In today’s era, sustained cost pressures and supply volatility are all so familiar in industries worldwide. As a result, everyday food and beverage products continue to be reshaped through formulation, scalability and protection, with the impact increasingly felt by consumers.
42% say high food costs are the biggest source of stress when making food and drink choices, while 62% report that financial cost is a barrier to healthy living. Against this backdrop, manufacturers face growing pressure to ensure that familiar, everyday food and beverage products remain reliable, consistent, and within reach, without compromising quality or trust.
In this article, we dive deeper into how formulation strategies, from multi-functional ingredients and yield optimisation to shelf-life stability, are being used to keep everyday food and beverage products accesible.
Shelf-life and performance stabillity
In 2026, shelf-life protection is increasingly driven by the need to reduce waste, manage cost risk, and ensure reliable product performance over time.
Alongside clean label expectations, manufacturers are increasingly adopting natural and naturally derived preservation approaches, including fermentation-derived ingredients and organic-acid-based systems, to maintain freshness, safety, and quality. These solutions help products remain stable throughout processing, distribution, and storage, while minimising spoilage, returns, and variability.
Shelf-life and performance stability therefore play a direct role in keeping everyday products dependable and accessible, particularly in environments shaped by logistics disruption and fluctuating input costs.
Formulation highlight: A delicate, airy steamed cake designed to deliver consistent texture, freshness, and dependable quality over time.
Formulation highlight: A delicate, airy steamed cake designed to deliver consistent texture, freshness, and dependable quality over time.
AZE-AU-FH-63
Steamed cheese cake, inspired by the Japanese-style cotton cake, is incredibly soft, moist, and simply melts in your mouth. However, creating this delicate, cloudy texture often presents challenges for manufacturers. Achieving the soft and airy textures while ensuring consistency is often difficult. We incorporated the multifunctional NUTRAVA® Citrus Fiber into the dough to enhance its strength and elasticity. This improvement allows the dough to trap more air bubbles and moisture during the steaming process, enhancing the volume and airiness of the cake. It also helps improve ingredient binding, reducing the risk of cracking after steaming. These functionalities of NUTRAVA® ensure consistent production quality. To achieve a consistent taste and flavour, we added cheddar cheese flavour. This savory addition creates a delightful surprise in the recipe. Given the nature of the steaming process, proper preservation is crucial. Thus, we included XTRA GUARD L, a naturally-derived shelf-life extender designed to enhance safety and shelf-life by inhibiting the growth of spoilage organisms and pathogens. Key ingredients: NUTRAVA® Citrus Fiber boost: A label-friendly, upcycled fiber from sustainably sourced citrus peel, NUTRAVA® enhances moisture binding and volume in the steamed cake, resulting in an extra soft and fluffy texture. XTRA GUARD L: A clean label shelf-life extender made from Rowan berry extract, ensuring freshness without compromising taste. Cheese Cheddar Flavour: Delivers a rich and authentic cheddar flavour, adding a savory depth that elevates the overall indulgence of the steamed cake.
Multi-functional ingredients: Simplifying formulations without compromise
To manage formulation complexity and cost exposure, manufacturers are increasingly relying on ingredients that perform several technical roles within a single system.
Ingredients such as citrus-derived fibres, modified starches, and hydrocolloids can contribute to texture, stability, water binding, and mouthfeel simultaneously. By replacing multiple single-function components, these solutions help reduce ingredient count, simplify sourcing, and improve formulation robustness.
This approach is widely applied across beverages, dairy, sauces, and bakery products, where consistency, scalability, and cost control are critical. Multi-functional systems allow manufacturers to maintain performance while improving cost-in-use and reducing formulation vulnerability.
Formulation highlight: A clean-label, low-fat formulation with creamy mouthfeel and stability achieved through fewer, harder-working ingredients.
Formulation highlight: A clean-label, low-fat formulation with creamy mouthfeel and stability achieved through fewer, harder-working ingredients.
AZE-AU-FH-45
As the focus of ice cream trends in the market continue shifting towards texture and health claims of ice cream, consumers are looking out for interesting yet healthier options in ice cream than before. Amongst health claims, reduced/low/no fat claims remain to be one of the most popular claims in the market. Meanwhile, textures remain a major factor to consumers as it is an additional factor to be used to make an ice cream product feel more interesting. With texture and health factors becoming more mainstream in the ice cream market, manufacturers now have the opportunity to innovate in a new manner, instead of just innovating new flavors.Azelis has formulated an ice cream that takes both of these factors into account using NUTRAVATM Citrus Fiber peak. The low-fat ice cream has a more natural taste and texture, similar to homemade ice cream. By adding low amounts of emulsifiers, you can reduce whipping time and melt-down of the ice cream if desired. Additionally, NUTRAVATM Citrus Fiber peak provides excellent mouthfeel and adds fat sensation in a fat reduced ice cream.Our observations using NUTRAVATM Citrus Fiber peak:- Provides stability and viscosity of the ice cream base mix- Enhances air incorporation and reduces ice crystal growth- Improves mouthfeel and reduces syneresis/whey-off- Makes the ice cream taste like homemade- Low amounts of emulsifiers may be added if reduced whipping time and meltdown is desired Why do we think this is interesting?- NUTRAVATM Citrus Fiber peak supports simple and clean label formulations used as sole stabilizer- Emulsifiers can be avoided or reduced, as NUTRAVATM Citrus Fiber peak contributes to some of the same functions- Perception of a less gummy and more natural tasting ice cream- Formulations of egg free or egg reduced formulations- Provides for healthier low/no fat ice cream as NUTRAVATM Citrus Fiber peak adds back fat sensation
Yield and output optimisation: Protecting scale and availability
Yield and output optimisation also remains a key lever for maintaining accessibility in high-volume food and beverage categories. For example, water-binding fibres and functional starches are commonly used to improve moisture retention, stabilise structure, and reduce processing losses during manufacturing.
These solutions help increase finished product output per batch and reduce waste, directly supporting volume continuity and cost management. Especially in applications such as dairy, ready meals, sauces, and bakery, yield optimisation plays a practical role in keeping everyday products available and competitively positioned.
Even modest improvements in yield and processing efficiency can translate into meaningful gains in output consistency, cost-in-use, and overall production resilience at scale.
What this means for manufacturers and brand owners
Affordable accessibility in 2026 is supported by practical formulation and operational choices, in conjunction with pricing strategies. Manufacturers that prioritise:
- Shelf-life stability and waste-reduction strategies to manage risk and ensure consistent product performance
- Yield and output optimisation strategies to minimise processing losses and protect production efficiency
- Multi-functional formulation approaches to reduce ingredient complexity while maintaining performance
- Ingredient sourcing strategies that support continuity and scale, including working with distributors to enable predictable supply, volume efficiency, and logistics optimisation
are better positioned to maintain consistent, scalable, and accessible everyday food and beverage products under sustained economic and supply constraints.
Partner with Azelis
The trends shaping food and beverage in 2026 present interconnected challenges – from delivering purposeful nutrition and sensory satisfaction, to maintaining clean label integrity, product stability and affordability. Successfully navigating these demands requires a systems-based approach to formulation, where health goals, sensory performance, shelf life, processing efficiency and cost considerations work together rather than in isolation.
With global expertise across food and beverage applications, Azelis partners with manufacturers to translate these trends into viable, scalable solutions. From supporting indulgent, mood-enhancing concepts to enabling nutritional reformulation, stability, freshness and yield optimisation, we help bridge insight and execution. Partner with us to bring these trends to life.
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