Food and beverage brands have always competed for a place in consumers’ routines. The morning coffee, the favorite snack, the restaurant people return to on Fridays, or the drink they keep stocked in the fridge. These everyday decisions may seem small, but they reflect the relationships consumers build with the brands they choose.
Lately, those relationships have become more complicated.
Consumers are paying closer attention to what they spend, what goes into the products they buy, and whether a brand fits their lifestyle. At the same time, discovery is happening across more channels, from grocery aisles and restaurant menus to social feeds, delivery apps, and AI-powered recommendations.
According to McKinsey’s State of Food and Beverage report, U.S. food prices were approximately 31% higher through the third quarter of 2025 than in 2019, outpacing overall consumer inflation. That pressure is affecting how shoppers evaluate purchases and where they’re willing to spend.
For marketers, the challenge goes beyond generating awareness or convincing someone to try a product once. Brands need to communicate their value clearly, show up in the places where consumers make decisions, and create experiences that encourage repeat purchases.
Several changes in consumer behavior are making those priorities especially important in 2026.
Value Is Becoming a Brand Positioning Challenge
Price has always influenced food and beverage purchases, but consumers are weighing it against a broader set of expectations.
“Value menus” try to make products attractive through lower pricing. But consumers also perceive value in brands offering quality ingredients, greater convenience, better taste, or a premium experience. What’s considered worth the price depends on the occasion, the category, and personal priorities.
This creates a challenge for brands competing against private labels and lower-cost alternatives. When consumers can find similar products for less, the difference of the higher-priced option needs to be immediately understandable.
For some brands, that difference comes from functional benefits. A beverage might offer a particular nutritional profile, a snack might accommodate a specific dietary preference, or a prepared meal might save time without sacrificing quality. For others, the advantage is built around familiarity, enjoyment, or an emotional connection that makes the product part of someone’s routine.
Health and ingredient transparency are influencing how consumers define value. NielsenIQ’s 2025 research on food and beverage consumer decision-making found that 71% of surveyed consumers scrutinized ingredients, origins, and nutritional benefits before purchasing. The research, conducted in China, also highlighted the influence of novelty, aesthetics, and emotional connection on purchasing decisions.
Look at how these motivations overlap: Consumers might choose a product for its nutritional benefits while also caring about its packaging, flavor, or association with a particular lifestyle.
That makes positioning especially important. Broad claims about quality or innovation can easily blend in with similar messages from competing brands. Specific benefits, supported by a recognizable identity and a consistent product experience, give consumers something more meaningful to remember.
Specific Benefits + Recognizable Identity + Consistent Experience = Memorable Brand Positioning
Packaging, product descriptions, advertising, and social content should all reinforce that positioning. When someone encounters the brand for the first time, they should be able to understand what makes the product different and why that difference matters.
Discounts may encourage trial, but clear positioning of value helps brands maintain their appeal when promotions end.
Food Discovery Is Spreading Across Search, Social, Delivery Apps, and AI
Think about the last time you tried a new restaurant or food product. Maybe a friend recommended it, a creator featured it in a video, or you noticed it while browsing a delivery app. You might have checked reviews, compared prices, looked through user-generated photos, or searched for more information before deciding.
Food discovery has become a collection of interactions across platforms, and AI is beginning to influence that process.
The 2026 DoorDash Restaurant Industry Trends Report found that 22% of surveyed consumers had already used AI to choose a restaurant. It also reported that 55% of first-time DoorDash orders came from customers browsing the platform rather than searching for a specific restaurant.
For restaurants, this makes their presence on third-party platforms an important part of marketing. A potential customer might encounter a business through a category recommendation, an AI-generated suggestion, or a delivery listing without ever visiting its website.
The quality of the information available in those environments can influence whether someone chooses to explore further. Accurate menus, compelling photography, recent reviews, clear descriptions, and consistent business information all contribute to that decision.
Packaged food and beverage brands face a similar challenge. A product might gain attention through a recipe video, generate interest through a creator partnership, and eventually convert through a retailer’s website or an in-store purchase.
The growing number of discovery channels also changes how brands should approach content.
A social video might demonstrate how a product fits into someone’s daily routine. A retailer listing needs to communicate ingredients, benefits, and product details quickly. A cash-back rewards app can provide incentive to try a new brand or product offering. A website can provide more information about the brand, while reviews and third-party coverage help potential customers evaluate their options.
Each interaction serves a different purpose, but the brand’s positioning needs to remain recognizable throughout.
This broader change in shopping behavior is reflected in McKinsey’s State of the Consumer 2025 research, which examines how digital habits and evolving expectations continue to shape consumer decisions.
For marketers, this creates a strong case for building content systems that can support multiple discovery environments. Creative assets, product information, customer stories, and educational content should be adaptable enough to work across platforms without losing their relevance.
AI adds another consideration. As consumers begin using assistants to compare restaurants and products, brands need accurate, accessible information that those systems can interpret. Clear descriptions, consistent listings, credible reviews, and useful website content can all support visibility in this emerging discovery environment.
A customer might encounter a brand almost anywhere. Making that first interaction useful can influence everything that follows.
Loyalty Has to Follow the Customer Across Channels
A restaurant guest orders delivery on Tuesday, visits the same location with friends on Saturday, and returns a few weeks later for takeout.
From the customer’s perspective, these are three interactions with the same brand. Behind the scenes, however, they may be recorded in completely different systems.
That disconnect makes loyalty harder to understand and manage.
The 2026 SevenRooms Restaurant Industry Trends Report, developed with DoorDash, highlights how restaurant customers move between dine-in, delivery, pickup, and reservations. It found that 64% of surveyed consumers would prefer a single app for managing delivery, pickup, and reservations.
Consumers generally care more about convenience and consistency than the operational differences between ordering channels. They expect a familiar experience whether they’re eating at a restaurant, picking up an order, or having food delivered.
For brands, connecting these interactions creates opportunities to understand customer preferences and encourage repeat behavior.
A restaurant might recognize that someone regularly orders delivery but rarely visits in person. That information could inform an invitation to a special event or an offer designed around a dine-in experience. A customer who frequently orders the same meal might appreciate a relevant recommendation rather than another generic promotion.
Packaged food and beverage brands face a related challenge. A customer might discover a product at a grocery store, purchase it again through an online retailer, and eventually subscribe through the brand’s website.
Each interaction offers clues about the customer’s relationship with the product, but those clues are most useful when marketers can connect them.
This is why repeat purchase behavior deserves as much attention as acquisition. A campaign that generates a large number of first-time customers can look successful while producing relatively little long-term value if those customers never return.
Understanding purchase frequency, the time between orders, subscription retention, and customer lifetime value gives marketers a more complete picture of growth.
Personalization can help strengthen those relationships. In its 2025 U.S. Restaurant Industry Trends research, SevenRooms reported that personalized automated emails generated 12 times more revenue per send than mass emails within its measured platform activity.
The finding illustrates the potential value of communications informed by customer behavior. A relevant message sent at the right time can be more useful than a broad promotion delivered to everyone.
That relevance might come from remembering a preference, recommending a product that complements a previous purchase, or making it easier for someone to reorder something they already enjoy.
Loyalty programs can support this process, but the relationship extends beyond points and discounts. Consistency, convenience, recognition, and product satisfaction all influence whether someone comes back.
Customer Data and AI Are Changing How Brands Personalize Experiences
Food and beverage businesses generate valuable customer information through purchases, reviews, subscriptions, loyalty programs, website activity, and campaign interactions.
The challenge is understanding what that information reveals and using it to improve the customer experience.
AI is making some of that work more accessible, particularly for teams managing large product catalogs, multiple locations, or several customer segments.
A restaurant group could analyze customer reviews to identify recurring complaints or popular menu items. A beverage brand could examine subscription behavior to understand when customers are most likely to cancel. A marketing team could test several creative approaches across different audiences and use the results to refine its messaging.
These applications can help teams move more quickly from customer feedback to marketing decisions.
However, sophisticated technology isn’t always the first thing a brand needs.
The DoorDash guide to restaurant marketing tools highlights practical ways businesses can improve their visibility and customer experience, including better menu information, stronger photography (as in, actual photography of your food, not AI-sloppy joes), and review management.
Many of these improvements depend on having accurate information and consistent processes in place.
The same principle applies to AI-powered personalization. Customer data needs to be reliable, product information needs to be correct, and marketing teams need to understand which behaviors are meaningful before building automated campaigns around them.
For example, a subscription reminder is useful when it reflects how frequently someone consumes a product. It becomes frustrating when the timing is wrong or the customer has already purchased elsewhere.
Creative testing presents another opportunity. AI can help teams develop variations of campaign concepts, adapt messaging for different channels, and explore alternative ways to communicate product benefits. Human review remains important, particularly when content includes nutritional information, ingredient claims, or health-related messaging.
As AI becomes more common in marketing workflows, brands will need to establish clear standards for accuracy, privacy, and quality.
The most valuable applications will be the ones that make customer experiences more relevant while giving marketing teams additional time to focus on strategy and creative work.
What Subscription Brands Can Teach Us About Long-Term Growth
The importance of connected customer experiences becomes especially clear in subscription-based food and beverage businesses.
A successful acquisition campaign can introduce a product, but continued growth depends on whether customers incorporate that product into their routines and find enough value to keep purchasing.
That requires coordination between advertising, product education, customer communications, and the purchasing experience.
Carney has worked directly with brands facing these challenges. Our Buoy Hydration case study explores how we helped a fast-growing direct-to-consumer hydration brand build marketing infrastructure capable of supporting its subscription model and long-term customer retention.
For a subscription brand, the period after the first purchase is particularly important. Customers need to understand how to use the product, when to use it, and how it fits into their daily lives. Clear onboarding, relevant content, and convenient repeat purchasing can all help reinforce the value of the relationship.
These principles extend well beyond subscriptions.
Restaurants, beverage companies, packaged food brands, and other businesses built around repeat consumption all benefit from understanding what happens after the first transaction.
Marketing becomes more effective when acquisition, product experience, and retention are connected rather than managed as unrelated activities.
Where Food & Beverage Marketing Goes From Here
The food and beverage industry continues to offer opportunities for brands that understand their customers and adapt to changing expectations.
Consumers are thinking more carefully about value, discovering products through a wider range of channels, and interacting with brands across multiple purchasing environments. At the same time, customer data and AI are giving marketing teams new ways to understand behavior and improve communication.
These developments put greater emphasis on consistency.
A brand’s positioning needs to be clear wherever someone discovers it. Its digital presence needs to make products easy to evaluate and purchase. And its customer experience needs to provide enough value to encourage another interaction.
For food and beverage marketers, sustainable growth will depend on how effectively these elements work together.
At Carney, we help food and beverage brands connect strategy, positioning, creative, content, and digital experiences to build stronger relationships with their customers. Whether the priority is attracting new audiences, improving retention, or developing a more connected marketing strategy, we’re here to help.
