The New Rules of Flavor: Why Gen Z Is Reshaping Food & Drink Innovation
Fortune flavors the bold...but there are real challenges with flavor proliferation, when you have no product flavor strategy
For years, flavor strategies have been built on sensory science and category norms. It worked... until it stopped matching what the next generation actually wants. Gen Z is redefining the way food and drink should taste, feel, and function. Not because they reject flavor, but because they expect far more from it.
Our Edible Escapism research shows that, for Gen Z, food has become an emotional release, a creative outlet, and a form of identity expression. Flavor is no longer just tasted, it’s performed, shared, photographed, curated. Traditional pipelines weren’t built for this world.
Three forces are disrupting flavor as we know it:
1. Emotional flavoring
Gen Z picks flavors based on how they want to feel, not just what they want to taste. Calm, cosy, chaotic, nostalgic, emotion is now a key flavour driver.
2. Visual-first choices
Food decisions increasingly start on a screen. If a flavor doesn’t look good, it doesn’t make the cut. Aesthetic impact is becoming as important as sensory impact.
3. Cultural mashups
This generation remixes global influences playfully: sweet-heat blends, nostalgic comfort meets chaotic crunch, unexpected pairings that tell a story. And its already extending to Gen Alpha too.
As such, flavor strategies need a reset. Brands must design for emotion, test ideas visually, build ‘flavour worlds’ and use culture, not category cues, as their starting point.
We’ve created a framework to help brands do exactly that. Want to know more?
Explore the Edible Escapism Flavor Strategy
If your flavor pipeline is still built for yesterday’s consumer, now’s the moment to rethink it.