For more Packaged Food than two decades, MarketPlace—a strategic branding and marketing firm—has been a leading source of consumer insights, industry intelligence, and innovation strategy for companies in the supplement, food, beverage, and pet sectors. Since its founding in 2002, the company has provided a unique blend of category expertise and research-driven insights to help brands position themselves effectively in rapidly evolving markets. Now, MarketPlace is entering a new era with the expansion of its research offerings through its dedicated research division, Nextin Research™, and the release of its highly anticipated 2025 Food Trends report.
This latest development reflects MarketPlace’s continued commitment to equipping consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, ingredient suppliers, investors, and retailers with actionable intelligence that drives innovation and results. With Nextin Research, MarketPlace is extending its research capabilities beyond client engagements to offer the industry at large access to proprietary insights on the future of consumer behavior.
Nextin Research: MarketPlace’s Innovation Engine
Nextin Research represents a major evolution in MarketPlace’s service model. Positioned as the company’s future-casting research arm, Nextin is designed to explore the ever-changing dynamics of consumer preferences and behaviors across the food, beverage, supplement, and pet markets. But this is more than just a trend-spotting effort—Nextin leverages MarketPlace’s extensive hands-on experience in commercialization, brand building, and product development to deliver a multidimensional, practical perspective on market data.
What sets Nextin apart is its focus on integrating research findings into strategic frameworks that companies can use to build meaningful connections with consumers. Rather than simply presenting data points, Nextin’s insights are curated, interpreted, and visualized through the lens of real-world application—whether it’s identifying whitespace for new product development, fine-tuning marketing campaigns, or refining go-to-market strategies.
“Since 2002, MarketPlace has helped CPG brands, B2B enterprises, major retailers, ingredient companies, and investors anticipate what’s next,” said Tracy Landau, President and Founder of MarketPlace. “Consumer research has been core to MarketPlace’s strategy-first approach and instrumental in driving results for our clients. Through Nextin, we’re able to offer rich data and revelatory insights to the industry at large so companies can innovate with purpose and vision.”
The 2025 Food Trends Report: Understanding the Modern Consumer
At the heart of the Nextin Research platform is its flagship offering—the 2025 Food Trends report. This comprehensive research study delves into the behaviors, attitudes, preferences, and unmet needs of today’s consumers to forecast key trends shaping the future of packaged foods.
Based on a national survey of 1,235 U.S. consumers, the report provides a panoramic view of the packaged food landscape. From dietary motivations to purchasing channels and information sources, the report connects consumer perspectives with macro-level market movements to highlight both emerging trends and long-term shifts in demand.
Among the topics covered are:
- Protein and fiber fortification: Consumers are increasingly seeking nutrient-dense foods that offer added functional benefits, particularly related to satiety and digestive health.
- Snacking trends: With the rise of flexible eating patterns, snacking has become a focal point for innovation. The report explores how snack choices intersect with convenience, health goals, and indulgence.
- GLP-1 usage: As weight management drugs like GLP-1 agonists gain traction, consumer needs and eating behaviors are shifting. The report examines how these medications influence food choices and purchasing behavior.
- Functional food evolution: From adaptogens to nootropics, functional ingredients are driving innovation across categories. The report highlights what benefits consumers are prioritizing and where the biggest opportunities lie.
Nextin’s analysis includes detailed segmentation of the consumer base, uncovering nuanced differences across age groups, health motivations, and media engagement. This level of granularity enables companies to tailor their offerings and communications to specific target audiences.
“Audience segmentation can help brands meet their ideal consumer where they’re at,” explained Nicole Hill, Vice President of Strategy and Innovation at MarketPlace. “Given the fragmented media landscape, consumers are engaged in and influenced by multiple channels. While those aged 18-29 are most likely to get food information from TikTok, those who are participating in a weight management program or using a GLP-1 agonist are more likely to turn to recipe websites and apps (41%) or YouTube (41%). We highlight these insights in our report, and our research packages include raw data for further segmentation analyses.”
A Turnkey Research Solution for Product Developers and Marketers
One of the key advantages of Nextin Research is its turnkey format, designed for immediate utility by product developers, marketers, and innovation teams. Each research package includes:
- A deep-dive insights report with narrative summaries, key findings, and forward-looking analysis.
- Presentation-ready charts and tables in PowerPoint format, with embedded Excel data for customization and further exploration.
- Raw survey data and summary tables, enabling in-house analysts to perform their own segmentation and hypothesis testing.
These resources make it easy for business teams to integrate research insights directly into decision-making processes. Whether a company is planning a new product launch, reevaluating a brand strategy, or looking to better understand shifting consumer priorities, Nextin delivers a high-impact, user-friendly research solution.
Ongoing Research Across Growth Categories
The 2025 Food Trends report is just one of several ongoing initiatives within the Nextin Research pipeline. Future and in-progress reports include studies on:
- Beverage trends: Exploring shifts in hydration, energy, and functional beverage preferences.
- Supplement consumers: Understanding motivations behind supplement usage and evolving delivery formats.
- Women’s health: Examining nutrition and wellness priorities among female consumers.
- Pet nutrition: Investigating how pet owners are making decisions about pet food, treats, and supplements.
With new studies being launched on a rolling basis, MarketPlace aims to position Nextin Research as a go-to resource for CPG professionals seeking to stay ahead of the curve.
Empowering Innovation Through Insight
MarketPlace’s move to expand its research capabilities with Nextin reflects a broader trend in the industry—one where data, strategy, and creativity intersect to fuel meaningful innovation. In a time when consumer preferences are increasingly complex and fast-moving, the ability to understand and act on emerging signals has never been more critical.
By making its research accessible through Nextin, MarketPlace is not only reinforcing its position as a thought leader in CPG strategy but also democratizing access to high-quality, actionable consumer intelligence.
