What to drink is a decision consumers must make daily, but what will they choose?
Choosing a beverage is something that is done constantly in everyday life. Whether it’s deciding to drink water or a sports drink during a workout, or choosing between coffee and tea to start the morning, everyone is accustomed to making such non-alcoholic beverage choices. The key role that beverages play in everyday life makes beverage insights valuable to business owners in many areas.
Datassential’s latest MenuTrends Keynote Report outlines today’s beverage landscape with the help of powerful data from our industry-leading MenuTrends database, opinions and insights from consumers, and data from operators.
This month’s FoodBytes offers you a look inside this report, with key insights on what consumers are drinking and what operators are menuing. We find that, after tap water, brewed hot coffee is the most-consumed beverage on any given day. With the help of BUZZ, Datassential’s comprehensive database of consumer tastes and behaviors in the coffee and tea category, we explore the types of coffee consumers are craving. Descriptors like “local” and “fair trade,” along with country of origin have all been growing on coffee menus. The farm-to-table movement has certainly spread to beverages, with consumers becoming increasingly aware of where their coffee originated.
We also track beverages and flavors along Datassential’s Menu Adoption Cycle (MAC), highlighting where nonalcoholic beverages currently fall in the life of a trend, and where they might be going. Discover the latest bone broth craze, the green juice movement, the craft soda revolution, and how operators are menuing seasonal coffee and tea flavors. And these flavor insights are actionable far beyond the beverage menu – see how operators are leveraging emerging beverage flavors like blood orange and lavender across the menu.
SPECIALTY/ICED COFFEE
Espresso shots and cappuccinos are the most commonly offered hot specialty coffees. Growing in popularity are variations like Cuban history, espressos, “premium” drinks, and descriptors like “full-bodied.” Iced coffee, which is not as widely offered as hot brewed coffee, is also a varied category that can offer operators check-boosting opportunities. While cold-brewed coffee is in Inception, it is quickly moving along the Menu Adoption Cycle, with brands like Starbucks having debuted its own variation in March. Other iced coffees gaining traction include Thai iced coffee and green coffee, and “Farmer direct” Iced Coffee at Chick-Fil-A.
BREWED COFFEE
More than 40% of adult Americans drink coffee on any given day, making brewed coffee the most consumed beverage after tap water. Roughly two out of three Americans drink hot brewed coffee. Hot brewed coffee is overwhelmingly consumed at home, but two-thirds of operators that offer non-alcoholic beverages offer hot brewed coffee. Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of coffee descriptors that suggest a premium offering: the words “local” and “fair trade” are among the fastest-growing coffee terms on menus – you’ll find many operators who call out fair-trade sourcing to educate customers on why their coffee stands out.
TRACKING BEVERAGE TRENDS
Datassential’s Menu Adoption Cycle (MAC) follows trends through a life cycle, from birth (Inception) to chef casuals/fast casuals adopting the trend (Adoption), to Proliferation in QSRs, and finally Ubiquity, when a trend appears across all segments. Here are some of beverages in every stage of the MAC:
INCEPTION: HOT & BONE BROTH/BOUILLON
Hot broth/bone broth, traditionally considered a food menu item, is now becoming a viable protein-rich beverage. Bone broth is just what it sounds like – a broth made from beef or chicken bones and vegetables simmered upwards of 24 hours. The umami-rich broth has been sold for as much as $10 a pint by specialty bone broth companies, such as Real Bone Broth, pictured at left. New York’s Brodo calls broth “the world’s first comfort food” – Chef Marco Canora’s take-out window operation sells only broth in varieties like Hearth (chicken, turkey, and beef). Customers can also customize the beverages with additions like Calabrian chili oil. While still an Inception-level beverage, 27% of consumers say they are interested in trying bone broth. Read more about the trend in this month’s issue of On The Menu.
ADOPTION: GREEN JUICES/SMOOTHIES
As of late, eating your vegetables is evolving into drinking your vegetables. Kale, spinach, and greens in general have all increased their presence on beverage menus. According to MenuTrends data, kale has increased more than 400% on beverage menus over the past four years, and greens overall have increased more than 130%. Green juices and smoothies are often accented with flavors like ginger, basil, or lemon. Jamba Juice’s Greens ‘n Ginger smoothie is a blend of lemonade, mangos, kale, peaches, and ginger puree. There are even entire juice bars and beverage concepts centered around green drinks. Kale Me Crazy, a Georgia-based juice company, offers a variety of cold-pressed juices with greens, like the Kale Yeah!, with kale, spinach, cucumber, apple, and lemon.
PROLIFERATION: CRAFT SODA
On any given day, about one-third of consumers will drink regular soda. Nearly 40% of Americans drink soda at least daily, despite the fact that some consumers are concerned about the unhealthy halo surrounding carbonated soft drinks. Among various attributes, consumers are most interested in beverages made with premium ingredients and natural sweeteners. Many craft cocktail bars now also serve premium non-alcoholic beverages and mocktails. House-made sodas can feature a variety of flavors, like lemon, lime, berry, ginger, and pomegranate. And consumers are also reaching for retail craft soda at home. Traditional soda companies like Pepsi are also embracing the craft soda movement – Pepsi’s Caleb’s Kola features cane sugar and kola nuts from Africa.
UBIQUITY: SEASONAL TEA & COFFEE FLAVORS
Pumpkin lattes, strawberry iced tea, minty Irish coffees… the list of seasonal beverages goes on and on. Seasonally-flavored beverages are now a staple in nearly every major chain, from peppermint-flavored coffees in the winter to pumpkin in the fall to strawberries and fresh fruit in the summer. Many coffee creamer manufacturers offer limited releases of flavored cream, such as Gingerbread Latte and Eggnog Latte from Coffee-Mate or White Chocolate Raspberry from International Delight. Seasonal coffee and tea flavors are also a high-ranking interest from consumers, with 35% of consumers saying they are interested in seasonal offerings. The use of fresh, seasonal flavors also easily translates to other parts of the beverage menu and even over to the food menu.
FLAVOR INSPIRATION
Insights from our Non-Alcoholic Beverages Keynote report aren’t solely applicable to beverages – indeed, the trending flavors uncovered can easily translate to inspiration for other parts of the menu. The following are just three ingredients that have grown significantly on beverage menus in the past four years. Insights on matcha green tea, coconut water, ginger beer, pineapple, and spearmint are just some of the other ingredients profiled in our Beverage Keynote report.
With its unique, vibrant color, it should come as no surprise that blood orange is often used to add brightness to a dish. Fresh blood orange supremes appear in salads, like the Winter Chopped Salad with radicchio, fennel, and frisee from Big Grove Tavern in Champaign, Ill. Operators have also used blood oranges as the base of a fresh vinaigrette or a sauce reduction.
Blood oranges taste similar to traditional oranges, but also have an added touch of sweetness and slight tartness from notes of raspberry. Blood orange is often showcased as a flavor in desserts, such as a blood orange ice cream or sorbet, or as a component in cakes, such as this Blood Orange Vacherin, paired with kumquat ice cream and pistachios, from A.O.C. in Los Angeles.
At Parfait Organic Artisan Ice Cream in Seattle, lavender is used in the Honey Lavender Macaron Ice Cream Sandwich. Lavender and honey is a common flavor combination, found often in ice creams and desserts. Lavender is also paired often with classic dessert flavors like vanilla, lemon, and berry.
Lavender is mostly found in beverages and desserts, but there are savory opportunities as well. Lavender can also be found in herbes de Provence on meat, and is sometimes used in sauces, such as in the Honey-Lavender Glazed Walleye at NoMi Kitchen in Chicago; or in a vinaigrette on salads.
Pomegranate works well in both sweet and savory dishes, and here vibrant pomegranate replaces tomatoes in a Pomegranate Bruschetta from The Vineyard Restaurant in Madera, Calif. During Madera’s annual Pomegranate Festival, the restaurant holds three-course pomegranate dinners featuring dishes like Korean Pomegranate BBQ Beef.
After beverages, (both alcoholic and non-alcoholic), pomegranate is most highly-menued as an ingredient in a salad appetizer. Here, pomegranate is used in Native Foods Café’s Broccoli, Pomegranate, and Orange Salad. In addition to salad, you’ll also often find the fruit made into sauce reductions and vinaigrettes.