The work represents a creative and curated use of research data to communicate prevailing food trends and narrativise how consumer eating habits are being shaped.

Kerry commissioned a 99-page research document based on category reports and numbers, individual market reports, F&B reports, social media research, leading economic, industry and trade publications, existing forecasting and foresight reports. They also conducted interviews with chefs, nutritionists, heads of plant-based product companies, food focused social media personalities and F&B consultants.

In order to craft an impactful and valuable ebook from all this information, the data had to be conveyed in an appealing, visual format.

Kerry’s APMEA region covers 8 markets - Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Australia, South Africa, India, Turkey, UAE.

The research report was intended to provide a strategic understanding of diet changes in APMEA, with a focus on the next big thing in meat alternatives. Key questions included what will be leading the category in terms of sustainability, taste and nutrition.

Kerry briefed the agency in January 2023, sharing this wealth of data with the requirement to draw insight from it and condense it into a 20-page ebook that could be featured on the Kerry website and be sent via EDM to the company’s plant-based clients.

The objective of the work was to position Kerry as a thought leader in meat alternatives and support their clients in leveraging consumer preferences and dietary trends in an engaging, informative way. The ebook should concisely cover trends across the APMEA region to be relevant for each market.

Trend of consciousness are shaping the future of the food industry, in particular minimisation consciousness to reduce in all aspects of life, from consumptions of carbon footprint to reducing waste; health consciousness post Covid-19 to focus on personal health; and social embrace consciousness to change diets leading to new food cultures and expectations of new rituals from food.

In a world rocked by food supply disruptions, increasing concerns over health and environmental sustainability, veganism and plant-based diets have seen a steep increase in popularity in recent years. As such, demand for meat alternatives is growing—Google searches for the term have increased by threefold in the last 5 years—and the shift towards alternatives shows no signs of slowing down.

To understand the shift in culture, the brand conducted data mining to identify, analyse and shortlist mega and micro trends alongside experts. This allows for the exploration of challenges and the unlocking of opportunities of protein transition to empower change on issues including a lack of sensorial authenticity and cost disparity. Especially in Asia which has a history of non-meat dietary traditions, creating relevance in the region is key for the younger generations who are looking for modern alternatives.

The research acts as a guide for a new wave of development and innovation to reinvent customer experience for companies delivering great tasting food that is better for people and the planet.

The foundation of the ebook was Kerry’s “innovation matrix”, a graphical representation of 16 micro-trends via 4 lenses across a timeline of 2 to 5+ years. The lenses represented format, functional, ingredient and emotive solutions which could be used to explain the data.

This became the backbone and structure for our work, as it expressed feedback from professionals and enthusiasts. We needed to use this structure so that relevant Kerry clients could quickly see what information was relevant to them.

To immediately set the scene, we came up with a food critic character who opened the ebook with a “letter from the future”, describing what the future of food looks like in 2030. Since many professionals in this sector are accustomed to dry research data, the combination of attractive imagery and imaginative copy was intended to capture their attention and make the work stand out.

Data gathering and interpretation took shape in three key steps. At the data mining stage, existing Kerry research and other data points were tapped to interpret the larger themes and “mega, macro and micro” trends and directional ingredient cues. The next stage was discussions with experts, to build up a repository of micro trends. Finally, the key themes around meat alternatives were analysed to provide actionable outcomes and “meat alternative codes for the future” around ingredients, formats, occasions, and emotional and indulgence codes.

The key themes were placed against the context of what is shaping the categories and who is driving its evolution, i.e., the younger generation as the main drivers of change, bespoke diets propelling the quest for personalisation, cultural relevance of non-meat dietary Asian traditions, the creation of a new food language, and economics and inflation.

Data targeting involved manufacturers and providers of meat alternative ingredients and products.

The culmination of the data journey was a visual grid recalling the “innovation matrix” on each page, allowing the reader to understand at a glance the information presented in terms of timeframe, macrotrend and microtrend.

The implementation of the data had to find a balance between creative content and appetising visuals while accurately expressing the dry (but very valuable) research data. We had to find a visual system that would express the data as a clear, pertinent text summary.

Key data points were highlighted with box outs and visuals that represented the future of food and drew the eye to important information.

Ultimately the targeted data gleaned from experts was used to surface rich insights and craft compelling graphics.

The implementation of this data was intended to support behaviour change in plant-based food manufacturer clients by inspiring them to work more deeply with Kerry in getting into new markets and revenue streams.

The ebook was officially launched 24th May 2023, with a soft launch at the Growth Asia Summit. Based on the interest in the ebook, Kerry repurposed it for a post on their KerryDigest blog, essentially taking the content global after its launch to the 8 APMEA markets.

Kerry shared the ebook in a targeted email campaign, achieving a 22% open rate and 18% click-to-open rate. The content had 50,000+ views with 21,000+ search clicks. Their organic LinkedIn post also received over 8,500 impressions.

The ebook has since been available for download on Kerry's main website for the accessibility of a worldwide audience.