Food and Beverage Trends Redefining B2B Digital Commerce

Digital expectations are transforming how food and beverage brands operate, sell, and engage. A recent McKinsey report found that buyers prefer sellers who offer personalized experiences, proactive support, and consistent service, all enabled by digital transformation. These expectations are reshaping the new food and beverage trends that will define how organizations compete in 2026.

Today’s B2B buyers bring consumer behaviours into procurement. Surveys show that 70% of buyers are millennials who expect real-time availability, transparent pricing, and effortless self-service options. This shift, combined with rising market pressures, is redefining the current trends in food and beverage industry operations.

The urgency to modernize has never been greater. By the end of 2025, 80% of B2B sales interactions will happen via digital channels. Organizations that delay this shift risk falling behind more agile, tech-enabled competitors.

These expectations influence every stage of the buying cycle. They shape product discovery, contract negotiation, ordering workflows, fulfillment accuracy, and customer support. Therefore, digital maturity is increasingly becoming a key factor in maintaining long-term competitiveness within the food and beverage market.

What These Shifts Mean for B2B Food and Beverage Sellers

If you sell into the food and beverage sector, these changes are already affecting your customers. They face rising costs, demand volatility, and increasingly complex procurement requirements. They need partners who streamline ordering, accelerate decision-making, and provide stable and predictable experiences.

In this environment, success depends not only on what you sell but also on how easily buyers can engage. Your digital experience must be fast, responsive, reliable, and deeply informative to support procurement teams under growing pressure. As these expectations intensify, they are directly influencing the food and beverage industry trends shaping how companies plan, differentiate, and grow in 2026.They are determining which vendors earn long-term contracts, which platforms can scale with complexity, and which brands can position themselves as essential partners rather than interchangeable suppliers. These dynamics are driving strategic investment toward flexibility, real-time visibility, and customer-centric digital capabilities that support sustained growth in a volatile market.

Top Food and Beverage Trends 2025 Driving B2BTransformation

1. Slower Sales and Pressure on Volumes

Sales are expected to grow only 0.6% in 2025, while volumes may decline by 1.5%. Buyers are ordering smaller quantities and shifting to essential SKUs. They are analyzing pricing more closely than ever before. These conditions support new trends in food and beverage ordering, including subscription-based renewals and volume-driven incentives.

Vendors must offer flexible pricing models that adjust to shifting demand. They also need digital experiences that help buyers compare products, review contracts, and manage replenishment effortlessly.

2. Trade Disruptions and Supply Chain Pressures

Sectors like seafood, sugar, confectionery, and meat face rising exposure to tariffs, logistics volatility, and geopolitical disruption. These factors reduce buyer confidence and disrupt predictable procurement cycles. To protect revenue, sellers are adopting technologies that automate product substitutions and identify comparable alternatives.

These capabilities support consistent fulfillment even when supply fluctuates. They also reinforce trust with buyers who expect reliability despite market instability. Real-time inventory visibility is becoming essential within trends in food and beverage industry planning.

3. Rising Input Costs and Ingredient Volatility

Ingredient cost volatility continues across sugar, cocoa, oils, and packaging materials. Procurement teams need stable pricing structures and deeper visibility into product details. Brands must support detailed product enrichment that helps buyers understand ingredients, certifications, and substitutions.

Robust product data also empowers merchandising and reduces support requests. This need for accuracy reflects broader food and beverage market trends where enriched data is essential for operational resilience.

4. Growing Demand for Health Visibility and Ingredient Transparency

Consumer demand for clean labels, traceability, and functional benefits continues to influence procurement decisions. Attributes like “high protein,” “gluten-free,” or “vegan” now shape assortment strategies. Buyers require clear ingredient listings and verifiable sourcing claims.

Product data expectations are rising across all channels. Many legacy platforms struggle to maintain these standards at scale. This challenge is pushing vendors to adopt composable PIM solutions that support rapid product enrichment. These needs align with the latest trends in food and beverage industry focused on transparency.

5. Digital-First Operations Become Mandatory

Leaner teams, aging workforces, and SKU proliferation are pressuring organizations to accelerate digitization. B2B sellers must scale operations without expanding headcount. Legacy suites often fail to deliver required flexibility or speed.

This shift reinforces a major theme across food and beverage industry trends: modern commerce infrastructure must be modular, adaptable, and fast. Sellers need systems that evolve with changing demand and support continuous innovation.

How Consumer Behaviour Reinforces These Trends

The pandemic introduced lasting changes in consumer shopping habits. When products were unavailable in stores, shoppers turned to online channels for alternatives. Many discovered gaps in D2Ccapabilities, including inconsistent inventory, limited fulfillment options, or confusing product information.

Brands with strong digital foundations maintained loyalty and captured new audiences. Those without flexible infrastructure struggled to pivot. This period highlighted weaknesses across the food and beverage market and emphasized the need for digital readiness.

A clear example of how trends in the food and beverage industry translate into real operational resilience is Danone’s transformation of its consumer engagement model. By adopting a MACH®-based digital D2Cstrategy, Danone strengthened loyalty and ensured product access during critical shortages. Historically reliant on distributors, the company needed direct consumer connections during events like the 2013 baby formula shortage and later the COVID-19 crisis.

With commercetools, Danone rapidly launched scalable, market-specific eCommerce experiences featuring purchase limits and cart functionality, preventing online shortages and supporting high demand. This digital foundation enabled real-time insights and consistent service when consumers needed it most. Today, Danone is extending this model into local B2B markets, streamlining sampling workflows and advancing its broader modernization plan.

How Composable Commerce Enables Strategic Response Across B2B and D2C

Composable commerce gives food and beverage brands the flexibility and speed needed to respond to shifting customer expectations, supply volatility, and rising operational complexity. As food and beverage market trends continue to evolve, these capabilities help organizations move faster, personalize at scale, and maintain resilience across every channel.

Adaptability in Pricing, Promotions, and Offers

Composable commerce supports a wide range of pricing strategies, including volume-based discounts, localized pricing, subscription models, and promotional campaigns. Pricing logic can be adjusted independently without disrupting other services. This allows B2B sellers to meet procurement needs while enabling D2C teams to deliver targeted offers and personalized incentives.

Resilience in Fulfillment and Availability Across Channels

With composable architecture, inventory, order, and logistics systems integrate in real time. Brands gain accurate stock visibility, regional availability insights, and reliable delivery estimates. This is essential for both B2B and D2C customers whose trust depends on fulfillment speed and consistency, especially during supply chain disruptions.

Flexibility in Contract and Customer-Specific Terms

B2B commerce often requires complex commercial structures, including contract pricing, negotiated terms, and account-specific catalogs. Composable commerce supports these requirements natively. At the same time, D2C channels benefit from dynamic promotions, loyalty tiers, and geographic pricing—all managed without hard-coded changes or platform-wide releases.

Rich Product Data for Informed Purchasing Decisions

Composable PIM solutions enable deep product enrichment, capturing ingredients, certifications, dietary tags, sustainability details, and use cases. This level of detail helps B2B buyers compare technical requirements and helps D2C consumers make confident, values-driven decisions. Accurate product data also reduces support inquiries and improves conversion.

Scalable, Experience-Driven Commerce Models

Composable commerce allows brands to roll out new features gradually, such as quick reordering, workflows for quote requests, sample fulfillment, or guided product recommendations. For B2B buyers, this simplifies procurement. For D2C audiences, it strengthens engagement and long-term retention. In both cases, teams can innovate at a sustainable pace while aligning improvements with market demand.

If you’re evaluating eCommerce platforms as part of your digital strategy, our team can help you assess long-term costs and identify the most scalable path forward.

Connect with us to explore how composable commerce can support your goals.