For years, food and drink brands won by making people want more. More crunch, more fizz, more cheese, more sweetness, more flavour, more of that immediate sensory hit.

You can see it in confectionery, from Lindt’s 1990 'The Supreme Sensation' ad to its more recent 'Made to Melt You' work, where rich, melting chocolate imagery makes indulgence feel luxurious and irresistible. You can see it in snacks too, where Doritos’ 'For the Bold' platform turned flavour, crunch and intensity into a whole brand attitude. In both cases, the job was to make the product feel impossible to resist.

But now, the market is asking more of brands.

Indulgence alone no longer sells

A wider cultural shift is changing the context around food and drink. Kyra’s State of Fitness 2026 report points to a shift in how people are thinking about health and wellbeing. The report highlights that wellness is moving away from transformation and optimisation, and towards stability, routine and self-regulation. Consumers are seeking 'less performance' and 'more maintenance,' 'less depletion' and 'more regulation.'

That mindset is not staying inside fitness. It is starting to shape how people think about food and drink, too. If wellness is becoming less about transformation and more about everyday self-management, then what people eat and drink is being judged through that same lens.

Consumers are more conscious of ingredients, protein, sugar, additives, pesticides, gut health, ultra-processed foods and how broader food systems affect their health. As a result, packaging claims, ingredient lists and sourcing cues now play a much bigger role in shaping perceptions of what counts as a better product. GLP-1 weight-loss drugs are also changing appetite itself, while HFSS advertising restrictions are changing how less healthy food and drink brands are allowed to show up.

Together, these forces are creating a new credibility pressure for indulgent brands: they need to explain why their products still deserve a place in people’s lives.

That pressure is now colliding with a commercial one. Value-conscious shoppers are pushing back on price, with PepsiCo reportedly cutting prices on Doritos and Lay’s to win back consumers. Meanwhile, health-conscious consumers are giving more attention to products that promise some kind of added benefit.

That is why the growth of functional food and drink matters. Functional foods, broadly defined as foods that offer benefits beyond basic nutrition, have gained momentum as consumers look for products that support energy, focus, gut health, protein intake or everyday wellbeing. Challenger brands such as Neutonic show where that expectation is heading, with the business reportedly on track to exceed $25 million in sales this year after scaling rapidly since launching in 2023.

This is where legacy indulgence brands are starting to shift. Whether these products are becoming meaningfully healthier is debatable, but the marketing is changing. The same crisps, coffees, burgers and soft drinks still need to deliver pleasure, but they are increasingly being framed in ways that make the indulgence easier to justify.

The new era of food credibility

Consumers still want to indulge. What is changing is that they increasingly want the indulgence to come with a reason.

Starbucks’ new drink offering with Protein Cold Foam is still, fundamentally, an indulgent coffee drink. But the added whey protein gives it a new role in the consumer’s mind. It turns a treat into something that feels more functional, giving it emotional justification. The drink has not stopped being indulgent, but the protein gives the craving permission.

The same applies to Lay’s, which recently underwent a rebrand to root its identity in 'real, farm-grown potatoes.' The product still sits firmly in the world of treats and snacks, but the communication shifts the emphasis. It now communicates ingredient cues, provenance and a sense of transparency to consumers. The product is still craveable, but it is being framed in a way that feels more credible.

This is also happening in a culture where people are demanding more from food while having less time to properly engage with what they eat. GLP-1s have added another layer to this. Appetite is being reshaped, and weight loss is increasingly being detached from the slower work of understanding food, habits and nutrition. Consumers may still want the indulgent drink or snack, but they also want it to carry some kind of functional, emotional or nutritional justification.

Craveability still matters, but so does credibility

That does not mean indulgence is going away. People still want pleasure, comfort, flavour and reward from food. But the old promise of 'you’ll want more' is becoming less powerful on its own. Brands now have to help people feel better about wanting it.

This is where Culinary identity plays a bigger role. In food and drink, credibility is cumulative. It is not built by one health claim, one packaging line or one campaign, but by the consistent depiction of a brand’s product over time. Culinary identity is how brands make credibility visible, not just claim it. The way a product is styled, lit, textured, served and framed repeatedly teaches consumers what to believe about it.

When a brand consistently shows freshness, craft, quality, real ingredients or sensory satisfaction, those cues start to become part of its credibility. They become visual proof points. A crisp does not just need to look crunchy once. A cola does not just need to look refreshing once. A burger does not just need to look juicy once. These cues need to show up consistently enough that consumers begin to associate them with the brand itself.

For me, that is an interesting creative challenge. Brands cannot completely abandon appetite appeal. A crisp still needs to sound crunchy. A cola still needs to look fizzy and refreshing. A burger still needs to look juicy. A chocolate bar still needs to feel indulgent. But those cues now need to work alongside reassurance, whether that comes through portioning, protein, reduced sugar, ingredient transparency, naturalness, provenance or functional benefit.

The big shift is not from unhealthy to healthy. It is from guilt to permission.Indulgent brands are learning that craveability still gets attention, but credibility gives consumers permission to act on it. Ultimately, the future of indulgence is not about pretending the craving has disappeared. It is about giving the craving a better alibi.