A hot topic at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women summit last week revolved around this figure: The top 25 U.S. food and beverage companies LOST $18 billion in market share to smaller companies last year.
This sparked a debate among leaders of those industry giants about what’s changing in the new “Food Revolution” fueled by Millennials higher standards for transparency.
We’re also seeing how Millennials are influencing the housing market, check out this graphic from The Valuewalk.com
“Millennials are driving a disruption in the food industry,” she said. “I think we’ll see the food industry turned on its head.”
Smolyansky said the future of the food industry is entirely in the hands of smaller companies and that big companies are just not as nimble. Lifeway Foods, the largest U.S. manufacturer of the dairy drink kefir, has annual revenues of about $130 million.
“Consumers look to us to innovate,” Smolyansky Said. “We can make changes really, really fast. Retailers are coming to us asking, ‘What’s going to be the next big thing in food?’”
So what is the next big thing? Expect even further fragmentation in the food industry. The panelists said that health is being redefined—it’s not about fat and calories anymore. It’s about supplementing your diet and not making cuts.
