By Barry Landman, Chairman of the Grapefruit Variety Focus Group of the Citrus Growers Association of Southern Africa (CGA)

As the world marks Sustainable Gastronomy Day on 18 June, conversations about food are extending beyond taste and nutrition. Consumers are paying closer attention to where their food comes from and the impact it has on people and the planet.

Nowhere is this shift more evident than among Generation Z. While Millennials helped propel foods like avocados into the mainstream through wellness culture and social media, Gen Z is bringing a new set of priorities to the table. Sustainability, affordability, authenticity and ethical production are increasingly shaping purchasing decisions alongside health and wellness.

For those of us working in agriculture, this raises an important question: what can the changing values of consumers teach us about how we position fresh produce?

Few food products have undergone a transformation quite like avocados. Twenty years ago, they were a relatively ordinary fruit, but today they are a global food phenomenon and, for many, a symbol of the Millennial generation. Their success wasn’t driven solely by taste or nutritional value. It was driven by culture.

Avocados became popular because of a combination of wellness trends, social media, brunch culture and aspirational lifestyles. Their versatility also played an important role, as they could be used in different meals and snacks throughout the day. They weren’t just a food product, they were a reflection of how a generation wanted to be seen in the world.

For those of us working in agriculture today, the avocado story offers an important lesson. The real lesson is not that every fruit should try to become the next avocado. It is that consumers increasingly choose products that align with their values, and those values are constantly evolving.

Millennials helped fuel the rise of wellness culture by embracing healthy eating, organic products and the idea that food could be both nutritious and fashionable. Social media amplified these trends as they posted beautiful photos of their ‘Instagram-worthy’ meals.

Gen Z shares many of those interests, but their priorities are broader. Health and wellness remain important, but growing up in a world shaped by climate concerns, economic uncertainty and constant digital connectivity has influenced how they think about consumption.

They are asking different questions: Where does this product come from? How was it produced? Is it worth the money? For food producers, these shifts matter and we need to understand them and how they impact the demand for a product.

For decades, fresh produce marketing largely focused on product attributes. We told consumers that something was healthy, nutritious or high quality and assumed that would be enough. But it no longer is.

Consumers today are surrounded by choice, and nutritional benefits alone rarely differentiate a product because every fruit and vegetable can make some form of health claim. What sets products apart is their ability to connect with broader consumer values and lifestyles. This is particularly relevant for agricultural products that have historically struggled to attract younger consumers.

As grapefruit growers, we have experienced this challenge firsthand. For years, grapefruit has been associated with older generations, winter breakfasts, and cold-and-flu remedies. Yet many of the characteristics that resonate with younger consumers already exist within the category.

Grapefruit is versatile, affordable and nutrient rich. It can be incorporated into everything from salads and smoothies to desserts and summer drinks. It also has a relatively long shelf life, which helps to reduce household food waste, an increasingly important consideration for environmentally conscious consumers.

At a time when younger consumers are becoming more mindful of the environmental impact of their purchasing decisions, these attributes matter. They are thinking about reducing waste, maximising the use of what they buy, and supporting food systems that are produced responsibly.

This creates an opportunity for categories that may not traditionally have been associated with younger consumers. The challenge is not to change the product, but to change the conversation around it.

We’ve already seen this shift in the way younger consumers engage with food online. Social media platforms and influencers are driving food discovery, recipe inspiration and purchasing decisions. Products that successfully show up in online conversations can quickly gain relevance among audiences that may previously have overlooked them.

For South African SummerStar Ruby grapefruit growers, this insight has shaped our own approach to marketing. Rather than focusing solely on the fruit itself, we have sought to position grapefruit within broader conversations around wellness, summer lifestyle and sustainability.

We launched the campaign in Europe last year, and we’re already seeing a shift in perception. During summer 2025, 67 % of SummerStar Ruby’s Instagram followers and 98 % of its TikTok followers were between the ages of 18 and 34, suggesting that younger audiences are willing to engage with a category that has traditionally struggled to reach them.

Consumption growth won’t happen immediately and history shows that category transformation doesn’t happen overnight. Changing perceptions takes time, and marketing campaigns cannot manufacture cultural relevance in just one season. You need sustained rather than sporadic marketing efforts. I do, however, believe that the future of fresh produce marketing will belong to those who understand not only what consumers eat, but why they choose to eat it.

The avocado success story was never really about the fruit, but about a generation and the values it embraced. The same will be true for Gen Z. The food products that succeed in the coming years will not necessarily be the healthiest, the cheapest or even the most innovative. They will be the products that best reflect the priorities, aspirations and values of a new generation of consumers.

For growers and food producers alike, that may be the most important lesson of all.

Archaea Active^™ unlocks a new class of bioactive ingredients – naturally stable, clean-label, and derived from Earth’s most resilient organisms.

ArchaeaLife, LLC, a biotechnology venture pioneering the use of archaea-fermented biowater, announced the expansion of its platform into food and beverage applications. Drawing on a class of ancient microorganisms, the company has developed a proprietary fermentation process that imbues water itself with a spectrum of bioactive compounds – creating a functional ingredient substrate unlike anything currently available to formulators.

The Archaea Active^™ platform generates structured water enriched with novel metabolites, enzymes, and biofilm-derived compounds that exhibit broad functional activity. In food and beverage contexts, this translates to a versatile ingredient that can serve simultaneously as a processing aid, a natural preservative enhancer, a fermentation accelerant, and a source of bioactive nutritional compounds – all within a single, water-miscible input.

Key food & beverage applications

• Functional Beverages: Archaea Active^™ serves as a base ingredient delivering archaeal metabolites linked to cellular hydration optimisation, electrolyte balance, and gut-microbiome modulation – supporting the growing market for evidence-based wellness drinks.
• Fermentation Enhancement: The archaea-conditioned substrate accelerates and diversifies microbial fermentation in applications ranging from kombucha and kefir to sourdough and cultured dairy, improving yield consistency and flavour complexity.
• Natural Preservation: Archaea-derived antimicrobial compounds incorporated via the biowater matrix extend shelf life in clean-label formulations without synthetic additives – directly addressing regulatory and consumer pressure for transparency.
• Ingredient Stability: Extremophile-origin bioactive compounds demonstrate exceptional thermal and pH stability, retaining functional activity through pasteurisation, retort, and high-pressure processing conditions where conventional bioactives degrade.

About ArchaeaLife, LLC
ArchaeaLife, LLC is a biotechnology company developing commercial applications for Archaea Active™ across six bioscience verticals: human health, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, food science, environmental biotechnology, and diagnostics. The company’s proprietary fermentation platform converts water into a structured, bioactive substrate using extremophile archaea cultivated under controlled conditions. ArchaeaLife, LLC’s technology represents a convergence of water science, microbiology, and metabolomics with broad commercial implications.

Rising consumer demand for convenient, high-protein, and multifunctional beverages is reshaping the global coffee market, with the proffee trend, coffee blended with protein, emerging as one of the fastest-growing developments in functional drinks. The shift is supported by a 2025 Q4 consumer survey¹, which found that 66 % of global respondents stated that their food and drink purchases are always or often influenced by a product’s impact on health and wellbeing, while 61 % said that time and budget considerations shape their choices, according to GlobalData, a leading intelligence and productivity platform.

Originally popularised through social media and fitness communities, proffee has rapidly evolved from a niche lifestyle habit into a commercially significant category. Health-conscious consumers and fitness enthusiasts are increasingly adopting protein coffee as a practical way to boost daily protein intake while maintaining coffee’s familiar taste and energising benefits.

Nishitha Ranga, Consumer Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Consumers are redefining coffee’s role in their daily routines, moving beyond caffeine toward beverages that support broader wellness and performance goals. The proffee trend reflects a growing preference for ‘all-in-one’ drinks that deliver energy, nutrition, and convenience, particularly among younger, health-conscious consumers balancing fast-paced schedules with fitness and wellbeing priorities.”

Functional beverage convergence accelerates category growth

The rise of proffee reflects a broader convergence between traditional beverage categories and sports nutrition. Coffee is increasingly being used as a functional delivery system for protein, vitamins, and other performance-oriented ingredients, mirroring the wider shift toward hybrid beverages that combine multiple health benefits in a single product.

This convergence is being driven by the growing popularity of high-protein diets, the expansion of the fitness economy, and consumer interest in products aligned with weight management, muscle recovery, and sustained energy.

Ranga adds: “Convenience is emerging as a key driver of the proffee trend. With busy lifestyles, beverages that combine caffeine and protein are increasingly used as breakfast replacements, mid-morning snacks, or post-workout recovery drinks. Proffee aligns perfectly with the needs of time-pressed consumers, offering portable, nutritionally balanced, and satisfying options.”

Social media and fitness culture accelerate adoption

Social media platforms and fitness communities have played a critical role in scaling proffee, with influencers promoting it as a convenient post-workout or on-the-go breakfast solution. Viral recipes and lifestyle content have helped normalize adding protein to coffee, expanding the trend’s appeal beyond athletes to office workers, students, and busy professionals seeking sustained energy and improved satiety.

Brands respond with new launches across cafés and retail

The growing popularity of proffee has prompted coffee operators and functional beverage brands to introduce protein-enhanced offerings across both café and ready-to-drink formats.

In September 2025, Starbucks introduced protein-enhanced lattes and cold foam options across stores in the US and Canada, allowing customers to customise beverages with 15–36 g of protein. In the same month, Bulletproof introduced High Protein Iced Coffee, an instant iced coffee mix designed for busy, health-focused consumers, offering 12 g protein per serving from premium whey protein and formulated with no artificial flavours or sweeteners.

In August 2025, Tim Hortons launched hot and iced protein lattes made with a lactose-free, high-protein dairy base, delivering up to 20 g of protein per serving. Beyond major chains, challenger brands have also entered the space. In July 2025, Javy Coffee launched a protein-fortified coffee concentrate aimed at digital-first consumers seeking convenient, clean-label nutrition, delivering 10 g protein per serving.

These launches highlight how the proffee trend is being shaped by both global operators and niche wellness-focused innovators, signalling strong cross-category momentum.

Ranga concludes: “The proffee trend illustrates how consumer expectations around beverages are evolving from single-purpose refreshment to multifunctional nutrition. Brands that successfully balance taste, texture, and credible protein delivery will be best placed to capitalise on this shift. As the functional beverage market continues to diversify, proffee is likely to remain a key driver of innovation within the global coffee industry.”

¹GlobalData 2025 Q4 global consumer survey was conducted with 22,613 respondents across 42 countries.

Qura Creatine, a challenger ingredient brand offering a unique combination of ultra-purity, solubility and transparency, is promising a “long overdue” alternative in the market for premium creatine monohydrate.

As well as rapidly growing, the global creatine supplements market is diversifying. In addition to traditional benefits for performance, creatine consumers are now targeting areas like brain health, cognition and women’s health, and seeking modern product formats.

But despite its increasingly broad customer base, the B2B market for premium creatine is currently dominated by a single player. For many years brands and formulators seeking high-purity creatine monohydrate backed by comprehensive documentation had to rely on a well known German supplier.

The launch of Qura Creatine, a next generation creatine monohydrate, is set to disrupt this status quo. It promises not just a credible alternative to the current market leader, reducing risks resulting from supply shortages, but also a step change in the category.

Designed for brands seeking to exceed consumer expectations and offer innovative new formats, Qura Creatine is built on three pillars:

• Ultra-purity: Qura Creatine offers the highest purity currently available on the market (>99.95 % as supported by independent verification).
• Transparency: Each batch is fully traceable and independently tested in the EU and USA to support safety, provide anti-doping assurance, and meet global regulatory requirements.
• Solubility: Modern creatine delivery systems like stick packs and beverages require high solubility. Unlike traditional creatine monohydrate products, Qura Creatine is specially engineered for excellent solubility and rapid dispersion.

Michael Hekking, Co-Founder of Qura Creatine, said: “With demand for high-quality creatine rocketing and consumers crying out for innovative new products, it’s unsustainable for the market to be a near-monopoly. Qura Creatine will introduce long overdue choice in a segment that has been static for too long, reducing the risk of supply being unable to keep up with demand. But more than that, its combination of purity, effortless solubility, transparency and independent verification represents an evolutionary leap forward in the category. We’re going to redefine what ‘premium creatine’ truly means.”

Qura Creatine is carefully designed to meet the parameters required for modern manufacturing. In controlled internal testing (available to view at https://tinyurl.com/yx7urvy4) it has demonstrated faster dispersion than a leading premium creatine. Grit and bitter aftertaste have been eliminated, and its mesh size makes it ideal for multiple formats, including sachets as well as tablets and capsules.

Michael Hekking, Co-Founder of Qura Creatine, added: “In today’s creatine monohydrate market, where consumers want greater choice and brands are moving towards new formats, purity alone is not enough. The future of the category has to be about innovation and demonstrable utility: we’re focusing on how creatine actually performs. As well as offering formulators the quality, scientific substantiation and transparency they now expect, Qura Creatine is specially engineered for the next generation of creatine formats.”

Qura Creatine is produced and co-packed in FSSC 22000 and IFS-certified facilities, and is vegan, kosher and halal-compliant. It will be showcased at Vitafoods Europe in Barcelona.