Agri-Food Look-Back and Contrarian Megatrends 2025, Empowered by Consumomics™

After a turbulent cycle of insurgency and fragmentation, 2026 marks a reversal. FutureBridge Agri-Food Look-Back and Contrarian Megatrends 2026 explains why Big Food and Big Ag are no longer reacting — they’re recapturing value.

Decoded through Consumomics™

Our Consumomics™ model maps the behavioral genome driving category performance:
Behavior = (P + E + C + A) × V

• P – Provisioning / Price: Value, affordability, and access thresholds
• E – Emotion & Identity: Food as self-expression and belief
• C – Convenience & Cognitive Load: Friction, choice overload, and simplification
• A – Automaticity / Ritual: Habits anchoring repeat behavior
• V – Trust (Regulatory Genome): The confidence multiplier that determines which signals convert

We score PECA–V for consumers and categories, segmenting shoppers into Consumer Genomes™ — Budget Protectors, Health Optimizers, Habitual Ritualists, Sustainability Champions, and more.

We then quantify U, the latent demand potential, revealing where engineered value can re-emerge.

Contrarian Outlook 2026

2026 is not “the new normal.” It’s the reconsolidation phase of the global food system:

• GLP-1 & Food-as-Medicine compress calories but amplify nutrition value plays
• Ultra-processed backlash matures — science vs story becomes the new brand divide
• Alt-protein reinvents itself around precision inputs, not labels
• Private label evolves into a full innovation platform
• Retailers restructure shelves and partnerships for cognitive simplicity

The conclusion: the advantage shifts back to incumbents who adapt behavioral design, not insurgents trading on identity. 2025 isn’t the end of insurgent innovation. It’s the end of the assumption that label + velocity = destiny. From here on, shelf space and capital increasingly follow the genome.

Contact our experts to uncover how to engineer demand rather than just observe it.