Yuzu, guava and dragonfruit are leaving the speciality aisle

The 2026 reporting has tropical and exotic profiles — yuzu, starfruit, guava, dragonfruit — moving out of speciality and into mainstream formulation. It sits alongside a broader number: food and beverage launches featuring flavour ingredients rose 22% year on year between April 2024 and March 2026.

The part nobody puts in the trend piece

A tropical profile is usually a sourcing problem before it is a flavour problem. Many of these fruits do not travel well, are seasonal, and are priced accordingly — which is precisely why they were speciality in the first place. Building the profile as a flavour rather than relying on the fruit is often the only way the product survives contact with a cost sheet.

There is also a stability question. The bright top notes that make yuzu read as yuzu are the fragile ones, and a profile that is beautiful at bench scale can flatten after pasteurisation or three months on a shelf. Both are answerable, but they are answered at the formulation stage, not afterwards.

Alongside it: function

The same reporting has consumers pushing on functional ingredients — fibre, adaptogens — for physical and emotional health. Those bring their own flavour consequences, and most of them are bitter, astringent or both. Masking is its own discipline, and it is usually what the brief is really asking for.

Reporting: Food Business News · Mintel · Food Ingredients First