Are we entering an era of “Sensory-led brands”?

Here at TBN we’ve attended both the Winter and Summer Fancy Food shows for about 16 years now. The Winter West Coast show less so in previous years but going out to the USA and seeing these shows in the flesh teaches you one thing quickly – the show isn’t necessarily just about new products: it’s about potentially setting new agendas for food and drink.

In past years we’ve written extensively about these things, and we may well be among the first to have seen Pop Chips, the emergence of Charcuterie Boards, ingredients like Hot Honey/Black Garlic, Wellbeing and the endless benefits of mushrooms etc.

The 2026 show was no exception. It was about ‘new permissions’ and what I mean is that brands are increasingly coming up with new combinations that buyers are seemingly comfortable listing. There are new visual codes that consumers are instantly understanding, and the rate of consumer adoption/acceptance is for me becoming much quicker.

The Winter FancyFaire in San Diego didn’t just showcase innovation, it made a clear assertion that we’re moving from a world of claims to a world of sensations.

The Specialty Food Association of America aptly named their food trend of 2026 ‘SenseMaxxing’ a shift toward sensory eating where taste, texture and aroma are now key selling components.

Here are 5 thoughts about how the promised new agenda might come to fruition in the next 12 months:

 

1) First Bite Theatrics

For a decade if not longer, many challenger brands have been built on a virtuous platform: free-from, clean dec, sustainable, ethical, ‘some’ profits to charity etc.

Those things still exist and matter, but they’ve stopped being differentiators because everyone else in the category is doing the same.

Possibly a winning strategy moving forward is to clearly communicate a ‘memorable sensory moment’ that can be captured in one sentence and ‘felt’ from the very first bite

The ‘Sofi’ winners at this year’s show did some of these things really well:

 

Red Jacket Orchard / Joe’s NY Style Lemonade

A lemonade that claims a “New York style” descriptor as a taste expectation, not just a heritage story from a farm that’s been around since 1958

Top Seeds / Bake At Home Crackers

A bake-at-home seed cracker that makes the format and the cooking involvement the hero, not just ingredients

 

UMYUM / Soft Cheese

A soft cheese that leads with za’atar + spice not simply as an ingredient of flavour varietal, but as an everyday staple for the fridge

 

2) Packaging that’s ‘Instantly Interesting’

An interesting observation from the awards was that the Outstanding Packaging award sits alongside Product of the Year. For the first time I felt that the industry is admitting that what we see in retail really matters – packaging is (and always has been) a major decision driver.

Angel Oak Smokehouse took the top packaging award not because the packaging is just “pretty” but because it does 3 things well:

• Communicates premium fast
• Frames the product as value
• Reduces perceived risk (“this is going to taste great – I know how to use it”).

 

3) The rise of Ambient Premium

Another quiet theme was the elevation of ambient formats. With typical US panache they were calling it “Shelf-Stable Chic” and I think this will be a key consideration for 2026. The idea is not just about convenience, it’s about permission to premium’ise everyday products like honey, condiments, crackers and tinned seafood.

The winners list reinforces that ambient doesn’t mean “compromise” it increasingly means considered, giftable, collectible. An interesting lens for me on this is in the UK we’ve got Fortnum’s, high end garden centres and small artisan markets where this kind of stuff is sold week in, week out. I wonder why it’s taken the US so long to work out that up-market ambient is a really smart idea!

For brands, this is huge especially in the US as ambient grocery categories give you better distribution but only if your brand builds a ‘reason to believe’ when the rational differences are small.

 

4) “Global” is no longer a claim

The term “global flavours” has been around for years, but 2026 feels different: global isn’t a trend – it’s table stakes. The SFA trend language points to bolder, more promiscuous mixing of flavour references, and trade coverage from the show also highlights global flavour cues and functional/healthier formulations as repeated innovation territories.

What changes for brand owners is the creative standard. Simply adding a global ingredient isn’t enough.

The new winners tend to compose global references in a way that feels intentional and repeatable – something you can build a range system around, not just a one-off SKU.

 

5) What “top brands” really means in 2026

When people ask “what are the top brands coming out of the show?”, they usually mean “who’s about to make it big?”

But from a brand strategy perspective, “top” often means something else: which brands can and will be copied.

• Red Jacket Orchards lemonade is copyable because it sells a specific taste promise (New York) with a strong cultural shorthand
• Top Seedz is copyable because it reframes a familiar category through format theatre (bake-at-home).
• UMYUM is copyable because it’s seeking to normalises the spice adventure in an everyday product like spreadable cheese

These are the brands that act a bit like category influencers, not just product makers.

So, what should brands do with this?

If you’re building (or rebuilding) a food brand in 2026, Winter FancyFaire is basically giving three clear clues as to what to do:

1. NPD wise – Design for sensation, not just the story
   Your origin or founders story is ok. But your crunch, melt, fizz, heat, snap, pop, is what people will remember
2. Treat packaging as performance
   Not only “distinctive assets” in isolation but a conversion system: think about navigation, appetite appeal, usage confidence, premium cues and range logic
3. Build a world range, not just a hero SKU
   The most investable brands are those with a clear logic for extension (formats, flavours, behaviours, occasions) because buyers aren’t just betting on one product anymore; they’re betting on a system or an entire range

And for me the real post-show takeaway was that the brands that make people ‘feel’ something quickly are good but those brands that can then scale that feeling are going to be the winners in the end.

Words by James Acton

Is Asia rewriting the aviation experience through design?

At The Brand Nursery, we’ve always believed that design has to have genuine purpose and should always be more than just decoration. During my recent visit to the 2025 Future Travel Experience show in Singapore I was buoyed to see that the APAC award winners during the show clearly support that belief as well.

Innovation in aviation rarely shouts and screams about its arrival, it tends to appear cautiously and quietly. For example, things like biometric e-gates that recognise you before you’ve reached them, autonomous/unmanned tugs that glide silently across the tarmac and electronic baggage tags that carry unfathomable amounts of personal data about the owner. No theatrics, just quiet purposeful progress.

At the 2025 Asia-Pacific Pioneer Awards a subtle revolution was taking place. From Tokyo to Singapore to Shenzhen, the region’s airlines and airports are making a statement that design-led thinking is no longer just a nice to have or a differentiator, it’s becoming the operating system of modern aviation.

The Craft of Design

What stood out for me was not technology for technology’s sake, but the way businesses are treating technology as a material as opposed to an operating system. It’s something to be shaped and humanised through craft and design.

For example, All Nippon Airways (ANA) uses really high levels of automation and virtual training which goes beyond just trying to seek out operational efficiencies and reduce cost. ANA’s immersive virtual reality staff training suite not only builds confidence it also embeds behavioural consistency through real life, human-centred learning. Another example is ‘The Room’, its business-class suite, which blends comfort and sustainability through using fewer moving parts, lighter materials/seat structures, and delivers an impressive architectural sense of space for the lucky passenger at 35,000 feet.

This isn’t just design as styling. It’s design as a basis for intelligent solutions.

The System of Design

Cathay Pacific, another award winner has taken the philosophy of design as a system or a department to an impressive scale. Its brand new digital campus in Shenzhen and Co-Acceleration Programme suggest a future for the airline where the brand behaves less like a traditional carrier and more like a creative, design-led studio that builds products, services and experiences with the mindset of a startup.

Singapore Airlines also continued to demonstrate how tech engineering and emotional design can co-exist. Its AI platform ‘Jarvis’ is an intelligent assistant that helps ground staff and managers by providing a knowledge repository, a translation service and even copywriting for temporary signage etc. Again, this doesn’t simply streamline the ground operation of the airline, it creates better more informed staff that can make passenger journey’s feel more intuitive and brand centred. We’ve all heard about the ‘Singapore Airlines’ experience and this feels very much like part of the way they achieve this remarkable customer service.

Airports as Design Labs

Not a phrase that you come across too often, but the airports recognised at the awards reflected the sentiment that they are great places to test design thinking.

At Incheon Airport in South Korea, they are blending automation with what I can only describe as a sense of elegance. Ultra-fast biometric recognition as you transition from section to section through the airport, AI enabled baggage robots that help passengers from check-in desk to the departure gates and augmented reality wayfinding signage where arrows appear in your smartphone camera to guide you through the airport. These may all sound like science fiction but they’re interventions that make the airport experience feel more fluid, less fatiguing and perhaps frictionless travel is fast becoming the new luxury?

Changi Airport in Singapore has it’s DIVA system (Digital, Innovation, Ventures & Analytics) which is an incubator for new ideas and creates a culture for the airport as a whole. Changi is already considered one of the world’s best airports, but I genuinely feel it’s prototyping the airport of the future – see The Jewel for reference. This is also partially driven by Singapore as a country to become a ‘Smart Nation’. A government backed initiative where people will… “live meaningful and fulfilled lives, enabled seamlessly by technology”.

A New Model for Aviation Innovation

What unites all these award winners is a genuine sense of intent. They are not simply digitising processes; they are potentially redesigning the entire travel experience. They recognise that meaningful innovation and good design happens when ideas, empathy, engineering and imagination come together.

Design led innovation is a real strategic advantage that when done properly has the ability to transform complexity into experiences that feel effortless, reassuring and distinctly human. Whether this is through the comfort of a seat, the tone of a chatbot or the choreography of transiting through a terminal, Asia’s aviation industry are showing what happens when technology follows design, and not the other way around.

As a final thought, everyone I spoke to was aligned to the thought the future of flight won’t be defined by who has the most data or the largest AI model, but by who designs the most thoughtful, intuitive and inspiring ways to use this technology.

Words by James Acton

“Marmite…”

That’s all I heard as I left the office to make my way to the airport to travel with Finnair for the very first time.

I understood clearly the sentiment of the comment as I hadn’t stopped talking about Finnair and their business class cabin in the weeks running up to this trip. The images, reviews and various videos I’d shown the entire office had raised some eyebrows and certainly divided opinion. It was a case that I was either going to ‘love it or hate it’!

Finnair has now rolled out a revolutionary business class seat across its entire long-haul fleet and it’s the design considerations behind it that makes for a fascinating story. This unique and uncompromising seat was developed by Collins Aerospace and for me, it’s a really good example of where designers have considered the human condition/behaviour, aspects of operational efficiency for the airline, and a commitment to sustainability.

When you enter the cabin there’s an immediate sense of calm, spaciousness and ‘rauha’ – a Finnish word that describes the feeling of quiet balance and serenity. As for the seat itself, it feels like a thoughtfully designed piece of furniture as opposed to a normal business class seat. The generous curved outer shell, wide ottoman, and integrated side-table creates a feeling of spaciousness – I am 6ft tall and I was able to sit crossed legged in it!

The shell surrounds you with privacy, the materials and finishes that have been used cleverly mute the sound of the cabin and even the mood-lighting plays on the colours of the Northern Lights. All of this makes it feel more like a residential setting rather than the inside of plane flying at 35,000 feet.

What makes the AirLounge seat so compelling from a design perspective is just how much thought and rigour sits behind (excuse the pun) its seemingly simple form.

Its original ethos was to bring the comfort and feel of living-room furniture into the aircraft cabin. The designers involved in the project said “Many aircraft seats are quite similar to each other. We wanted to design a straightforward seat that reflected the look, feel, comfort and function of living-room furniture found in people’s homes” to my mind they did this pretty well.

When I dug a bit deeper into the project, seemingly with any new innovation programme a lot of investment was made into producing physical mock ups of the product and then testing it over and over again. User ergonomics, materials, and structural simplicity continuously evolved to ensure that the idea on paper actually worked rather than having to go back and rely upon the usual business class seat design.

As a result, this seat has only 2 moving parts to help it convert into a flat bed. Fewer moving parts makes for a much lighter construction and when you make an aircraft lighter you get lower fuel burn and less emissions.

All of this is also good news for Finnair engineers as fewer moving parts means less maintenance and this helps eliminate any downtime. A plane that is on the ground is not earning money!

What worked for me?

• The cocoon-effect: The shell felt spacious and private. I could lean back, lounge or sit cross-legged in a way that’s rare for typical business-class seats
• Bed mode: When set to flat bed, the combination of the ottoman plus the infill panel and the mattress topper worked brilliantly and I concur with a lot of reviewers that this could be one of the best beds in the air currently
• Sustainability felt credible: this piece of bravery by Finnair wasn’t an add-on but something that was purposeful when it came to the seat’s engineering and overall form – quiet, solid, weight saving

Some considerations

• Because there’s no traditional recline motion, moving from upright to lie-flat takes a bit of effort and manoeuvring. You have to settle yourself into the niche rather than press a button and tilt back. Some users might prefer the simplicity of a motorised recline
• You have to be smart with the supplied cushions on the seat. They are very much part of the seat as opposed to being purely decorative. You need to find the right level of support and comfort and that might take a few minutes depending on where you are in the seat

Why does all of this matter?

From a strategic point of view, the AirLounge seat does three things well:

1. Different & better: It’s a brave move for Finnair seeing as they are the only customer with this kind of seat. Is it different and for all the reasons above but is it better? Again, it’s a yes from me. It may not be ‘for everyone’ but it’s a great product
2. Sustainability:  With the weight savings and ease of maintenance this seat helps Finnair meet its sustainability goals and it’s a great example of how design can and should be done ‘for better’
3. Human-centred:  The user studies and the ergonomic data points used to ensure this piece of design actually works is a great example of designers looking at how we sit, lounge, recline and sleep and then bringing that into the aircraft cabin

Final thoughts

My flight with Finnair wasn’t just comfortable and enjoyable, it felt like a genuine step forward in long-haul travel design. The whole thing worked incredibly well. It is a brave and unique piece of thinking as it’s taken the idea of what we naturally do at home and tried to emulate that as we move around the skies.

This is a genuinely ‘smart’ seat where design has played a critical role in delivering something new. And in case you’re wondering and haven’t already guessed “I loved it…”

Words by James Acton

Some years ago, my business partner was working with a Canadian CMO of a global frozen food brand. They were filming a TV commercial – one of those heavily food-styled ads that has slo-mo chips being dunked in ketchup and the iconic stringy mozzarella cheese lift on a slice of pizza. Throughout the shoot, the CMO continually repeated the same line in pursuit of food enjoyment perfection: “Hey Chris, get the talent to eat and smile, eat and smile…” Easier said than done if you’ve ever shot a food commercial!

So, here’s the truth, no one looks good eating. Especially not on camera. Food is messy, human, unfiltered and when people try to do it elegantly, they usually end up looking like somewhere between desperately awkward and absurd. For years, food brands have either dodged this kind of shot or cleverly disguised it by using intelligent camera angles or by using kids (everyone loves kids eating…). But in a world where consumers are increasingly weary of perfection, something refreshingly honest has happened this year – Toblerone has actively embraced ugly!

Their latest TV ad doesn’t just acknowledge how difficult it is to eat the angular, iconic chocolate bar. It celebrates it – right the way down to the voice over at the end where the end line is delivered by someone speaking as if they have with a huge chunk of Toblerone in their mouth! The ad is a string of delightfully awkward attempts at breaking off a piece, biting into it and looking totally relaxed while doing either. The result? A deeply human, oddly comforting piece of communication. You can watch it here.

Rather than fight the product’s quirk, Toblerone turned it into the truth of the campaign: “It’s not easy to eat but it’s easy to love.”

It’s a simple idea, but it feels radical, an outlier amongst polished perfection. In today’s hyper-curated and manicured landscape, one that’s filtered through ring lights, retouching tools, and 12 takes of every TikTok post — we’re all living in a simulation of perfection. Instagram smiles. Pinterest homes. Influencers “just waking up” in full make up. Against this backdrop, the Toblerone ad feels like a very healthy dose of reality albeit done in a Wes Anderson kind of weirdness.

 

What is the key to writing strong brand propositions and impactful brand lines?

When I was at university I studied English. In my set were two young men who tended to dominate most of our seminar discussions – let’s call them Mark and Dave.

Mark had a huge intellect and an equally massive vocabulary. He appeared to know the technical term for every nuance of literary criticism and all the most obscure linguistic definers. I found him impressive, but rather intimidating.

Dave was every bit as bright and knowledgeable, but with a difference. He always spoke clearly, precisely and extremely articulately, but just using ordinary language that was readily understandable to everyone else present. As a consequence, I learnt far more from listening to Dave, including this important lesson;

If you want to engage with an audience, the best way is to use simple words in an interesting way.

I’ve spent many years since then trying to define what lies at the heart of various brands – what represents their ‘Essence’ – and writing propositions and brand lines that aim to communicate those thoughts to a consumer audience. The most successful of these always have that ‘simple words, made interesting’ approach at their core.

One of the best examples, which I had no part in the creation of (sadly) was emblazoned on a huge special build billboard in New York around 15 years ago. It was for Fage, who had just introduced Greek yogurt into the USA and did so with a simple, three word thought; ‘RIDICULOUSLY THICK YOGURT’.

I’ve flown a lot this year, mostly for work and if you’ve flown in the post Covid era, the chances are you might have noticed an uncomfortable truth: many of the world’s leading airlines feel like they’re giving you less while asking you to pay more (and this year it seems to me to be stratospherically expensive).

Things like reduced seat pitch and higher passenger density on board. In-flight meals that can be great out of one airport and appalling out of another. Hidden fees as you cycle through the booking sequence. Nag screens during booking looking for margin improvement opportunities. I’ve also had my fair share of delays without explanation this year. And yet tucked between the major players are a handful of smaller airlines who are quietly doing the opposite — reminding us that air travel done well can still feel civilised, even surprising and delightful.

My experience or observation isn’t just anecdotal. It’s a direct result of how the economics of modern aviation has evolved and it offers lessons for how brands can stand out by daring to treat people well.

For decades, national flag carriers and major airlines have faced some stiff competition to match low ticket prices. When budget airlines first rose to prominence in the 1990s and early 2000s – think Ryanair or Easyjet (or even Go!) in the UK, or Southwest or Spirit in the US – the legacy airlines quietly laughed thinking that the no-frills model was a passing fad. It wasn’t. Passengers loved it.

In response, many airlines didn’t fundamentally rethink their business models. Instead, they adopted parts of the low-cost model: charging for bags, reducing seat pitch, adding fare classes that quietly removed basic comforts that were once standard. What was once a meal on a two-hour flight has now become a 250ml bottle of water and a ‘snack’ (I say snack, but I was recently given a single biscuit as my on board snack) and that’s if you were lucky.

The result? Even loyal flyers find themselves wondering what exactly justifies paying a premium on these “full-service” flights. And don’t get me started on loyalty… As some of you may know BA Executive Club became the BA Club in April this year and everyone went berserk at the changes. No longer was it about distance/miles travelled with the World’s Favourite Airline; it’s now about cold, hard cash spent with BA. If you want a gin and tonic, a shower and sandwich in an airport using the BA Lounges (of which some are utterly appalling) spend £20k with BA – that’s the bottom line from 2025 onwards.

Meanwhile, at the fringes some small and mid-sized carriers have spotted an opportunity: deliver a passenger experience that feels worth every penny not just by adding cost for meaningless freebies, but by genuinely considering what makes for a ‘Class Economy’ experience (see what I did there)

I was on two regional Air France flights recently – a 1 hour 40 min flight and a 1 hour 5 min flight. On both legs I got a terrific brioche sandwich, free wine and beer etc, and it was an utter delight. Both flights were full, but it was such a surprise to be offered this on what were two very short trips. And there are other airlines around the world doing this too.

Porter Airlines in Canada are one. They serve complimentary beer and wine in glassware in economy. The boarding process is calm and civil, words almost foreign at most major airports.

StarFlyer in Japan mixes premium-style legroom and soft leather seats with economy prices.

Iceland’s PLAY Airlines markets itself as ‘affordable’, but has a huge following for simple, clean cabin design, cheerful crews, and transparent pricing.

Even larger players like JetBlue in the US or Air New Zealand often outperform on things like comfort and passenger satisfaction, thanks to thoughtful details, innovation and an outstanding service culture.

These airlines tend to be nimbler in their decision-making. Their fleets are smaller, crews know each other by name, and new ideas can be tested and rolled out quickly. Crucially, they also remember a universal truth – in a big metal tube hurtling through the sky, people want to feel well looked after.

Too many big airlines treat passenger experience like an inconvenient cost centre. Smaller, customer-focused carriers see it as a differentiator. And in a world where social media can turn a single bad flight into a viral conversation point, investing in thoughtful customer experience led design could be an act of self-preservation.

So, what can the bigger players learn from the smaller more thoughtful ones?

Well, not every customer initiative has to cost (GBP) millions – it can often all orientate around the smallest of meaningful things.

Secondly, transparency can go a long way. Passengers accept paying for extras when it feels honest, not hidden or even hijacked at the end of the booking process.

And lastly, investing in and developing a genuine service led culture and recruiting people who want to deliver this. This became evident when travelling to the Middle East recently when my colleague and I boarded one of the smaller GCC carriers and we found out that 100% of the male cabin crew came from the flag carrier country – known for its hospitality and regarded as exemplifying the ‘spirit of the Gulf’. Every interaction with the crew was an absolute pleasure, they could not have been more hospitable or more welcoming – naturally!

For passengers, the lesson is equally clear, Reward the airlines that treat you well. And for any airline the moral is universal: if you want loyal customers, design an experience worth their loyalty.

Words by James Acton

We believe the sustainable energy sector needs to devote more of its energy to brand building.

Here’s why…

SIAL : Paris, October 2024

At The Brand Nursery we’ve always been close observers of trends within the food and drink sector.

We visited the vast SIAL trade show in October 2024. Around 7000 exhibitors from all around the globe were present, and, not surprisingly there were plenty of brands and products in evidence there making bold health claims.

The lead-up to Christmas in Singapore is an intriguingly, disorienting experience. With temperatures between 32 to 35 degrees Celsius, the contrast between the humid outdoors and the air-conditioned interiors is striking. Add to this the festive displays of Christmas trees and baubles, and it’s hard to reconcile the warmth with the traditional Northern Hemisphere imagery of snow and “Jack Frost nipping at your nose.”

Attending a major conference in Asia highlighted just how forward-thinking and technologically advanced many Asian countries are compared to much of Europe. The event, exceptionally well-attended, provided a glimpse into the future of travel—a much more connected and seamless experience both onboard and at airports.

Airlines and airports are collaborating intensely to ensure smoother journeys for passengers, incorporating cutting-edge technologies that are set to redefine travel over the next two decades. For instance, autonomous wheelchairs are being developed to escort passengers from the terminal entrance to their departure gates via accessible, pre-approved routes. Meanwhile, immigration and border control processes are moving toward full automation through online visa pre-approval, biometric ID systems, and single-use data tokens that securely store ticketing and passport information on passengers’ smartphones. While some of us may nostalgically miss the days of the classic passport, ticket, and travel wallet, the future is exciting.

A lighter but equally impactful innovation in the travel experience is the ubiquity of free onboard Wi-Fi. Just as McDonald’s saw a threefold increase in coffee sales after offering free Wi-Fi in its restaurants, airlines aim to deliver complimentary high-speed connectivity to garner customer loyalty and of course revenue.

Carriers like Singapore Airlines and American Airlines already offer this service, along with a host of other carriers on their continental and transcontinental flights. Remarkably, much of this connectivity is powered by Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite internet service. With over 6,000 satellites orbiting Earth, Starlink has rapidly become a dominant player, leaving legacy providers such as Intelsat, Eutelsat, and Panasonic scrambling to keep up.

The availability of free, high-bandwidth Wi-Fi (some airlines offer speeds of 25-30 Mbps) opens up opportunities for passengers to stream content using their personal subscriptions. However, research reveals that many passengers still prefer traditional seat-back entertainment systems. These systems offer more than just movies; they provide access to features like flight maps, external cameras, and food and beverage ordering systems. Much like our multi-screen habits at home—watching sport on a 55″ TV while checking our phones and listening to radio commentary—modern travel demands a similarly integrated experience.

For those fortunate enough to travel in Business or First class, Lufthansa is introducing Meta Oculus VR headsets to enhance the in-flight experience. Although these headsets are currently bulky and somewhat uncomfortable, they offer remarkable, immersive entertainment. Features include a “view-through” mode that allows users to watch films while maintaining peripheral awareness for meal or drink service. Alternatively, passengers can simulate sitting in a cinema to enjoy their chosen content. While hardware improvements are needed to make VR more practical for in-flight use, it’s easy to see this technology becoming a differentiator for some airlines.

The future of travel is undeniably exciting. As technology continues to evolve, the vision of a fully connected, seamless journey is coming into focus. From automated processes and high-speed connectivity to immersive in-flight experiences, the next two decades promise to transform how we travel, making it more convenient, engaging, and enjoyable than ever before.

Words by James Acton