Innovation · 4 min read
What should the food of the future look like?
Five health and nutrition megatrends for 2026 — and why healthy alone will no longer be enough.
Following recent nutrition and health trends, I find myself returning more often to one question: What should the food of the future look like?
The Kerry Health and Nutrition Institute report “Five Key Health and Nutrition Megatrends for 2026” approaches this question from a broad perspective. Its five headline themes are:
- Nutrition for health and longevity
- Regulation and product reformulation
- Emerging new technologies
- The processed food paradox
- Nature, biodiversity and resilience
Living healthier for longer, not just living longer
What struck me most is that “living healthier for longer” is becoming as important as “living longer”.
Gut, immune and cognitive health; personalised nutrition; the new needs created by GLP-1 medications; and affordable functional products are no longer separate topics. They are all becoming parts of a more holistic understanding of health.
A balanced view of processed foods
Another important topic is how we approach processed foods. As we move towards more natural, less processed products, we should not overlook what processing offers for food safety, fortification, shelf life, accessibility and reducing waste.
The key takeaway
The successful food products of the future will not only be healthy. They will also have to be delicious, accessible, transparent, science-based and sustainable.
We are entering a period in which human health and planetary health cannot be considered separately. That is genuinely exciting — and I believe real innovation will emerge exactly where these two needs meet.
Which of these five trends do you think will transform the food industry the most?
Source: Kerry Health and Nutrition Institute, “Five Key Health and Nutrition Megatrends for 2026”.
Dr. Gonca Güzel Ünal, RD, MBA, PhD · Join the discussion on LinkedIn