The latest food and beverage industry news and trend analysis

Minute Maid Spiked is capitalising on its 92% year-over-year growth by launching its first celebrity-led campaign featuring multi-hyphenate Action Bronson. The partnership reinforces the brand's "No Muss, No Fuss" positioning in the high-growth Alcohol Ready-to-Drink (ARTD) category, focusing on non-carbonated, juice-forward alternatives to traditional hard seltzers.

Barilla, the Official Pasta Partner of Formula 1®, is capitalising on the global surge in F1 viewership by launching "Barilla Racing Wheels," a special-edition pasta shape designed to merge high-performance sports licensing with the traditional "Domenica Italiana" (Italian Sunday) meal occasion.

Brooklyn Brewery is consolidating its award-winning "Special Effects" non-alcoholic line under the master "Brooklyn Brewery Non-Alcoholic" banner. The rebrand unifies the portfolio with style-led naming conventions and blue-coded packaging cues to simplify the consumer path to purchase in the rapidly growing, less than 0.5% ABV segment.

Nestlé UK and Ireland is expanding its Aero brand with a new Pistachio variant, timed to coincide with a high-profile partnership with the film The Devil Wears Prada 2. The launch leverages the global pistachio flavour trend and utilises a major on-pack promotion to drive cross-portfolio sales, targeting fashion-conscious consumers through high-value lifestyle prizes.

ezCater has transitioned from a catering marketplace to an enterprise-grade workplace food platform, launching a new brand identity developed with Koto and integrating deep-tier features like Slack connectivity and centralised reporting to serve multi-location organisations.

Brand Licensing Europe (BLE), in partnership with License Global, has announced its "call for speakers" for the event’s 2026 edition, seeking expert insights across five key pillars: Sports, Fashion, Food and Beverage, Retail, and Trend and Future, to drive the 2026 program.

KFC has launched a full-length streaming single and music video titled "Finger Lickin' Machine" to promote its new multi-tiered Box Feasts value menu (7, 9, and 11 dollar tiers), utilising high-profile choreography and IRL activations in Los Angeles to drive digital and physical engagement.

McDonald's Türkiye has launched the 'Drink & Drive' campaign, a creative reinterpretation of the "Don't Drink and Drive" warning that positions McCafe around driver alertness and transforms the Golden Arches into road safety symbols.