More food and beverage brands using AI to create products, report says
Claims that food and beverage brands have used artificial intelligence to develop or produce their products are skyrocketing globally.
According to Innova Market Insights, products with an AI-related claim increased a staggering 720% in the 12 months ending June 2024 versus June 2023.
The eye-opening stat was shared by the market intelligence firm during its Top 10 Food & Beverage Trends 2025 Report webinar, It signals AI is no longer just a buzzword in the industry, but is being applied in practical ways to elevate the consumer experience, sooner than experts predicted.
“The big topic of the year is AI,” Lu Ann Williams, co-founder and global insights director of Innova Market Insights, declared during the webinar. “It surprised me that there are so many claims around AI. [The growth] is from a small base, but brands are starting to communicate around how they’re using AI to create products.”
Katlenburger Winery in Germany, for instance, launched NanoFizz, touting it as “Europe’s first AI ready-to-drink fruit wine mix.” AI was leveraged to help develop and refine the flavour profile.
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The Top 10 Food & Beverage Trends 2025 Report identified additional ways AI is being harnessed by manufacturers as well as grocery retailers, ranging from sustainability (Marks & Spencer will soon begin selling parsnips with a significantly lower environmental impact from its first autonomous farm field trial) to food safety (researchers at Penn State, for instance, developed an “electronic tongue” that can detect fruit juice and milk spoilage.)
It’s been two years since the launch of generative AI tool ChatGTP brought AI into mass consciousness. However, there is little understanding among many people of the technology’s potential role in the food and drinks they consume.
According to the Innova Trends Survey 2025, 25% of consumers are unaware of AI use in food and beverage. (The survey is a global average of consumers from Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Spain, U.K. and U.S.)
When asked how they feel about food and beverage created by AI, a further 23% of respondents answered that they’re “curious” about it.
Aside from AI claims, Innova expects mental health claims to be most visible in functional food and beverage next year. Vitamin B6, B9 and B12, which has been found to support mental clarity and focus, promote learning and memory, and reduce stress response, topped the list.
Between June 2022 and June 2024, 51% of new food and beverage launches tracked with a “brain claim” contained a vitamin B ingredient.
Vitamin D, vitamin C, magnesium and vitamin E rounded out Innova’s list of the top functional mental health ingredients.
Recent product launches with these ingredients include Melting Forest, a line of mushroom enhanced sparkling adaptogenic beverages in the U.S. It contains magnesium and vitamin 6, “a powerful combo for physical and mental wellness,” notes the Innova report.
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Williams adds that “magnesium is on fire,” pointing to the fact that the mineral has become the focus of thousands of social media posts, particularly on TikTok, where users are praising its health benefits, from stress management to better sleep. Posts also talk about the best times of day to take magnesium supplements.
Like last year but even clearer this year, Williams says “consumers are looking for that star ingredient.”
Some of the other trends identified in Innova’s report include “precision wellness”—the rise of targeted nutritional needs by sex and life stage, such as menopause for women; “gut health,” identified as the health aspect most driving the purchase of functional food and beverage; and “Taste the Glow,” which speaks to the rise of beauty-enhancing features in food. Innova reports one in five consumers globally have purchased food and beverage to improve their physical appearance/beauty in the last year.
