In response to this gap, Mintel will draw on industry cases to unpack why innovation is becoming harder in the FMCG sector, examine the key challenges brands face, and explore how to drive more effective innovation through consumer insights and data, anticipate consumer trends, and identify market opportunities with real growth potential.

As a traditional meat brand, Shuanghui has recently stood out in marketing. In Meituan Instashopping’s latest scenario-based brand ranking, Shuanghui placed in the top 10 across multiple occasions—from breakfast and afternoon tea to workplace meals, local leisure, and travel—and even outperformed snack brands like Lay’s and Want Want in the “late-night cravings” scenario.

From selling products to owning occasions, and from functional consumption to emotional connection, Shuanghui is redefining its growth logic.

• How can a meat brand enter occasions like afternoon tea?

• How did it outperform snack brands in late-night consumption?

• How can traditional brands leverage occasions and emotion to unlock new growth?

Data is everywhere, yet turning it into real business value remains difficult. Despite heavy investment in data infrastructure, many organizations still struggle to activate data and translate insights into action—especially in the food and beverage industry, where unstructured data dominates and customer journeys are highly fragmented.

In this session, the Global Head of Digital Commerce Marketing at Mondelez will share how the company uses its dCommerce practices to embed data and analytics into everyday business operations. Through examples of precision marketing, continuous optimization, and strategic big bets, the session will explore how data is structured and activated, how it supports decision-making and optimization loops, and how these capabilities ultimately drive sustainable digital growth.

AI in F&B has moved from trials to scale. Leaders show gains in R&D, supply and personalization, yet many, esp. SMEs, still struggle to execute. 

 ○ Where are AI’s real capability limits? Which tasks are better for humans, and which should be handled by AI?

 ○ How should F&B brands of different sizes determine the right level of AI adoption?

 ○ Beyond R&D, supply, marketing, packaging, what else can AI improve?

 ○ How can AI develop “empathy” and deliver greater value by better understanding and caring for people?

Singapore has long been a key innovation and regional decision-making hub for leading global food and beverage companies such as Nestlé, Mondelēz, and PepsiCo. As AI becomes a core enterprise capability, Singapore has also emerged as an important global AI hub, with NVIDIA establishing its global AI technology center network headquarters there, and Heineken locating its first AI lab in Singapore.

This development is supported by Singapore’s long-term approach to AI talent capability building since 2017, led by AI Singapore, the national AI strategy and industry transformation initiative.

In marketing, the challenge has shifted from whether to use AI to how AI capabilities are acquired, embedded, and sustained within organizations. Many teams still rely on tools, external agencies, or a few individuals, making AI difficult to institutionalize.

In this session, Sengmeng, Director of AI Talent Development at AI Singapore and a member of the Office of the Senior Deputy President (Research & Technology) at the National University of Singapore, will share Singapore’s journey. He has worked extensively on national AI capability and capacity building, involved in global AI standards development (ISO, IEEE), and professionalising industry AI roles with sectoral champions such as Chartered AI Engineer and Certified AI Practitioners.

The session will focus on key questions for marketing leaders:

 - Which AI capabilities should be built in-house for the long term?

 - How can AI capabilities move from individual expertise to organizational capability?

 - How can clear capability standards and talent structures turn AI investment into business value?

As customer journeys lengthen and decisions grow more complex, brand growth has shifted from single-point wins to full-chain coordination.  From consumer insights and content creation to media, conversion, and loyalty activation, AI is increasingly embedded in every critical touchpoint, enabling brands to move from intuition-led decisions toward a more data-driven, measurable growth system.

Across these key moments, how can brands ensure that strategy and judgment remain human-led, while allowing AI to become a powerful collaborator that amplifies insight, sharpens decision-making, and strengthens execution?

With consumer segmentation accelerating, the target audiences for food and beverage brands are more diverse than ever—spanning generations, lifestyles, and value systems, with increasingly refined demands. Against this backdrop, how can packaging precisely resonate with the aesthetics and value orientations of distinct consumer segments? In the instant interplay between rational choice and emotional impulse, how can brands compel different groups to pause and engage? Grounded in consumer insight, brands can systematize color, structure, and cultural codes to build packaging strategies tailored to varied demographics and consumption contexts. 

Research shows that purchase decisions made in front of the shelf are rarely the result of rational analysis. In fact, within just 0.3 seconds, the brain forms a subconscious judgment. Color, shape, material, and the way information is presented all influence how consumers instinctively perceive taste, quality, and trust.

This session explores packaging design through the lens of neuroscience, revealing how the brain processes visual cues, forms instant impressions, and drives purchase behavior at first glance. By analyzing popular packaging cases on the market, it uncovers what they get right at a perceptual level, while also highlighting "counter-intuitive" design pitfalls that can trigger instinctive resistance. Through this training, brand and design teams will learn how to communicate taste and value more effectively, making packaging work harder with less effort.

From material selection and structural development to prototyping and mass production, packaging involves multiple suppliers and complex processes. Limited transparency, high communication costs, and long development cycles often become hidden bottlenecks for product innovation. Digital platforms are changing this. By integrating packaging factories, equipment, and technical resources, and enabling tools such as online factory audits, intelligent supplier matching, and supply chain collaboration, brands can identify the right partners more efficiently and speed up packaging development. This session will explore key efficiency challenges in the packaging supply chain and how digital platforms help brands bring innovations to market faster.

Packaging is more than an information carrie. It can have a human personality. In a world of information overload, emotion, not logic, captures attention. Designs that connect emotionally convey a brand story most authentically.

Make the product the main character, give it expressions and a setting, and hide a "tiny" bit of detail, then illustration can bring food to life. From HBAF nuts to SAJO’s 365.24 series, Korean designer Jung Eun captures brand personality through her human-touch illustration style. Within these cartoon figures, you can almost see the flavor, ingredients, even the making and eating process of the food itself.

(Source: HBAF)

According to the 2025 Emotional Consumption Trend Report, China's emotional consumption market is expected to surpass RMB 2 trillion by 2025. Consumers are no longer satisfied with material ownership alone—they seek self-expression, emotional resonance, and a sense of connection, and are willing to pay for experiences that bring joy and recognition. This shift is also shaping packaging design. From IP collaborations and dopamine-inspired color palettes to cultural motifs and traditional crafts, packaging now adds playfulness and emotional layers to everyday eating and drinking. 

In today's crowded shelves and visual overload, it has become increasingly difficult for brands to leave an instant impression. To overcome "visual fatigue," beverage brands like Minute Maid and other brands have introduced scented packaging with prompts such as "rub to smell." A burst of fruity or floral aroma matching the flavor delivers a moment of delight that embeds itself in consumers' sensory memory.

From scent selection to interactive cues, from shelf engagement to social sharing, this session explores how packaging transforms fragrance into a golden touchpoint that drives purchase, connection, and repeat sales.

PepsiCo, a brand always close to youth culture, has recently updated its visual identity, from the "smile" logo to the sunny Fanta emblem. Each refresh preserves core brand assets while creating a look and feel that resonates with contemporary aesthetics and culture. Brand refresh is not about chasing trends, but understanding the audience and forging new ways to communicate. Using Mirinda's latest refresh as a case study, we'll explore the design logic and strategic approach behind Pepsi’s youth-focused branding.

Blue Bottle Coffee is often seen as a benchmark of minimalist aesthetics. Yet the visual system it presents today was not always so clear and restrained. Behind the now-iconic blue bottle lies a series of deliberate design decisions. It is precisely these choices that transformed a handcrafted, boutique café into a globally recognized lifestyle brand. In this session, we will revisit the evolution of Blue Bottle’s visual identity, tracing its development from typography and color to the creation of its core symbol.

(Source: Blue Bottle Coffee)

Between 2022 and 2024, the share of innovative private-label products grew from 11% to 26%, making it the fastest-growing segment worldwide. From Sam's Club, Costco, and Aldi to Freshippo and Pangdonglai, retailers are rapidly building their own private-label portfolios. This session explores how packaging—through both materials and visual design—can help retailers establish private labels as trustworthy, recognizable, and competitive brand systems.

For many beverages sensitive to contamination, canned packaging has traditionally relied on retort processing—heating sealed cans to ensure safety. While effective, this high-temperature treatment can affect taste and aroma and may limit formulation options. To reduce heat exposure and better preserve product quality, GEA developed the AseptiCan aseptic can filling system. It enables high-acid or low-acid beverages, still or carbonated, to be filled into aluminum cans under aseptic conditions. This session will explore how aseptic can filling technology can be applied in beverage production, how it expands formulation flexibility for brands, and how it supports different can formats.

As product launch cycles accelerate and SKUs expand, packaging has become a key factor in both competitiveness and time to market. At FBIF 2026, in collaboration with the China Packaging Federation, brand owners and packaging equipment and material suppliers will discuss how co-creation, quality control, and technological innovation can improve the execution of packaging innovation and accelerate industry-wide progress.

Topic 1 | R&D Efficiency and Quality Control

As packaging innovation accelerates, balancing development speed with quality stability has become a critical challenge. How can brands shorten development cycles while building robust internal systems to reduce variability between pilot production and mass manufacturing?

Topic 2 | Co-Creation Across the Packaging Value Chain

Effective co-creation helps bridge the information gap between brand needs and manufacturing capabilities. By enabling packaging suppliers to understand real brand scenarios earlier and more deeply, collaboration can shift from passive response to proactive participation, improving solution relevance, response speed, and the overall pace from concept to mass production, while enhancing system-wide efficiency across the value chain.

Topic 3 | Technological Innovation and Intellectual Property Protection

As packaging structures, materials, and processes evolve rapidly, protecting innovation while maintaining open collaboration has become increasingly complex. Striking the right balance between knowledge sharing and confidentiality directly impacts R&D investment willingness and long-term competitiveness. 

Today, we discuss assortment strategy not because consumption is moving in a single direction, but because multiple consumption logics now coexist. In this environment, the core challenge for retail is no longer identifying trends, but building a coherent decision-making framework that remains intact amid layered and parallel realities.

In the past, information asymmetry and limited choice meant that channels themselves represented value, and consumers cared primarily about where to buy. Today, however, quality products are abundant, homogenization happens at speed, prices are highly transparent, and comparisons are effortless. Choice, rather than empowerment, has become a burden. What consumers truly lack is no longer products or information, but something more fundamental: whom they can trust.

In today’s consumption landscape, retail channels must be built and managed much like brands. They are no longer merely venues for transactions, but entities that establish trust in consumers’ minds through consistent assortment judgment, a coherent value orientation, and experiences that can be repeatedly validated. It is this sustained clarity that enables retailers to form a credible and resilient brand presence.

In the Chinese market, high-quality retail has long relied on a relatively stable premise: premium products carried inherent consensus, discerning consumers would naturally gravitate toward them, and buyers’ judgments were automatically recognized as valuable. However, this premise is shifting. Post-pandemic, core customer segments have fragmented and some have been lost, while consumption patterns and lifestyles have changed significantly. At the same time, limited online channel capabilities have further widened the communication gap between high-quality retail and the new generation of consumers.

Against this backdrop, buyer-led retail—centered on judgment and professional expertise—is now facing more complex challenges in scaling operations, including cash efficiency, organizational governance, and supplier collaboration models. For city’super, the question is no longer simply how to continuously select “great products,” but how to rebuild retail relationships that are understood, chosen, and trusted over the long term, in an environment of shifting customer segments and operational constraints. This evolution requires the buyer system to upgrade from a single product-selection mechanism to a structured, organization-supported, system-managed, and supplier-collaborative model.

This session will share city’super’s recent adjustments in the Chinese market and discuss the core challenges facing buyer-led retail today, including restructuring organizational systems, balancing buyer judgment with cash management, transforming supplier relationships from transactional to collaborative, and reestablishing effective communication with target consumer segments in the new consumption landscape.

Within a highly scaled platform like JD, data, efficiency, and supply chain capabilities form the core strengths of developing own-brand products. However, in food—a category highly dependent on intuitive judgment and long-term accumulation—does systematization and scale introduce new constraints? This session will draw from JD’s own-brand experience to discuss which capabilities become harder to maintain as the platform scales, and how these challenges influence long-term decisions in food selection and innovation.

Key discussion points:

Amid massive amounts of data, which signals are actually unreliable? Among metrics like search, clicks, conversion, and repurchase, which are short-term noise and not suitable to directly guide new products?

When data consistently points toward “faster, cheaper, more homogenous,” how does the platform preserve long-term product direction?

In “slow-variable” categories like food, should data lead or lag decision-making? Which food trends inherently show delayed signals? How does JD capture shifts in sentiment, health, and culture ahead of the data curve? Is data more suited for discovery or validation in food selection?

As platform scale increases, which capabilities paradoxically become more difficult? Food innovation often requires small-batch, multi-round experimentation with unstable outcomes, whereas JD’s system is designed for predictable quality and large-scale replication. Where does JD insist on maintaining scale, and where does it intentionally sacrifice scale to preserve diversity?

Chris is one of the few leaders who has completed the full journey from frontline buyer to group CEO. Before stepping into the CEO role, he spent years at the very front line of merchandise decisions, personally making countless judgments on whether a product should be listed. As his role shifted toward group management and corporate leadership, the challenge he faced was no longer the success of a single product, but how to enable the organization to continue making sound product decisions over the long term.

In this session, Chris will draw on his experience transitioning from an individual decision-maker to an organizational leader, sharing how he transformed experience- and intuition-driven personal judgment into organizational capabilities that can be replicated and continuously calibrated. He will also explore how retail companies should make trade-offs between speed, scale, and long-term value while pursuing differentiation and breakout products.

This is not a methodology-focused talk on “how to create bestsellers”, but a discussion on how judgment can be embedded into systems—and amplified sustainably within an organization.

FamilyMart has been operating in mainland China for 20 years, with nearly 3,000 stores, more than 85% of which are franchised. If viewed through the traditional lens of a “curator-style” merchandiser, FamilyMart may not appear particularly “trendy”: it does not aggressively chase frontier hit products, nor does it emphasize a strong personal aesthetic. Yet this perception misses the point. FamilyMart’s strength in assortment lies not in creating single blockbuster items, but in stability, structure, and the ability to make high-frequency decisions day after day.

Operating under the realities of high-frequency consumption, low average transaction value, and strong franchise constraints, FamilyMart is not simply selecting products. Through assortment, it builds a daily life system that consumers can trust and rely on—from breakfast to late-night meals, from efficiency to emotional comfort.

Starting from the concept of “a day in life,” this session explores how FamilyMart uses time-slot segmentation, scenario-based assortment, and membership data to reverse-engineer its product structure, continuously optimizing the consumer experience at scale. It ultimately addresses a core question: when 85% of stores are franchised, for whom—and for which moment, and which life state—should the merchandiser truly be making decisions?

At the recently announced 2026 Superior Taste Award, eight core products from Maizhenxuan stood out. Two received the highest distinction of Three Stars for Exceptional Taste, while several others were awarded Two Stars for Remarkable Taste and One Star for Notable Quality.

What impressed us about Alex is his consistent belief that products are something worth taking seriously. In his work, products are not vehicles for KPIs, but a series of questions that must be asked again and again: What does “truly delicious” mean? What kind of health actually matters? Which flavors are worth standing by, and which choices—though seemingly correct—lack a soul and should be rejected? These judgments do not stop at philosophy; they are embedded in everyday practices of assortment decisions, product choices, and organizational collaboration.

What Alex represents is not a formula for quickly replicating bestsellers, but a product value system that is becoming increasingly rare in the industry—one that builds standards of judgment from personal taste, drives organizational decisions from real experience, and preserves the dignity of the product itself even under pressure from cost and efficiency. This devotion to product is not loud, but it is enduring and consistent.

In MUJI's framework, the product itself is an integral part of its brand language — from material selection and design philosophy to product architecture, every element continuously shapes brand mindshare.

A single shopping receipt captures real consumer behavior—where they shop, what they buy, and how they combine products.

Worldpanel will present the 2026 Full-Link F&B Insight Report, uncovering signals behind breakout products through the lens of people × category × scene.

Why is it getting harder to create breakout products today?

It's not a lack of data—but too much data that's hard to interpret.

Flywheel integrates e-commerce, delivery, and social media data through AI to uncover real consumer needs—making product development less about guesswork, and more about clarity.

When a category reaches saturation, simply changing flavors is no longer enough.

IDEO applied a human-centered approach to co-develop Master Kong's "Special Fresh" instant noodles, achieving 100,000 units sold in just three days.

From user insight to brand positioning and long-term product strategy—what's the real methodology behind it?

More and more beverages are competing with water. Consumers are no longer just looking for taste—they want better hydration, less burden, and more everyday usability.

In this context, how should brands rethink beverage innovation?

After its spin-off, Magnum has demonstrated greater agility, achieving double-digit growth in China in 2025. In 2026, nearly 30 new products will be launched across multiple brands, focusing on premiumization, occasions, and health.

As "frozen snacks" emerge as a new growth space, how can ice cream move beyond dessert and become part of everyday consumption? And how can local insights and product innovation turn brand promises into tangible experiences?

In many scenarios, health and convenience are hard to balance, and high-quality ingredients remain out of reach for daily consumption.

Through product format and process innovation, Twelve Summers makes it possible to enjoy a clean, tasty, and accessible meal—ready to eat, anytime.

As consumer needs diversify, how should we define "convenient health food"? And how can products deliver better taste, nutrition, and accessibility at the same time?

A Shanghai-based chocolate brand has won 25 international awards in a single year.

Nibbo produces chocolate directly from cocoa beans, using single-origin cacao without blending, creating highly distinctive flavors.

Is it truly exceptional? One bite will tell.

Behind its award-winning success, Nibbo is pushing forward a new approach to flavor innovation. By sourcing from premium global origins while integrating local cultural expression, the brand redefines chocolate as both a sensory and cultural experience.

In just 16 months, its "DaMoWang Sesame Sauce Vegetarian Tripes" surpassed ¥100 million in monthly sales, setting a new industry record.

How did Liubiju transform traditional craftsmanship into a scalable blockbuster product?

Super Dessert reimagined the nut category with a designer's mindset. Its crispy nut series quickly became a top trend on Rednote and Tiktok.

For designers, great snacks are not just tasty—they also need to look good, photograph well, and spread easily.

One chili sauce, 1 billion bottles sold, across more than 40 countries.

By strengthening R&D and supply chain capabilities, Chuanwazi has turned regional Chinese flavors into globally appealing products.

A single "Good Night Drink" topped Hema's repurchase list.

By tapping into the "light buzz" trend—low alcohol, self-indulgence, and flexible occasions—Gaosheng is reshaping how young consumers drink.

Pop Mart's "Starry Ice Cream" sold out—not just because of taste.

More brands are combining characters, emotions, and products, turning consumption into self-expression.

IP is redefining the value of food and beverages.

The next breakout product might come from students.

Open to university participants, shortlisted teams will present at FBIF2026 Product Development Talks, competing for the "Most Innovative Product".

In this “new commercial world”, growth no longer comes from isolated breakthroughs, but from the reinvention of systems.

Capital is reshaping systems, retail is refining them, and AI is amplifying them — while brands and design ultimately determine how these systems are perceived and remembered.

In an era defined by global economic and consumer volatility, the industry is redefining the benchmarks for "premium assets." This session will explore which consumer assets still hold enduring value and how to achieve sustainable growth through a long-term strategy, moving beyond the reliance on short-term dividends.

As consumer segmentation deepens and channel competition becomes increasingly saturated, data-driven, precision operations are accelerating differentiation among retailers. In this environment, channel segmentation is no longer a tactical sales decision—it has become a structural variable that fundamentally shapes a brand’s growth curve.

As different retail channels come to play distinct roles in consumers’ minds—some representing value for money, others curated quality, and still others speed and instant fulfillment—the core question for brands has shifted accordingly. The challenge is no longer “where to sell,” but how a brand is understood and remembered within each channel.

Within this discussion, we will explore how brands can rebuild their product portfolios and channel strategies based on their positioning in consumer mindsets: which products should serve as vehicles for brand meaning, and which are designed to drive scale and efficiency; how supply-chain flexibility can support the differing rhythms and requirements of each channel; and how deeper forms of brand–retailer co-creation can establish clear and enduring divisions of cognitive roles.

In a highly diversified channel landscape, brands with true growth potential no longer attempt to cover every channel with a single, undifferentiated product. Instead, they learn to express a consistent brand identity through differentiated, intelligible product offerings, tailored to the specific logic of each channel.

In a market where products are increasingly similar in function and channels are more segmented than ever, design and aesthetics are no longer just “the packaging”—they are the language through which brands express value, build emotional connection, and earn long-term loyalty. This session will explore how global and local brands can craft a coherent design language, embed cultural relevance, and balance short-term market demands with long-term brand equity—shaping a future where food and beverage brands are not just consumed, but experienced.

In the world of food science, Rochelle Hua once followed what many would consider a “textbook success path.” She graduated with First-Class Honours in Food Science in Singapore, worked in R&D at Nestlé and Abbott, and became one of the fastest-promoted food scientists within the organizations. She later joined McKinsey & Company, where she worked on several high-intensity, results-driven business projects.

By her early thirties, she had already reached a seven-figure annual income. At 37, she got married and became a mother. It was also during this period that she began to revisit a deeper question:

When professional capability has already been fully proven, must one continue to remain within the same model of success? After leaving the corporate world, Rochelle chose a path that appears “smaller” but deeply intentional: opening a soup shop in Shenzhen and becoming its owner, while also sharing insights as a personal blogger—using the lens of food science to explain the everyday yet essential act of eating.

During his nearly two decades at JD.com, Yishen Tang witnessed and shaped many of the defining moments of China’s e-commerce and retail evolution. From telecommunications and automotive to fresh food, he led businesses from 0 to 1, managed large-scale teams, and operated at a billion-RMB scale — gaining deep experience in platform efficiency, scale, and supply chain integration.

Yet at the peak of his career, he made an unexpected “reverse choice”: leaving the platform to start from scratch and build a highly focused low-GI food brand, Detective 55.

Since its founding in 2022, from launching its first low-GI oat bran product to gradually expanding its portfolio, building an integrated supply chain, and introducing its 2.0 brand upgrade with the concept of “intelligent glucose control,” Detective 55 is not a business driven by rapid scale. Instead, it represents a long-term commitment to health, patience, and sustainable value creation.

In May 2025, a new standard on Coloring Foods (clean label colors) went into effect in China, stating that coloring foods must come from fruits, vegetables, plants, or algae, ensuring transparency and safety.

• In a visual-first market, food & beverages must stand out, and plant-based colors deliver vibrant, eye-catching appeal.

• The new regulation aligns perfectly with Chinese consumers’ growing demand for natural, clean-label ingredients, moving away from artificial ingredients and colors.

• For beverage manufacturers, this is a strategic opportunity to capture attention with bright, natural hues that resonate with modern consumer values.

• Plant-based colors help brands differentiate, build trust, and thrive in a highly competitive beverage industry.

Advanced inspection technologies are no longer merely quality control tools, but key enablers driving product innovation. They help enterprises break through the constraints of traditional formulations, realize complex packaging designs, and optimize new production processes, thus opening up new horizons in the fierce market competition.

Today, consumption is being redefined by younger generations. They look beyond functionality, seeking attitude, aesthetics, and emotional resonance. They prefer simplicity over excessive packaging, value sustainability, and embrace personal expression—shifts that are reshaping the direction of packaging design.

This session connects changing consumer mindsets with emerging design trends, exploring how minimalism, lightweight formats, emotional appeal, and interactivity have emerged in response. Packaging is no longer just a container; it has become the first language through which brands communicate with young consumers.

Competition in the food and beverage industry has shifted from simple product differentiation to a more comprehensive contest of experience and cultural relevance. Relying solely on formulation, packaging, or isolated market insights is no longer sufficient to sustain long-term brand growth.

Drawing on real-world practices across China and the broader Asia-Pacific region, this session explores how food brands can leverage sensory and semiotic research approaches to uncover the deeper cultural drivers behind consumer behavior in diverse market contexts. It will examine how cross-market insights can be translated into actionable local innovation strategies that resonate authentically with consumers.

The presentation will also address the practical challenges Chinese brands encounter as they expand into the Asia-Pacific and global markets. It will share perspectives on how to maintain a nuanced understanding of Chinese consumers while incorporating multi-market viewpoints—ultimately building a more resilient and forward-looking pathway for food experience innovation.

The low-GI market is experiencing rapid growth, yet a key industry challenge remains: products are perceived as healthy but difficult to consume consistently. Many formulations meet glycemic index requirements at the expense of taste and overall eating experience, resulting in low repeat purchase rates. This session will focus on glycemic control mechanisms, formulation design, and industrial implementation, combining experimental data and practical case studies to explore how to achieve both low GI and great taste — driving healthy carbohydrates from function-oriented development toward comprehensive experience enhancement.

Dr. Meng Li previously served as a Product Director at a Silicon Valley-based food unicorn valued at approximately $1 billion, where she led a product that scaled to around $400 million revenue over six years. Through years of hands-on experience, she came to believe that the United States represented the ceiling in food innovation, brand marketing, and scale-up.

In 2024, she returned to China as a senior advisor. Expecting to “bring back advanced experience”, she instead encountered a sharp reversal in perspective. Chinese companies, she observed, are now operating at a different level in terms of product iteration speed, supply chain responsiveness, and ingredient and process innovation. At the same time, she noticed a subtle but meaningful shift in the U.S. market: in the city where she has long lived, more China-made food products are appearing on retail shelves, and American consumers are becoming increasingly open to “Made in China”.

In this talk, Meng will not focus on tactical “how-to” strategies for Chinese food exporting. Instead, she will reflect on the moments that challenged her assumptions and reshaped her thinking, and explore a more fundamental question: as China’s capabilities in the food industry continue to advance, when and how, will their true global value be fully recognized?

While most brands are still asking what the next viral ice cream should look like, NiCEME starts with a simpler—but harder to quantify—question: Is it fun?

NiCEME calls its R&D philosophy “Joyful Food Play.” Instead of reverse-engineering products from flavor parameters or cost targets, the team develops them forward from a complete themed world: “NiCEME’s Fried Chicken Shop,” “NiCEME’s Farm,” and more. Chicken legs, burgers, fries, carrots—symbols usually found in fast-food restaurants or markets—are transformed into ice cream products that live inside convenience store freezers, designed to be photographed, shared, and talked about.

Founder Daniel, who previously worked in the luxury and retail sectors, approaches branding not as the creation of a single viral product but as the ongoing construction of a participatory content universe for young consumers. Under his leadership, a post-90s founder and post-00s R&D team have turned the convenience store into a creative stage. As a result, NiCEME hasn’t just produced one hit product—it has become a brand that consumers repeatedly “discover” and share again and again.

Global dairy products are becoming increasingly homogenized, while consumers are showing growing demand for traceable origins, functional health benefits, and clean-label formulations. Sacco System, with over a century of expertise in microbial cultures, offers a portfolio of origin-certified strains and comprehensive solutions ranging from classic yogurt to functional fermented dairy products, including:

- CRL1505, a hexagonal functional probiotic strain originating from one of the world’s longevity regions

- Yogurt cultures inspired by Italian dairy traditions, fermented with strains associated with cheeses from Naples

- A “treasure box” of six Greek yogurt strains, validated by Agricultural University of Athens

- A clean-label yogurt solution delivering a pure taste profile with smooth, creamy texture and natural sweetness, without additives

Each solution is designed to help brands develop distinctive and competitive new dairy products.

In the food industry, design is often dismissed as a “last-mile” polish. But for Lu Yuyang and the Shudao team, an aesthetic background is merely the entry ticket; true design thinking is embedded deep within the supply chain. Refusing to be just another “asset-light” brand, they chose the hard path: building their own factories. What kind of product vitality erupts when design thinking is held accountable not just for visuals, but for flavor consistency, flexible manufacturing, and scalable delivery?

In an era of abundance, the food industry's growth engine has shifted from functional benefits to emotional resonance. While ordinary biscuits are trapped in supermarket price wars, “Blessing Biscuits” achieved a breakthrough—selling 10,000 tins monthly at a premium price of 38 RMB—by leveraging the unique context of temple blessings. Today’s consumers are no longer just buying food; they are investing in “experiential value.” This session will deconstruct how Scene Reconstruction and Cultural Embedding allow products to break free from cost-based pricing and exponentially amplify brand value.