Naas, Ireland—The 2025 North America Taste Charts Smarts from Kerry Group is now available. Built on insights from over 75 distinct product categories, the interactive quiz provides food and beverage industry brands with highly customized insight into the evolving preferences of their consumers and identifies the most inviting flavors of their specific category. Based on the company's two proprietary tracking tools, Taste Trends and Taste Charts, the quiz analyzes consumer testing and proprietary data across sweet , savory, citrus, dairy, salty snacks, and other categories to map flavor performance into four ranks:
- Mainstream
- Key
- Up & coming
- Emerging
Companies are encouraged to combine the data with key points from Kerry's 2025 Taste Trends report, which spotlights broader cultural and functional shits in consumer flavor expectations, to pain a more complete picture of what currently resonates with consumers and what lies ahead. “Our customers aren’t just looking for a list of what’s trending, they’re looking for confidence in their product development decisions,” shared Elizabeth Horvath, VP Marketing, North America. “Taste drives consumer choice. The Taste Charts Smarts quiz encourages food and beverage brands to dig deeper beyond just flavor trends, uncovering taste profiles most appealing by sub-category. Backed by real consumer data, this practical tool turns inspiration into innovation."
Main Takeaways
Kerry and its research serve as a data-driven taste nutrition solutions resource for North American food and beverage innovators looking to outpace the constantly changing demands of their consumers. The 2025 Global Taste Charts Smarts report, specifically, provides developers with a tailored interactive and highly personalized experience to test their flavor instincts against actual consumer preferences to develop new flavors or refine existing products based on what resonates most with their target audience. Report users are able to receive tailored results based on their product category, including:
- The three most appealing flavors in their respective super category – such as cold, dairy, hot beverages, savory, snack, or sweet snacks
- A detailed look at the top-performing flavor in their specific sub-category
- The most relevant 2025 Taste Trends to inspire future flavor innovation—designed to spark further ideation
Additional findings from the report include:
Beverage – Dairy & Hot: Indulgent, creamy flavors like French Vanilla, Milk Chocolate, and Vanilla remain prevalent across markets. Canada leans into seasonal flavors like Pumpkin Spice, while the U.S. embraces innovative flavor trends such as Cookie Butter.
Beverage – Water & Cold Alcohol: Fruity profiles dominate. Canadian preferences lean towards tropical and citrus like Mango, Lime, and Strawberry, while the U.S. consumers are drawn to spirited flavors like Margarita.
Salty Snacks: Classics like Cheddar Cheese and Garlic remain popular across markets. Canada leans towards sweet-savory pairings like Sweet & Salty, while the U.S. leans into Bacon-forward offerings.
Sweet Applications: Both markets enjoy timeless classics like Milk Chocolate. Canada favors comforting dessert flavors like Brownie and Cookies & Cream, while the U.S. explores complex profiles such as Coffee and Coconut.
Savory: Smoky and cheesy notes resonate across both consumer markets. Canada highlights bold, spicy flavors like Applewood Smoke and Buffalo, whereas the U.S. leans into tangy options like Bacon Ranch.
A full version of the report is available here.
