Health and wellness, veganism, food handling safety, transparent and ethical sourcing, smart factory operations, and sustainability are some recent, recurring themes in the global food and beverage (F&B) industry. What's more, the Covid-19 pandemic shifted the transformation of consumers’ eating and drinking preferences into a new gear, testing the agility and competitiveness of large F&B players.

Incumbent F&B giants are conscious of this ever-changing environment and recognize that innovation in their industry involves the combination of technological innovation with social and cultural innovation. Besides innovating internally by leveraging their well-funded R&D teams, they use investments, partnerships, and acquisitions to augment their product offering and enter new markets.

This Edge Insight delves into the external innovation activities of six top F&B incumbents—Nestlé, Kellogg’s, Danone, Tyson Foods, Coca-Cola, and PepsiCo*—to reveal their emerging industries of interest, their preferred modes of engagement with startups in these emerging industries, and more. Our analysis is derived from SPEEDA Edge’s competitor intelligence portfolio, which provides both a quick overview of all the incumbent activities in the emerging industries space as well as a detailed list of all activities. For this analysis, we have considered the incumbents’ involvement in emerging industries over the past five years (January 2017–July 2022). 

* The innovation activities of Kraft Heinz, a top F&B incumbent, are currently being mapped and will be available on the SPEEDA Edge platform in the near future.