You can learn a lot by hanging out at your local coffee or tea shop. You can learn, for example, what all the cool kids are drinking.

Texturally speaking, "ice cream" is something of a misnomer. Yes, consumers expect the frozen treat to be creamy; but any hint of actual iciness, either in the scoop or on the palate, qualifies as an unmistakable quality flaw.

Texturally speaking, "ice cream" is something of a misnomer. Yes, consumers expect the frozen treat to be creamy; but any hint of actual iciness, either in the scoop or on the palate, qualifies as an unmistakable quality flaw.

Over the past few years, freezer cases have been filling up with a new class of creamy, dreamy treats that bear all the hallmarks of sinful indulgence while delivering more pluses (think protein and fiber) and fewer minuses (added sugar or "artificial" anything), to boot.

Ingredient companies serving up "clean" options to their dairy-biz customers can rest assured: The ball will be in their court as we roll into 2019.

An old Reese's Peanut Butter Cups commercial tagline calls chocolate and peanut butter "two great tastes that taste great together." And it’s right. But chocolate and peanut butter arguably can't hold a candle to chocolate and dairy.

We're almost two decades into the 21st century and knee-deep in a near mania for all things "natural." At this point, is there any reason why a dairy developer would continue formulating with synthetic dyes?

Dairy processors that understand and optimize different dairy and plant based proteins will boost their odds for success.

Skim through any list of food and beverage megatrends and you’ll likely run across a mention of 1) probiotics, 2) digestive health, 3) the human microbiome or 4) some combination thereof. That's because the more consumers learn about how the goings-on in their guts reverberate throughout their bodies, the more they want to know about the "good gut bugs" at the center of it all.

Obsession with millennials so pervades contemporary culture that even millennials, notorious for their self-regard, have grown weary of hearing about themselves. But while there was a time when non-millennials could at least dismiss their juniors' fancies for Frisbees, breakfast cereal and nonstop Nickelodeon as kid stuff, that's getting harder to do now that members of the generation born between 1981 and 1996 (as defined by the Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C.) are having kids of their own.