2027 flavours: doubanjiang, buldak, koji milk

A US menu-data report covered on 15 October tips its flavours for 2027: doubanjiang, buldak, makgeolli, koji milk, hibiscus, the Basque guindilla pepper, salted coconut and banana ketchup. In beverages, brands are moving into Kyoho grape, lychee, yuzu, pandan — and pickle.

The supporting numbers are the useful part. 75% of consumers say they are excited by new flavour trends. Mango is up 48% on menus over four years. Mintel has 56% of Gen Z and young Millennials in the UK finding challenging flavours appealing.

Look at what most of that list has in common

Doubanjiang is fermented broad bean paste. Makgeolli is fermented rice wine. Koji is a fermentation culture. Buldak is built on fermented chilli paste.

Four of the eight headline profiles are fermentation products, which is a different proposition from a fruit note. Fermented character is savoury, complex, and carries compounds that behave very differently in a neutral base than a top note does — funk and umami do not sit politely behind sugar, and they interact with protein and fat in ways a citrus profile never does.

Building them as flavours is possible and usually necessary, because the authentic article is variable batch to batch, often not shelf-stable in the format a manufacturer needs, and sometimes not legal to use at the inclusion rate the taste requires.

The same sourcing trap as last year

A trend list is reliably a list of things that are hard to buy. Yuzu and pandan have been on these lists for years precisely because the fruit does not travel, is seasonal, and is priced accordingly. Guindilla peppers are a regional Basque crop. Nothing on this list got easier to source by being predicted.

This is also why "will it still taste like this in six months" is the question worth asking at the brief stage rather than after the first production run.

One number worth reading carefully

A forecast released on 22 October puts the US functional flavour market at USD 8.7 billion by 2035, growing 3.1% a year.

That growth rate is modest. Compounding at 3.1% is a real market behaving normally, not a gold rush — which is a more useful thing to know before committing a development programme than the headline figure is. Functional ingredients are worth formulating for because they are difficult, not because they are about to explode.

Reporting: BeverageDaily, 2027 flavours · BeverageDaily, bold flavours · openPR