2026: A Turning Point for Food and Beverage on Health, Tech and Consumer Trends

As January rolls on, we bring you another 2026 outlook episode. This time around, Rob Dongoski and Katherine Black, both partners and business sector leads for management consulting firm Kearney, discuss everything from the Dietary Guidelines and the MAHA movement to tariffs and the cost of food and beverage products in the new year. How is artificial intelligence moving into the grocery and retail space, and what impact do they see from the ultraprocessed foods debate? According to Kearney’s outlook, 2026 is a turning point for food and beverage processors on several levels in a rewired food system, and it could lead to what we at Food Processing are calling “the great reformulation.”