What follows is a summary of some interesting trends and forecasts I have seen. They cover food, consumer electronics, video games and other fields.
Plant-based meat catches on
Grocery-store chains Kroger and Whole Foods Market listed plant-based foods among their top food trend predictions for 2019.
“Consumers are finding it is easier than ever before to incorporate more plant-based fare into their daily diets,” Kroger said. “By electing to go meat or dairy free, whether for a meal, a Meatless Monday, Flexitarian Friday, or every day of the week, there will be more plant-based options available to power through the day. Last year, 31% of consumers participated in meat-free days once per week.”
Kroger’s store brand Simple Truth sells meatless patties, tofu, coconut milk, lentils, hummus and other items.
Whole Foods predicted that faux meat and plant-based foods, such as mushroom jerky, meatless patties and cauliflower-based foods, will continue to grow in popularity.
Forbes magazine highlighted the growing number of faux meat snacks.
“Eating more plants doesn’t mean you have to forgo beloved meaty flavors and textures,” the magazine said. “Mushrooms like king trumpet will play a key role here, flexing their flavor and texture powers in tasty jerky, ‘pork’ rinds and ‘bacon’ snacks (used in both PigOut Pigless Bacon Chips and Snacklins Cracklins Without the Pork) to offer up a satisfying crunch. Beyond these reinvented veggies and plant-based products, vegetarians can indulge in Quevos Egg White Chips for even more snacking.”
Impossible Foods will introduce its Impossible Burger 2.0 next week at CES 2019 in Las Vegas.
Home beer-brewing machines take off
LG Electronics will debut a capsule-based craft beer-making machine, LG HomeBrew, at CES 2019 next week.
Industry leader PicoBrew sells six do-it-yourself brewing and distilling machines. PicoBrew also will be at this year’s CES consumer electronics show.
Anheuser-Busch InBev and Keurig Green Mountain formed a joint venture in January 2017 to develop an in-home alcohol drink system.
IPOs could include Beyond Meat, MZ and Peloton
This year is expected to be a big one for initial public offerings on the stock market.
Notable tech companies expected to field IPOs in 2019 include ride-hailing firms Uber and Lyft, picture-sharing social network Pinterest, workplace-messaging platform Slack, big-data analytics firm Palantir Technologies and food-delivery service Postmates.
Consumer-focused IPOs could include Beyond Meat, which sells plant-based meat products, and Peloton Interactive, maker of stationary exercise bikes with spin class subscriptions.
MZ, the mobile video game developer behind “Game of War: Fire Age” and “Mobile Strike” also is considering going public this year, Renaissance Capital said.
Harry Potter mobile game will be the next ‘Pokemon Go’
App Annie expects the Harry Potter game to be a chart-topper in terms of downloads, usage and consumer spending when it comes out sometime this year.
“Pokemon Go shattered mobile gaming records, clearing $100 million in its first two weeks and becoming the fastest game to reach $1 billion in consumer spend,” said Lexi Sydow, senior market insights analyst at App Annie. “While we don’t expect it to surpass Pokemon Go’s launch, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is set to clear $100 million in its first 30 days — which is no small feat.”
Governments will crack down on video game loot boxes
Juniper Research predicts that loot boxes in video games will be banned across Europe and North America in 2019. Regulators will treat in-game purchases of mystery items as a form of gambling.
Countries such as Belgium and the Netherlands will lead the move to ban loot boxes, which mostly target minors. Game publishers will remove the feature through game updates this year, Juniper said.
Amazon will introduce a pet tracker
CCS Insight predicts that e-commerce giant Amazon.com will launch a pet tracker in 2019. The small tracking device, which can be attached to a dog or cat collar, will sell for little more than cost, the research firm said.
CCS predicts that by 2020, more pet trackers will be activated on mobile networks than Apple smartwatches. Wireless carriers will push the devices as part of their Internet of Things strategy.
Connected home devices see fast growth
As the smartphone market stagnates, the connected home market will drive consumer electronics sales in 2019, Dealerscope predicted.
“The Connected Home segment is experiencing impressive growth both from the sheer mass of product available, to the innovation in the space,” said Rob Stott, editorial director for CT Lab at NAPCO Media. “It’s getting easier and cheaper to make one’s home connected. And as such, retailers will find greater benefits from this space than any other available to them.”
Robots will take 10% of U.S. jobs in 2019
Research firm Forrester predicts that 10% of U.S. jobs will be lost to automation in 2019. At the same time, these technologies will be responsible for creating the equivalent of 3% of today’s jobs, VentureBeat reported.
Robotic process automation and artificial intelligence will create digital workers for more than 40% of companies next year, Forrester said. Software will automate tasks traditionally performed by humans.
App-enabled rental scooters will fizzle out
“Riding an electric scooter around town is fun — at first,” he said. “But as cities across the United States have learned this year, they’re also vandalism targets, a sidewalk nuisance and an injury risk.”
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