By Scott Geringer, CEO, Ever Fresh

Why Formulated Ingredient Systems Are the Future of Food

Talk to any product developer about the state of the food and beverage industry today, and a few things immediately become clear. Timelines are shorter. Label restrictions are tighter. Technical complexity is higher. The margin for error is gone. On top of all of this, production and R&D costs continue to rise with little sign of stopping anytime soon. It’s safe to say the food industry we serve today is not the same one we entered decades ago. But why? What are the catalysts behind this rapidly changing environment that companies across all categories are now having to contend with? For starters, our industry, like all others, isn’t immune to the compounding national and global factors outside of our control. Issues like international political and economic instability impacting supply chains or the shifts in trade policy affecting the price and availability of raw materials are all forcing companies to reevaluate how they do business. However, for food and beverage developers, there’s even more.

In recent years, mounting consumer and regulatory pressures have turned innovation from a brand differentiator into a prerequisite for survival. Let alone success. Chief among these is the growing demand for products with cleaner labels. According to a survey conducted by the Acosta Group, 81% of shoppers say it’s important to purchase clean-label food products.  This falls directly in line with data from Innova Market Insights, finding that 2 in 3 consumers globally are at least somewhat influenced by clean labels. They also note that as of 2024, around 1/3 of all new product launches carried some clean-label claim, such as ‘no additives or preservatives’, ‘natural’, ‘organic’, and ‘non-GMO’. This focus on cleaner ingredients is being pushed even further as sweeping changes to regulatory frameworks start to fall into place. It’s also part of a larger industry shift towards healthier offerings and alternatives, which includes the massively influential trends of functional ingredients, better-for-you, and plant-based.

Yet, while healthier, cleaner ingredients might be front and center, an overwhelming craving for new and exciting taste experiences is right there with it. In fact, 66% of consumers welcome novel flavors, with 74% of people actively seeking exotic taste experiences. Younger generations, in particular, are always on the lookout for something new, with over 90% of Gen Z and Millennials saying they actively seek out new food and beverage flavors. With many expressing “the wilder the better”. Still, with all of this on modern developers’ plates, they’re expected to deliver full sensory experiences, meet clean-label expectations, hit nutritional targets, and move from ideation to commercialization better and faster than ever. But how? Navigating these development challenges demands reduced complexity, increased agility, and the ability to move at the increasing speed of innovation.

Developers need more than suppliers, they need dedicated formulation partners to help them overcome the challenges of today while innovating for the needs of tomorrow. They need partners that can offer complete custom solutions that go far beyond what the traditional ingredient-by-ingredient approach could ever achieve. What they need are tailored ingredient systems, designed not for where their product is, but for where they want it to be. At Ever Fresh, this is what we do. We don’t just deliver inputs, we deliver systems. Modular, multifunctional formulations that layer flavor, function, and flexibility into one scalable solution.  These systems enable R&D teams not only to compete but also continue winning over consumers in a rapidly changing food landscape.

R&D’s Growing Need for Integrated Formulation

Staying on top of trends has always meant facing complex technical challenges head-on. Yet,  for today’s R&D teams, this means solving issues and overcoming development roadblocks that weren’t even part of the conversation ten years ago. The goal of products with claims like plant-based, functional, or better-for-you may be to get them to taste and perform the same as conventional offerings, but that is often easier said than done. Whether it’s swirls separating in plant-based dairy desserts, protein fortifications dulling flavor and adding off-notes, or functional claims falling apart under high-heat processing, achieving optimal taste, performance, and stability necessitates comprehensive solutions tailored to a product’s specific needs.

Leveraging extensive ingredient knowledge and formulation experience, Ever Fresh’s dedicated product development team crafts ingredient systems with the desired result in mind. Deep technical understanding of ingredient interactions across a range of applications allows us to design formulation systems that anticipate and solve these challenges—not react to them later. We engineer each system to work across multiple formats, withstand thermal and storage conditions, and deliver consistent sensory results.

By collaborating from the start, we help developers iterate faster and more efficiently, saving not only time but money, allowing them to deliver on shorter timelines while meeting their clean-label, cost, and processing goals.  All of this without sacrificing taste, performance, or quality. Because we know that, above all, the best-tasting products start with the highest-quality ingredients. And the highest quality ingredients start at the source.

How Our Ingredient Systems Begin at the Orchard

From our humble beginnings over fifty years ago through today, we’ve been rooted in the Pacific Northwest tradition of delivering the freshest, highest quality, all-natural fruit. In our minds, sourcing and formulation aren’t separate conversations, but rather the same one. So, while we’ve moved beyond only fruit, we’ve always believed that the best ingredients start at the source. That’s everything we do remains grounded in fostering our strong relationships with the sprawling local orchards of our region.

For decades, we’ve strived to understand the land, the trees, and the people behind some of the world’s best fruit, and this makes all the difference. A difference our customers and consumers can taste. We know that whole, traceable fruit inputs aren’t just more flavorful–they make better products, and that’s why they’re the backbone of our ingredient systems. More than just clean-label appeal, our fruit-derived ingredients offer acidity, texture, natural sweetness, and color to ice cream, frozen desserts, cultured dairy, bakery, beverages, and more. But when paired with complementary components, they become the foundation for truly innovative systems. For example, sweet browns that add caramelized notes, fibers that build mouthfeel, or inclusions that deliver striking visual and flavor impact.  These aren’t trend chasers; they’re essential tools in systems that deliver on multiple levels. This is what makes our tailored ingredient systems more than just flavor solutions, but rather complete performance packages.

However, incredible taste and performances aren’t the only advantage our sourcing footprint in the Pacific Northwest offers our clients. With a reliable domestic supply, we’re able to minimize the risk from tariffs, shipping delays, and global disruptions.  It allows us to provide faster feedback loops, more control over quality, and greater agility when trends shift or specs change. Above all, in a world of swirling uncertainty, it offers consistent results and peace of mind. For us, starting in the orchard isn’t just a heritage story. It’s a resilience strategy that helps our customers stay on trend and ahead of the competition.

Trend-Driven Systems that Actually Work

Recent trend reports are clear: we’ve entered an era that is all about bold global flavors, functional health benefits, nostalgic builds, and fantasy-forward experiences. However, turning those ideas into manufacturable, scalable, stable products is another story. As mentioned before, consumers want more than food and beverages—they want full-sensory taste and texture experiences that excite their imaginations and their taste buds. They want innovation that can reimagine classics, bring the world to their plate, and give them stories they can’t wait to share. This means a need for indulgent texture layering, with a perfect balance of crispy, creamy, and chewy in one bite. It means evoking emotion through flavor like sweet-spicy blends, floral or fermented accents, and colorful inclusions that remind them that their inner child is still very much alive.

Integrating tailored ingredient systems into a formulation makes these trends come to life far beyond the drawing board. Because, while taste is king, that only matters when you’ve already mastered thermal stability, moisture migration, packaging, and cost-per-pound. Ingredient systems take all of this and more into consideration, helping developers get their application across the finish line, fast. With all that said, innovation doesn’t happen in isolation. Turning these ideas into reality requires collaboration and a robust infrastructure equipped to unleash creativity.

The Infrastructure Behind the Innovation

Whether it’s a new startup or an established CPG, Ever Fresh offers all of our partners unrivaled concept-to-shelf collaboration. This means we’re there every step of the way, supporting your product from ideation to commercialization. To help us invest in the success of our customers and take our commitment to agile and intentional collaboration to the next level, we’ve opened our brand-new state-of-the-art Innovation Center.

From rapid sampling and prototyping to application testing and flavor matching, or even reverse-engineering a product to improve performance, we understand that the need for speed is real, and we’ve designed our model to give R&D teams just that and more. Dedicated in-house processing and manufacturing create the flexibility to produce low MOQs, enabling smaller brands to move quickly and larger companies to scale up to as many shelves as possible. Ongoing technical support means your team has a partner, not just a vendor. When we say we’re invested in your success every step of the way, we mean it. 

Shaping the Future of Ingredient Systems

We’ve reached the point where “good enough” is no longer considered either good or enough, and a “quick fix” is anything but. Ingredient systems, on the other hand, give developers improved taste and performance, and a complete custom solution that can take a product to new heights in the minds of shoppers. Incorporating ingredient systems offers a way to build faster, smarter, and more efficiently than a traditional ingredient-by-ingredient approach, with better results.

Moreover, they provide the agility to pivot with trends and regulations, the stability and confidence to weather external issues, and the peace of mind that every product delivered will have the consistently amazing taste and performance consumers deserve. At Ever Fresh, we’re not just watching this shift. We’re leading it.  We’re redefining what a formulation partnership looks like. We’re pushing beyond ingredients and inviting developers, scientists, and food visionaries to think differently about what’s possible. The question is no longer “What do you want to make?” It’s “What do you want it to do?”

If you’re ready to build what’s next, start with formulated ingredient systems.