According to the report, consumer food companies will likely focus more on commercially viable incremental innovation, prioritizing improving taste, convenience, and health rather than being caught up in the hype of disruption.
Mr Bailey said incremental innovation – creating new value through minor product or service adjustments – is considered safer.
"In food, incremental innovation looks like line extensions, packaging changes, new flavours, and functionality twists," he said.
"The main benefit of incremental innovation is that it offers more immediate benefits: supply chain simplicity, sustainability, cost reduction, and generally keeping customers happy and interested. Furthermore, it is better suited to keeping prices low for consumers in an inflationary environment like the one we have today."
The report says some big names in the food space have recently announced moves to incremental innovation.
"American food maker Chobani has spent years expanding from Greek yoghurt into coffee, dips, creamer and oat milk but have recently announced they will focus on innovating in their existing core product range which means incremental innovations in flavours, packaging formats and convenience," Mr Bailey said.
"We've also seen McDonalds announce that it will shift its innovation strategy to one that is incremental, for example McDonalds will be revamping older products with a twist, such as the limited Chicken Big Mac, and optimising existing traditional products for taste."
Fewer, but better, disruptive innovations moving forward
The report says it is safe to assume that those who continue to invest in disruptive innovations will need to exercise even more prudence when it comes to food products.
"They will need to take more steps to ensure product alignment with consumers in terms of taste, health, and convenience. Investors who choose to continue to seek out disruptive innovations will be a good source of insight for large food companies that are currently shifting to incremental innovation but need to keep an eye on the longer-term horizon", Mr Bailey said.
"While disruptive innovations underperformed against our expectations this time around, the quality of the disruptive food products will be higher in the future and may catch us off guard."
