Shaping the Future of Taste: Inside Givaudan’s Foresight Journey
Before the world caught on, Givaudan was already designing the taste experiences of tomorrow. We sit down with Igor Parshin, Customer Foresight Lead at Givaudan to talk about how the company turns early change signals into the flavours that will define the future.
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Taste has become a cultural barometer, revealing shifts in mood and appetite through everything from viral flavour moments to planet-friendly diets. At Givaudan, foresight is the lens used to decode these early signals and imagine where taste is heading next. The company was the first in its industry to introduce a foresight programme to catch the emerging shifts long before they hit the shelves. Futures Platform has been part of that journey from the very early days, helping Givaudan’s team of futurescapers scan the horizon and translate change signals into strategic direction.
We speak with Igor Parshin, Customer Foresight Lead at Givaudan, about why foresight is stepping into the spotlight, how futures thinking enabled the company to identify major shifts like alternative proteins years before they broke through, and the forces accelerating change —from TikTok’s turbo-charged influence on food discovery to climate-driven ingredient shortages.
Hi Igor! Let’s start with your foresight story. Could you share a bit about your role and what first drew you to foresight?
We started our foresight journey at Givaudan a couple of years ago when we decided to invest in a dedicated programme that would help guide our customers on the way to creating transformative innovation in Food & Drinks. This programme got the name Customer Foresight, which I currently lead. I personally was always intrigued by the idea of foresight and how we can prepare for the future in a meaningful way. Having a marketing and innovation background, I always had to answer the questions ‘what’s next? what if?’. Foresight is a perfect approach to tackle such questions systematically - so I’m very happy that we have the opportunity to shape it within our industry.
Over the past years, foresight has shifted from being on the sidelines to a more central role in strategy. Have you seen this shift as well, and why do you think it’s happening now?
Yes, I think foresight is moving from being a specialised, almost ‘geeky’ tool that is used by a limited number of experts to something that is more democratic and adopted in the commercial world. I personally link it to the high level of uncertainty that we have around us - so many moving pieces. So we, as human beings have to face it, and foresight actually helps you to stay ‘sane’ in this reality, helping you build the links, focus and prioritise. Givaudan was the first company in our industry to introduce a foresight programme, and to develop a dedicated digital tool for it, but we see now that a lot of companies are following this path. I’m glad that this approach is becoming more familiar to the masses.
For those less familiar, how do you explain what foresight is — and what it isn’t?
Foresight is a forward-looking approach that helps us to anticipate and prepare for future developments. It is a proactive approach that involves detecting weak signals, identifying drivers of change and scenario planning that answer questions about what may or may not happen. Our team of experts, known as futurescapers, combine human expertise with AI and big data to refine, sort and cluster mass data into clear patterns. We then map them and create potential scenarios that lead to specific ideas for new product experiences.
How would you describe Givaudan’s vision for the future: what does being forward-looking mean for the company?
Being forward-looking means anticipating the evolving needs of consumers and customers, particularly in the food and beverage industry. We aim to drive movements toward mindful, planet-friendly diets and support consumer wellbeing goals. Through Customer Foresight, we seek to identify future challenges and opportunities, enabling innovation that remains relevant for years to come.
When you think about taste, fragrance and consumer culture, what are the big shifts that you feel are shaping the next five to ten years? And what do these mean for Givaudan?
I would highlight a couple of interesting developments. The first is data - something that may seem quite far from the Food & Drinks industry at first glance. Thinking about how much access to data we have right now, and how much data is consumed by the average person on the planet, it definitely affects a lot of aspects of our lives: decision-making and access to information, expectations towards the products you buy, the level of personalisation and so on. Data will bring a massive impact on new product development in food. I especially think about speed and timing: whatever you see on TikTok today, you should expect in your fridge, bag, table tomorrow. Even the craziest ideas aren’t crazy anymore, and people expect to get what they want (and see!). It puts significant pressure on producers and makes innovation jobs extremely challenging.
Second is even more challenging: the increasing number of raw material shortages that are going to occur. We already see that climate change, among other factors, leads to lower availability of some products that used to be standard. A good example of this is the citrus crisis that has taken place in recent years. I think we will see more of these types of shortages in the future, and we as an industry need to find a way to adjust, challenge the way we work, and also be creative with bringing alternatives to the existing food icons that may be under threat.
Could you share a moment when looking to the future changed the way your team approached an innovation or a new category?
These moments happen pretty often, as even before we officially started our Customer Foresight programme, we used this approach in our work. So, what we are uncovering now is yet to be confirmed by the future. However, in the past, we have made decisions to focus on areas like alternative proteins, or no & low alcohol long before they became trends, and that helped us prepare the next wave of innovation for our customers. In the case of alternative proteins, we started to focus on it almost 10 years ago, and only years later it became a huge trend in the food industry. Foresight thinking definitely contributes to our decisions every day.
How do you hope your approach to foresight will influence the wider industry in the coming years?
People who work in Customer Foresight at Givaudan are curious by nature, hence we are trying to cover a number of topics that can be interesting and highly relevant for the industry. One of the latest works that we did was focused on the ‘Future of Snacking’, where we are trying to anticipate what shape and form this category could take. It definitely goes much beyond a simple crisps and potato chips category, or savoury for that matter. We are looking at the whole spectrum of snacking occasions and what it could become in the future. This is very exciting!
What kind of partner has Futures Platform been to Givaudan in your foresight journey?
Futures Platform has been a fantastic partner since our early days in foresight. We have been working together for a few years now, and it’s been a very productive collaboration. From building our foresight approach, training our teams and all the way to working on a number of projects together.
How has collaborating with Futures Platform influenced the way you explore futures? In what ways has having an external perspective helped your team explore new possibilities or strengthen your foresight work?
Future Platform has a very strong and long-established approach to monitoring signals of change, which was crucial for us. For obvious reasons, we are quite embedded in the Food & Drinks industry; however, in order to fully utilise the foresight method, you need to have a much broader visibility of what’s going on in other sectors that can potentially impact the futures you are building. That’s where Futures Platform’s expertise comes in, and we are very grateful for this partnership.
Looking back, what do you think would be different if you hadn’t partnered with Futures Platform?
Quite simply, we would be lost in the universe of data that we would need to analyse in order to evaluate what might be relevant for the future. Futures Platform is a great partner in helping to navigate and track those early signals of change.
For organisations just beginning to build foresight capacity, what advice would you give?
Believe in it and it will pay off. It is still a new concept, and there are people who look at it quite conservatively, but it is a very effective way of being prepared for the future. In our current environment it is more important than ever. There are different ways to prepare for the future, but foresight is definitely the most comprehensive. Embrace it, bring people on board, practice it together - start small and give it a try.
Learn more about Givaudan’s foresight journey in our case study
For a deeper look into Givaudan’s foresight journey and how the team built its foresight practice from the ground up, download our case study below.
Before the world caught on, Givaudan was already designing the taste experiences of tomorrow. We sit down with Igor Parshin, Customer Foresight Lead at Givaudan to talk about how the company uses foresight to turn early change signals into the flavours that will define the future.