Bell Flavors & Fragrances is excited to announce the 2021 Spark platform, identifying the key trends that will lead the way to new innovations within the flavor and fragrance industry. The Spark platform serves as the origin of imagination, the essence of creativity and the future of what’s to come in the flavor and fragrance industry.

The 2021 platform has been reconstructed to take a longer term view identifying five key consumer macro trends that will serve as a foundation for today and into the future. These global macro trends represent the core behavioral values that are present in all humans combined with the technology innovations and market dynamics that are shaping how consumers behave and what the future of flavors, fragrances and ingredients will look like next year and beyond.

Bell’s 2021 global Spark trends touch on all areas from overall wellness to reward and indulgence. They focus on paying it forward to mother earth and the ways consumers have engaged with each other in the new virtual environment we’ve all had to endure. Finally, the platform speaks to a state of escapism where we are seeing new ways flavors, fragrances and botanicals are being used by consumers to experience the exotic and the familiar from their own homes.

Finding silver linings

Every moment in life offers the opportunity to learn something about the world, including the things that make people feel comforted, worthwhile, rewarded and even whimsical in the most unexpected times. Finding the silver lining encompasses this sense of purpose and delight consumers encounter through every taste and smell experienced.

MicroTrends: Nostalgia, Enjoying Rewards, Home-style

Well-balanced

The wellness trend is continuously evolving as consumers focus more on self-optimized nutrition, personal care, and fitness, among others.

Through a new lens of holistic health adopting a comprehensive approach to mental, physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing consciously establishing habits and routines aimed at enriching one’s core values.

MicroTrends: Moods and Emotions, Self-Care, Functional Ingredients

Escapism

Curiosity is one of the main drivers of human nature. The union of imagination, exploration and experience opens new worlds as new realities are reimagined into multi-sensorial experiences. Consumers today engage and escape through the senses; by the transporting power of technology or of the mind, blurring the boundaries between real life and fantasy.

MicroTrends: Inward, Get Away, Multi-Sensorial

Global consciousness

Sustainability is not just a trend, it’s a way of life. It’s a series of social, economic, and environmental factors that promote a self-sustaining, well- balanced lifestyle. Daily choices have a major impact on the world and a consumers’ role is to pay it forward to Mother Earth protecting her from harmful practices, while preserving cultures, traditions and what makes humans, human.

MicroTrends: Diverse Humanity, Sustainability, Preservation

Together apart

While the physical and emotional distance between humans has increased, connections have become more robust as technology has shaped the future to be worlds apart, but closer than ever imagined. As a basic need to communicate through the senses has become a challenge, many typical experiences like a home-cooked meal or the smell of a rose have become virtual creating a new togetherness in how people experience the world.

MicroTrends: Connectivity, Joy of Missing Out, Innovation