by Alexander Wissel, Executive Editor
Perhaps no one is as much the poster child for longevity and wellness than Bryan Johnson. The tech venture capitalist spends a reported $2 million annually on a multifaceted regimen of supplements, exercise, diet, experimental therapies and more with the aim to reverse the aging process and achieve immortality.
I understand his quest, as I’ve reached an age where the simple act of getting up from a chair is a roulette wheel of potential injuries.
But the quest for immortality isn’t new:
Ponce de León was rumored to have searched for the Fountain of Youth on the east coast of Florida in 1513. In 210 BCE, China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, buried a terracotta army and potentially the greatest tomb ever as part of his obsession with immortality. Pharaoh Narmer unified Egypt around 3100 BCE and started his dynastic descendants along with the idea of immortal afterlife and living god status on Earth.
We’re taking this little digression because health, longevity and wellness are themes coming at grocery retailers from all sides. GLP-1s, food-as-medicine, functional foods, allergen-free, fiber-maxxing, protein-maxxing, meat alternatives, satiety signaling…the list goes on.
The TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read for us older individuals) is that food isn’t just food anymore. It’s not just sustenance, it’s a therapeutic agent that could improve your life…if used correctly. I do love a good sales hook, and ‘Medicinal/Functional Food’ is a smorgasbord for sales and marketing departments.
As part of our coverage for our April Health & Wellness issue, we thought we’d briefly dig into the topics and trends that are poised to reinvent how consumers connect and ultimately shop for food…if we’re allowed to still call it that.
Top Five Topics Driving Food Trends Today
GLP-1s
The rise of GLP-1 medications is a cataclysmic shift reshaping food consumption patterns at incredible speed. Roughly 1 in 8 Americans are taking this class of drugs right now. A recent survey suggested that if these medications become more affordable, up to 65 percent of respondents said they’d try it. With new formulations and new competitors entering the market, clearly we are in the early stages of this.
These drugs suppress appetite, reduce cravings – particularly for high-fat, high-sugar foods – and shift how individuals experience hunger and satiety. Anecdotal evidence reports retailers seeing smaller basket sizes, reduced impulse purchasing.
This is not a “diet trend,” but a medically driven change affecting both physiological and behavioral levels. One that disproportionately affects higher-income shoppers – those already over-indexing in premium grocery channels.
Projections are that the food and beverage industry will see GLP-1-related revenue reductions of $30 to $55 billion by 2034. It’s quite a boogeyman, but the counterargument should give retailers hope. Growing evidence suggests consumers taking GLP-1s are purchasing higher quality protein sources, portion-controlled meals, and nutrient dense fresh produce. These ‘reformed’ consumers are buying less, but what they are purchasing is more expensive.
Maxxing: Protein And Fiber
Originally coined in the 2010s, Looksmaxxing – maximizing physical attractiveness – blew up in popularity in the 2020s on TikTok. It’s added “maxxing” to our collective vocabulary. Protein- maxxing and fiber-maxxing are today’s most popular CPG health trends.
Protein and fiber are the two most visible and widely adopted nutritional signals in the market – largely because they are both easy to understand and tied to tangible outcomes: satiety, weight management, and digestive health.
What began as fitness-oriented behavior has broadened into a mainstream push for “better-for-you” eating which has resonated across demographics. Consumers are not just seeking presence, but optimization – higher grams, better sources, and cleaner labels – often within familiar formats.
This is driving reformulation across categories, from snacks to prepared foods, and creating an expectation that everyday products deliver functional benefit. In effect, protein and fiber are becoming baselines, not differentiators. They’re being put into everything it seems.
The reality is that quality protein and fiber have always been good for us. But producers’ ability to quickly integrate this nutrition into foods we’re already eating has given consumers the ability to ‘eat better’ and allows them to feel good about it too.
Nutraceuticals & Functional Foods
The boundary between food and supplementation continues to blur as consumers increasingly look to everyday products to deliver targeted health benefits. Let’s go beyond fiber and protein.
A nutraceutical is a product derived from food sources that provides health benefits in addition to nutritional value. Functional ingredients – adaptogens, nootropics, probiotics, prebiotics, and bioactive compounds – are moving out of specialty channels and into conventional grocery formats.
The balance for marketers lies in this tension between aspiration and evidence: while interest is high, understanding of effectiveness varies widely, and trust is often inferred rather than validated. If you’ve ever taken a vitamin or supplement and asked yourself later “Is this working?” (and I know I have) then you know exactly what this means.
This creates a landscape where storytelling, ingredient transparency, and perceived credibility play an outsized role in purchase decisions. Read: this is where influencers can hijack and derail a conversation or be the helpful conductor driving your traffic. Having teams that can quickly react with facts and customer support is the way to influence these conversations in your favor.
The jobs of in-store nutritionists and wellness experts are going to be increasingly more important as fact needs to be separated from fiction. Our Health & Wellness contributor Beth Rush digs into food-as-medicine in her article and how consumers are thinking differently about what they are buying and why.
Food Interactions & Allergens
Awareness of food sensitivities, intolerances, and ingredient interactions is expanding beyond clinically diagnosed allergies into a broader consumer conversation about how food affects individual well-being.
Gluten-free, dairy-free, and allergen-conscious products are now joined by emerging concerns around seed oils, additives, and ingredient pairings. The nuance is that this space is increasingly shaped by self-diagnosis and digital information loops, leading to both heightened vigilance and occasional misinformation.
For grocery, this results in more scrutinized labels, increased demand for “free-from” positioning, and a shopper who is navigating risk avoidance as much as health optimization. The impact on consumer shopping habits cannot be understated here. A customer which discovers a product contains (disclosed or not) a family member’s allergen may never purchase that product again.
These can literally be life and death conversations here. In his column, Phil Lempert dives into the risks and opportunities for retailers when it comes to full disclosure for allergen packaging and labeling.
Healthy Aging
Healthy aging is emerging as a long-duration demand driver, fueled by an aging population that is more proactive about maintaining quality of life through diet. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that over 124 million Americans are over 50, and roughly half of those are over 65.
Almost 80 percent of Americans over 50 think that the right foods, beverages and ingredients provide healthy aging benefits. And that diet is the best path to longevity.
Unlike traditional “senior nutrition,” this trend spans multiple life stages, with younger consumers engaging earlier in preventative behaviors tied to cognition, mobility, and metabolic health. This is less about restriction and more about preservation – maintaining energy, mental clarity, and physical function over time.
Products that support bone health, brain function, and sustained energy are gaining relevance, often framed through functionality rather than age-specific marketing. This positions healthy aging as a cross-category lens rather than a defined segment.
Older consumers tend to approach nutrition through foundational dietary shifts – prioritizing increased fiber intake, greater consumption of whole grains, and moderation of fat and animal products. Unlike younger cohorts, they are less influenced by emerging or niche ingredients such as matcha or trend-driven additions. Instead, their primary focus remains on reducing sugar, reflecting a more established and outcomes-driven approach to managing long-term health.
I’ll add in a personal prediction to put on your radar: creatine. Long considered just for bodybuilding and sports, creatine – an organic compound found in protein – will start showing up everywhere too.
Creatine benefits workout recovery and boosts muscle performance. Studies have also shown broad neurological benefits and that it can help older adults maintain muscle. It’s one of the most studied, and safest supplements in the world. It’s approved for Olympic athletes if that tells you anything. Keep an eye on it.
Around the Trade
Despite last month’s Numerator Consumer Goods Price Index (CGPI) report that showed small reductions in grocery costs, the war in the Middle East is going to reverse that shortly. We’ve talked with growers and producers and they are already seeing fertilizer costs close to doubling vs last year. Urea/ liquid nitrogen fertilizer is up 34 percent from last month alone.
Most have already locked in for this season’s planting, but the next is anyone’s guess. The downstream effects will start making its way up the food chain soon enough. If this is a tsunami, we’ve only seen the water recede.
During NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s 100-days-in-office speech, he announced the first location, Harlem, of his planned five city-owned grocery stores. The site and cost are drawing fresh criticism noting the high $30 million cost and its location – far from being a food desert – is served by a number of bodegas and privately owned grocery stores.
Target’s new chief merchandising officer Cara Sylvester announced late last month that the company would spend $1 billion to shift its grocery business to create a “truly distinctive grocery destination where emerging brands, wellness and owned brands intersect.” Target already has a number of specialty/private label brands in its grocery section.
Given Target’s focus on getting back to its roots of being an ‘affordable premium’ type of retailer, this move makes sense from a strategy standpoint: They want to be more like Trader Joe’s than Walmart. Executing that strategy will be incredibly challenging – and it begs the question: Do shoppers want Target grocery to be different? It aligns with the brand aspirations and it’s not an impossible task.
The real question is whether CEO Michael Fiddelke has the time or the patience to see this ambitious plan through. I’m short on patience myself, so we understand the challenge in reinvention.
