Format Innovation Watch
SPF and actives migrating into new textures, delivery formats and adjacencies.
Sunscreen is becoming skincare
K-beauty proved sunscreen could feel like serum; the rest of the category is catching up.
The Cleaning Spray That Doesn't Kill Germs — It Adds Better Ones
Instead of killing bacteria like every other cleaning spray, one new household cleaner sprays beneficial bacteria strains onto surfaces that then keep actively cleaning for days afterward — an approach that explicitly protects a home's '...
Why Purina Spent Years Engineering the Exact Shape of a Cat's Dinner
Purina scientists studied the specific mechanics of how cats bite, lick, and chew, then engineered a pyramid-shaped jelly wet food specifically to trigger that full natural behavioral range — turning food shape itself into a deliberate f...
The Candy Designed to Look Good When You Cut It in Half
A three-layer mochi gummy explicitly designed around how it looks when cut in half for social media — chewy mochi, fluffy marshmallow, and a crispy pistachio-filled center — shows candy brands are now designing products for TikTok's cros...
The Vitamin Gummy That's Actually 3D-Printed
A UK vitamin brand is 3D-printing individual multi-layer gummies with personalized nutrient combinations — a genuinely different manufacturing process from every other personalization approach found in this research, which typically just...
Gin Brands Are Pulling in Two Opposite Directions at Once
A major gin brand's newest launch isn't gin at all in the traditional sense — it's an 8.4% ABV ready-to-drink spritz format sold in 75cl multi-serve bottles, while a smaller Welsh distillery is going the opposite direction entirely with ...
The Sunscreen Pill Nobody's Heard Of
There's a real, clinically-studied oral sunscreen pill backed by a JAMA Dermatology randomized controlled trial — biopsy-confirmed to reduce cellular UV damage — and almost no general consumer has heard of it.
The Missing US Supplement Ingredient Was Hiding in Australia All Along
A supplement ingredient flagged as a research gap in the US (beta-glucan immune modulators in multivitamin-format products) turned out to be commercially real — just in Australia instead, closing the gap with a specifically named branded...