For years, protein has dominated the nutrition and food innovation landscape. What started largely in sports nutrition has expanded into the mainstream, with high-protein claims appearing across dairy, bakery, cereals, snacks, beverages and even traditionally indulgent categories.
But another nutrient is now having its moment: fibre.
The social-media-driven trend of “fibremaxxing” has brought renewed attention to increasing fibre intake, with consumers sharing ways to pack more fibre into meals and snacks. And the conversation is already evolving. Food-industry discussions are beginning to talk about “fibremixxing” — moving beyond simply consuming more fibre towards recognising that different fibres have different properties, functions and food sources.
Could fibre be following protein’s journey from an overlooked nutrient to a major consumer and innovation platform?
Perhaps. But there is also an opportunity to make the fibre conversation more sophisticated from the outset.
Behind the trend is a real nutrition gap
Unlike many social-media nutrition trends, the renewed focus on fibre addresses a well-established public-health issue.
EFSA considers 25 g of dietary fibre per day adequate for normal laxation in adults, while higher intakes may provide additional health benefits. In its scientific advice supporting EU nutrient profiling, EFSA also identified fibre as one of the dietary components whose intake is inadequate in most European adult populations.
That makes fibre particularly interesting for the food industry.
This isn’t simply a consumer trend looking for a nutritional justification. There is an existing dietary gap, alongside growing consumer interest and an expanding ingredient and product-development landscape.
The question is how the industry responds.
From fibremaxxing to fibremixxing
The first phase of the trend has largely been about quantity: How can I get more fibre?
But fibre is not a single, uniform nutrient.
Dietary fibres differ in characteristics such as solubility, viscosity and fermentability, which can influence their physiological effects and how they behave within food formulations. Fibre can also come from a wide variety of foods and ingredients, including whole grains, legumes, fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds.
That makes the emerging idea of “fibremixxing” particularly interesting.
Instead of the conversation being dominated by a single number on the nutrition label, it could encourage greater recognition of different fibre sources and properties.
For food manufacturers, this creates a much richer innovation space.
A bakery product, beverage, cereal, dairy alternative or snack may have very different formulation requirements. Choosing a fibre therefore isn’t only about achieving a particular number of grams per serving. Manufacturers also need to consider functionality, sensory characteristics, consumer acceptance and the overall nutritional profile of the finished product.
Will fibre follow protein’s numbers game?
There is, however, an important lesson to learn from the protein boom.
Protein communication has increasingly become numbers driven: 20 g protein. 25 g protein. High protein. Added protein.
Could fibre follow the same path?
Front-of-pack fibre claims can certainly help consumers identify products containing meaningful amounts of fibre. But focusing solely on grams risks oversimplifying the nutrition conversation.
A product with added fibre is not automatically nutritionally superior in every other respect. Nor does adding an isolated fibre necessarily make a product nutritionally equivalent to naturally fibre-rich foods such as whole grains, legumes, fruit and vegetables.
The challenge is therefore to avoid turning fibre into another single-nutrient race.
Instead of asking only:
“How much fibre can we add?”
the more interesting innovation question may be:
“What role can fibre play in making this a better product?”
Fibre as a positive-nutrition platform
This is where fibre could become particularly powerful for food innovation.
For decades, much of the reformulation conversation has focused on reduction: less salt, less sugar, less saturated fat and fewer calories.
Those objectives remain important, but consumers and policymakers are also increasingly interested in what foods provide, not simply what has been removed.
Fibre fits naturally into this positive-nutrition conversation.
It allows manufacturers to think about increasing a nutrient for which population intakes are often inadequate, while potentially considering wider aspects of product quality.
This could make fibre relevant across an unusually broad range of categories—from breads and breakfast cereals to snacks, beverages, pasta, dairy alternatives and convenience foods.
Beyond the fibre claim
The most interesting innovation may therefore happen when manufacturers stop treating fibre as simply an ingredient added to achieve a claim.
Product developers can consider fibre alongside:
nutrition + taste + texture + functionality + food source + consumer occasion + overall product quality.
There are also interesting opportunities to communicate fibre through foods and ingredients consumers already understand: whole grains, oats, pulses, seeds, nuts, fruit and vegetables.
For some products, added functional fibres may provide valuable formulation and nutritional benefits. For others, innovation may focus more strongly on increasing naturally fibre-rich ingredients.
These approaches do not need to compete. The bigger opportunity is to understand what type of fibre strategy makes sense for the product, the consumer and the nutritional objective.
What could this mean for the food industry?
If consumer interest continues to grow, fibre could develop into something much bigger than a short-lived social-media trend.
For manufacturers, several questions are worth considering:
- Can existing products be reformulated to provide more fibre without compromising taste or texture?
- Which fibre sources best suit the product and its intended nutritional role?
- Can naturally fibre-rich ingredients play a greater role alongside functional fibres?
- How does increasing fibre affect the overall nutritional profile of the product?
- And can brands communicate fibre benefits in a way that goes beyond simply competing on grams?
Perhaps most importantly, companies should consider whether fibre can become part of a broader positive-nutrition strategy, rather than another isolated nutrient claim.
The Nutricomms Perspective
At Nutricomms, we see fibre as one of the most interesting nutrition innovation areas to watch.
The combination of a recognised dietary gap, growing consumer awareness and opportunities across multiple food categories creates a compelling platform for innovation. But the industry also has an opportunity to learn from the protein boom.
Fibremaxxing may get consumers talking about fibre. Fibremixxing could help move the conversation towards understanding it.
For manufacturers, the opportunity is therefore not simply to add more fibre. It is to consider fibre diversity, food sources, functionality, sensory quality and the overall nutritional value of the product from the beginning of the innovation process.
Protein showed how quickly a nutrient can move from specialist nutrition into the mainstream. Fibre could be next — but this time, the industry has an opportunity to make quality and diversity part of the conversation from the start.
References
- European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Scientific Opinion on Dietary Reference Values for carbohydrates and dietary fibre. EFSA Journal, 2010; 8(3):1462.
- European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Nutrient profiling: scientific advice for an EU Farm to Fork initiative.2022. EFSA identifies dietary fibre among nutrients/components with inadequate intake in most European adult populations.
- FoodNavigator. Is fibermixxing the new fibermaxxing? 5 August 2026. https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2026/08/05/fiber-trend-shifts-to-fibermixxing-for-food-brands/
