Along with the various macroeconomic forces at play, as with any other year, success or failure in 2025 will be determined in no small part by the whims of consumers. Will prebiotic sodas continue their interminable march to the top? Is small-format packaging, a staple of peak ‘shrinkflation’ days, here to stay? And are there any nostalgic candy brands that haven’t been claimed by drinks yet? We asked our network for a heat check on beverage trends heading into 2025 — ranking 10 topics as cold, lukewarm or hot — and here’s what we heard.
🔥 Hot Ones: Small Format Retail, Small Format Packaging, Prebiotic Soda
Go small or go home? That’s kind of the vibe we got from our survey, which saw both small footprint retail concepts (Whole Foods, Pop-Up Grocer) and slimmer packaging concepts get a broad thumbs up. For natural and organic brands, one respondent pointed out, more modestly-sized stores in urban settings could be pivotal for bringing healthy CPG into new neighborhoods. As for prebiotic soda, it’s no surprise to hear from our network that enthusiasm is still running high, particularly with Coca-Cola and Pepsi set to enter the category in the coming months. As one noted, “permissibility in soda consumption is a proven playbook,” and 2025 may bring acquisitions and rollups. Those conditions, cautioned another respondent, who backed the trend as “hot,” may lead to a “bubble with few winners.”
🫖 Off the Boil: Celebrity Backed Brands, Female Energy Drinks
Could it be a case of PRIME PTSD? We don’t know for sure, but the sports drink brand’s rough 2024 seems to have cast a long shadow over the celebrity-backed brand category. Several respondents noted PRIME’s sales slowdown as a warning sign that the instant impact of deploying big names in beverage may come at the expense of long-term viability. Yet with everyone from Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton to Hollywood A-listers (Robert Downey, Jr., Seth Rogen) getting in on the action, there will inevitably be some winners and losers. One respondent with experience in the department summed up the celeb-bev situation as an even balance of hot — those being “authentic brands with authentic purpose beyond the influencer” — and cold (“everyone else”).
Maybe more surprising: despite big demographic gains in recent years from Celsius and Alani Nu, enthusiasm in our survey for female-focused energy drinks was somewhat muted, with “Hot” garnering less than half the votes of “Lukewarm.” Alex Cooper, take note.
🧊 Chilling Out: Plant-Based Protein, Americana Branding
Having just closed the book on a turbulent election season, maybe our respondents were a little too burned out to generate much feeling for ‘Americana’ branding (think Free Bird, or Hulk Hogan’s new beer) at the moment. Meanwhile, enthusiasm around plant-based protein was somewhat unexpectedly lower than non-plant protein, though clearly protein itself, however it arrives, will be a major set to watch this year.