Longevity and weight management are driving food and beverage innovation - summary
- Longevity is a $23bn market and projected to reach $63bn by 2035
- Ageing consumers want products that support energy and cognition
- Functional foods with mushrooms, adaptogens and nootropics are rising in the longevity space
- Weight loss is a $142bn market and growing fast
- Consumers want science-led, results-driven and lifestyle-fit weight-management solutions
The food and beverage industry is endlessly chasing trends. From gut health to indulgence and everything in between.
But what matters most to consumers right now?
Research from Lumina Intelligence, commissioned exclusively for FoodNavigator, has found that longevity and weight loss continue to dominate the space, and what’s more, their power is growing.
So what makes these trends so powerful, and how can food and beverage innovate to serve them?
Longevity
The growth of the longevity trend has been swift and undeniable. In fact, it’s gotten so big, it’s now considered a market in its own right.
Boasting a value of $23bn (€20bn), the longevity market is projected to almost triple ($63bn) over the next decade, thanks to a powerful 10.3% CAGR (market analysts Market Research Future).
“Longevity has broken out of the medical niche and into mainstream consumer aspiration,” says Nandini Roy Choudhury, principal consultant for food and beverage at market specialists Future Market Insights.
This shift, she says, can be attributed to the convergence of three market forces:
- Demographics: Western populations are ageing, and older consumers today are far more affluent, digitally engaged, and proactive about self-care than prior cohorts. They’re less focused on treating illness and more interested in preserving function - mobility, cognition, energy, and skin health, so they can extend their healthspan, not just lifespan
- Biohacking and preventive health: The growth in understanding of these concepts has reframed ageing as modifiable. Wearables, continuous trackers, and at-home biomarker tests have made risk factors visible and empowered people to act
- The post-pandemic reset: The global impact of the coronavirus pandemic shifted priorities from appearance and short-term goals to resilience and risk reduction - consumers now read ingredients and outcomes through a prevention lens.
Meanwhile, on the supply side, brands have normalised longevity language by placing familiar benefits, such as sleep, stress, and metabolic health, under the ageing-well umbrella.
Retailers are also curating ‘healthy ageing’ sets across supplements, functional beverages, and ready-to-eat foods, reinforcing the idea with consumers.
Functional ingredients for longevity
With a current value of $398bn, the functional food and beverage industry is undoubtedly booming. And it keeps on getting bigger, with a projected value of $793bn by 2032 (market experts Fortune Business Insights).
And like all health and wellness trends, longevity is powering its growth. But what ingredients are consumers in the longevity space looking for?
“For longevity, the most promising ingredients are those that touch multiple ageing pathways - inflammation, mitochondrial function, metabolic control, stress response - with emerging human evidence and good safety profiles,” says Future Market Insights’ Choudhury.
Three clusters, says Choudhury, stand out:
- Medicinal mushrooms (lion’s mane, reishi, chaga, cordyceps etc.): Medicinal mushrooms combine beta-glucans (immune modulation) with specific compounds associated with neurotrophic effects (lion’s mane), stress resilience and sleep quality (reishi), and perceived energy/VO₂ improvements (cordyceps). Mushrooms also excel at “stacking” benefits - immune tone, gut support (prebiotic fibres), and stress - all central to healthy ageing
- Adaptogens (ashwagandha, rhodiola, ginseng, tulsi etc.): Chronic stress accelerates biological ageing. Adaptogens, with consistent human data on sleep quality, cortisol moderation, perceived stress, and mild cognitive performance translate well into longevity narratives
- Nootropics (citicoline, L-theanine, bacopa, phosphatidylserine etc.): Cognitive health is a primary ageing-well fear. Nootropics paired with omegas and B-complex can support attention, working memory, and mental fatigue.
Longevity has evolved into a mainstream wellness priority, reshaping consumer habits and driving innovation across food and beverage. As ageing well becomes a lifestyle goal, functional ingredients targeting resilience, cognition, and stress are gaining traction.
Weight loss
Weight loss has been big business for decades and, with the advent of GLP-1 drugs, its power is only getting stronger.
It’s already worth well over $142bn, and is projected to reach $298bn by the end of the decade - fuelled by a CAGR of 9.94% (market researchers Grand View Research).
Having said that, FoodNavigator’s report findings placed weight loss lower (#8) in the global charts than longevity (#2) indicating that while it is still an enormous industry, it remains niche in the overall health and wellness space. Oh and in case you were wondering, ‘getting more sleep’ took the top spot overall.
But while the number of people prioritising weight loss might be lower than longevity, the market potential for products which serve the sector is just as powerful.
“Lower total mentions alongside high priority signals a concentrated, motivated segment that behaves very differently from the general population,” says Future Market Insights’ Choudhury. “These consumers index high on goal commitment, willingness to pay for efficacy, and tolerance for habit change - if they perceive real progress in weeks, not months.”
Brands, explains Choudhury, should treat this as a performance segment with athlete-style playbooks - structured protocols, progress tracking, and staged product systems (kick-off, cut, stabilisation, maintenance).
Consumers, she says, should be approached with a dual-track model:
- Clinical-style bundles: High-satiety protein, fibre preloads, glucose-steadying snacks, electrolytes, caffeine/theanine focus tools, paired with behavioural scaffolding - app check-ins, habit stacking, and community challenges
and
- Lifestyle-friendly formats: Ready-to-drink, portion-controlled savoury, high-protein “treat” replacements that collapse friction at trigger moments (late night, travel etc.).
Functional ingredients for weight loss
As with longevity, sales of functional food and beverage products for weight loss are growing fast.
- Protein: Protein remains the most sought-after ingredient for weight management as it hits multiple physiological levers at once - satiety (PYY/GLP-1 pathways), thermic effect, lean-mass preservation during caloric deficit, and glycemic smoothing when paired with carbohydrates. It’s also simple to communicate to consumers, easy to incorporate into food and beverage products, and broadly acceptable across diets.
That said, other ingredients are gaining ground and can enhance outcomes:
- Viscous fibres & prebiotic blends (glucomannan, inulin, resistant starch etc.): These improve fullness, lower post-prandial glucose, and support microbiome shifts linked to appetite regulation
- Electrolyte and hydration strategies: Subtle but impactful on energy, exercise adherence, and snack control
- Polyphenols (apple polyphenols, bergamot, green tea catechins etc.): Modest direct effects - best as adjuncts in metabolic stacks.
“Protein is still the primary on-ramp,” says Future Market Insights’ Choudhury. “But brands that pair dose-right protein with fibres, micronutrients (magnesium, potassium etc.), and timing protocols deliver superior real-world adherence and outcomes - especially for mid-life consumers protecting lean mass.
Food and beverage potential
As consumers increasingly prioritise long-term health and tangible results, the food and beverage industry faces a pivotal opportunity - to move beyond fleeting trends and deliver science-backed, lifestyle-aligned solutions.
Whether targeting healthy ageing or weight management, the brands that succeed will be those that combine innovation with integrity - meeting consumers where they are, and helping them get where they want to go.
Future Food: the inside scoop on consumer insights
A new report from FoodNavigator and Lumina Intelligence reveals consumer barriers to adopting new ingredients, technologies, and ultra-processed foods, as well as the opportunities to drive change and sales.
A total of 9,500 consumers were surveyed across 13 countries: the UK, US, China, Japan, South Korea, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Australia, India, Malaysia, and Singapore.
