Americans are no stranger to food innovation—and this year alone, we’ve seen the launch of Cinnadust Bacon, THC-spiked Giardiniera, and hot fudge sundae flavored Liquid Death in grocery stores and online marketplaces. While categories like candy, baked goods, and spices dominate new product launches, other areas remain untapped, offering opportunities for brands to disrupt in 2025. 

How Innovation Manifests Itself

Innovation in CPG can take many forms. Here are five major avenues that CPG companies can pursue to make something new or put a twist on a classic favorite this year:

Packaging: Product packaging shapes customer perceptions. Graza revolutionized olive oil with a squeeze bottle and gained attention with refills in tallboy-style aluminum cans.

Flavors: Flavor innovation draws from global cuisines and cross-category inspirations, like Better Sour’s gummy candy or Kraft’s everything bagel mac and cheese shaking up their respective categories.

Functionality: Innovators take an ingredient that has some functional property and add it to a normal food or beverage to enhance it, like adding cognitive-enhancing reishi and lion’s mane mushrooms to ground coffee.

Health and Diet: Home cooks and entrepreneurs alike ask themselves: How can I take this thing I love and tweak it to fit my new diet or lifestyle? Ice cream is the perfect example ranging from classic dairy to ketogenic or plant-based options.

Convenience: How can a product be easier to consume, or more frequently consumed? 

Pitch Tank: Products Ripe for Innovation

Using SPINS sales data, we identified subcategories perfect for the energetic entrepreneur to shake up the new year using the major avenues of CPG innovation. Innovation rate is measured as the number of new products divided by the total number of products in the subcategory.

Packaging: Squeeze Bottle Maple Syrup 

How many times have you or your kids attempted to open a crusty maple syrup bottle only to make a sticky mess? Innovators should take a page out of Graza’s playbook and package premium maple syrup in a dripless, well-designed squeeze bottle. With a 2% innovation rate and only 51 new products launched in 2024, it could stand out in the sea of brown plastic jugs and glass bottles and make the experience of using it that much better. 

Flavor: Decadent Rice Cakes

It’s hard to imagine a category of foods that’s marketed more to dieters than rice cakes. Sales of rice cakes boom in January and bust shortly thereafter with only a 2% innovation rate. Follow Liquid Death’s playbook and twist that health halo into a decadent set of devil’s horns. Enrobing rice cakes in chocolate has already been done—go a step further with fun ingredients or inclusions like marshmallows or cookies and cream to transform from health-conscious snack into a crispy, crunchy, gluten-free treat. 

Functional: Caffeinated Orange Juice

Orange juice, a staple breakfast beverage of the past, hasn’t seen much change in the last 30 years. The refrigerated orange juice category had 43 new products launched at 3% innovation rate for $97M yearly sales this year. Coffee and energy drinks have been steadily rising in popularity and the controversial success and withdrawal of Panera’s Charged Lemonade proved that a caffeinated fruit drink could be popular. Add in the launch of caffeinated chocolate milk this year from Spylt and caffeinating orange juice doesn’t seem so crazy.

Health & Diet: Protein Packed Tofu

Yogurt has seen success with protein-packed SKUs, which are supplemented with whey powder to reach 30 grams of protein per serving. Similarly, pea protein powder or other plant-based sources could be used to increase the protein content in traditional tofu. This category is primed for growth, with only 10 new products launched in 2024 and a low 2% innovation rate. Packaging could be designed to appeal to fitness enthusiasts or GLP-1 users looking for a protein boost. Additionally, innovators should explore options beyond the traditional cube—silken tofu smoothies in squeeze pouches could offer a more convenient way to enjoy this healthy, sustainable alternative to animal products. 

Convenience: Air Fryer Friendly Cookie Dough 

Last year, refrigerated cookie dough gained $18M in yearly sales but only 26 new items launched for a 5% innovation rate. In the time it takes to preheat the oven to 350 degrees, most people could whip up a batch of cookie dough. Skip the big oven and get hot cookies in 10 minutes with the help of an air fryer. Sure, you can bake cookie dough in an air fryer now; the innovation here is marketing it purely towards air fryers. Another bonus: small batches are the name of the game here, which is perfect for portion control and treating yourself responsibly.

While some of these ideas might have been done before, it’s important to note first to market doesn’t always mean first to success. Remember, the first electric vehicle was built in the 1800s—and they’re finally seeing widespread success today. Innovation can take many forms; sometimes it’s just as simple as taking one great thing from another category and blending it together. At SPINS, we encourage brands to shake it up. Find the set of products that hasn’t changed since your mom or dad was your age and usher in a new era of excitement.

For more predictions and data that will help fuel your success in the new year, don't miss the SPINS 2025 Trends Report. WF