Drinkable yogurt waking up the breakfast category

According to Packaged Facts, drinkable yogurt is one of the fastest growing breakfast foods, logging a growth rate of 20 percent in the past year, and projected to growth another 13 percent by 2022. Growth is attributed to drinkable yogurt products capitalizing off of the nostalgia young adults may have for products such as Danimals, while also appealing to their more grown-up taste buds, nutritional interests and busy schedules.

“There is much room for innovation in breakfast foods,” said David Sprinkle, research director, Packaged Facts. “With the reputation for the most important meal of the day, maximizing the reputation of a product’s nutrition while highlighting its convenience, is critical in appealing to demographics across the board.”

Cereal remains the most popular breakfast food. Adults with young children are most likely to purchase cold cereal based on their kids’ preferences, while older generations are most likely to purchase hot cereal. However, marketers have an opportunity to bridge the hot and cold cereal generation gap, as demonstrated by the explosion in popularity of overnight oats. Overnight oats combine the positive nutritional reputation of hot cereal with the convenience and familiarity of cold cereal and have gained appeal across all generational demographics due to blogging, advertising campaigns and Instagram posts promoting the product.

The yogurt category continues to undergo immense innovation with interesting new product launches. Yogurts with higher fat content, less processing and less sugar are lining the refrigerated aisle. The biggest disruption to the yogurt market, however, is the imminent explosion of plant-based yogurts. The dairy alternatives market is projected to grow to more than US$14 billion by 2022, up from just over $7 billion in 2016, and some of this may be attributed to recent nondairy yogurt innovations.