Why legacy food brands are losing the better-for-you race — and how they come back

Better-for-you growth in categories like ice cream, popcorn, and frozen pizza is being driven almost entirely by brands under two years old. Legacy brands have the advantage that matters most — decades of earned taste trust — but most are spending it on collabs and limited editions instead of on product reformulation. The brands that convert taste trust into real better-for-you offerings, without abandoning their identity, are the ones positioned to survive the next decade of CPG growth.

Better-for-you is no longer an emerging trend in food and beverage — it’s a growth engine. And right now, that engine is being built almost entirely by brands that no one had ever heard of five years ago. Challenger brands are exciting because they are challenging expectations, but legacy brands don’t need to follow the same rules to stay in the game.

Who Is Actually Winning the Better-For-You Trend?

Protein ice cream is the clearest example. Nearly every breakout brand in the category launched within the last eighteen months — new entrants have sold out within days of launch and gone from nonexistent to freezer-case regular in a matter of months. The same pattern holds in protein popcorn, where the buzziest launches of the past year have come from brands founded within the last two years, rather than the legacy popcorn brands that have owned “delicious” in shoppers’ minds for generations. In frozen pizza — a $7 billion category that has gone flat — a challenger brand made the boldest shelf move in years with a cottage cheese crust delivering up to 23 grams of protein.

The through line: these are not fringe experiments. They are the primary growth stories in categories legacy brands built and still dominate by volume. The audience is there. The incumbents are largely absent from the innovation that’s capturing it.

Why Are Legacy Brands Falling Behind in Better-For-You?

It isn’t for lack of activity. Legacy food brands have invested heavily in staying culturally current — streetwear collaborations, mashup flavors, limited editions engineered for a week of social attention. That work has real value; it keeps decades-old brands from feeling static.

But cultural relevance and category leadership are different jobs. Better-for-you has moved past “trend” status and become a baseline expectation: shoppers now read the nutrition panel with the same scrutiny they once reserved for the front of the pack, and they can tell within seconds whether a product was formulated to solve a problem or badged to borrow a moment. A collaboration signals cultural awareness. A reformulated product signals commitment. Only the second one earns a lasting place in the cart.

What Advantage Do Legacy Brands Have That Startups Don’t?

The single largest barrier to better-for-you trial isn’t skepticism about health claims — it’s uncertainty about taste. Most better-for-you startups spend their first several years, and a significant share of their funding, convincing shoppers that “healthier” doesn’t mean “worse.” Legacy brands start from the opposite position: decades of product experience have already built the taste trust a new brand has to earn from zero. That trust is a genuine, structural advantage, and for most legacy portfolios it is currently unspent.

Two Models for Entering Better-For-You Without Losing Brand Equity

Two existing case studies show how legacy brands can move into better-for-you credibly.

The permission-to-indulge model. Baked Cheetos (or the new Doritos NKD) line succeeded by doing none of the things a “healthy” reformulation typically does. It doesn’t position itself as a diet product or apologize for the category it’s in. It applies an established flavor reputation to a lower-guilt version of the same experience: go ahead, with less to feel bad about. This works because it meets the shopper where the shopper already is, rather than asking them to change what they want.

The heritage-carries-trust model. Quaker’s recent advertising pairs a thoroughly modern behavior — overnight oats — with a voiceover built on more than a century of brand history. The format signals the brand has kept pace; the heritage does the work of establishing credibility. Neither element is asked to be the other. This is the safer path for brands wary of overcorrecting into a wellness-influencer tone that consumers recognize as inauthentic and reject accordingly.

Is Better-For-You Investment Worth It for Legacy Brands?

The commercial case is direct: protein-forward and better-for-you products are driving a disproportionate share of current CPG category growth, and the categories where legacy brands hold the strongest equity — frozen, snacks, dessert — are the same categories where the innovation white space is widest. A flat category isn’t a warning sign; it’s an open opportunity for the incumbent with the most credibility to reclaim.

There is also a scale argument. Brands that reach large volumes of consumers weekly have a proportionate opportunity to shape how those consumers eat — not as a marketing angle, but as a function of the reach they already have.

What Does a Credible Better-For-You Entry Require?

Four requirements separate a durable better-for-you entry from a short-lived marketing move:

1. Reformulate the product, not just the packaging. A claim without a matching formulation is a return waiting to happen. The nutrition panel is now read with the same attention as the front of pack.
2. Lead with flavor, support with the benefit. “Everything you already love, plus 12 grams of protein” consistently outperforms leading with the number for a brand shoppers already buy on taste.
3. Size portions honestly. Consumers respond to realistic portions framed as understanding their appetite, not restricting it.
4. Enter categories where brand equity transfers directly. A brand known for flavor in one category has a natural claim to a better-for-you extension in an adjacent one — the categories where a shopper would say, “of course they made this.”

The Bottom Line

Better-for-you buyers are not a new demographic — they are the same consumers who grew up on legacy food brands and have since started reading labels. The brands positioned to lead the next decade of CPG growth are the ones that evolve their formulations while preserving what made them trusted in the first place: familiar identity, updated substance.

Freshmade is a brand strategy and design studio specializing in food and CPG, with deep experience helping legacy and challenger brands find their position in better-for-you. Vanessa Doll, EVP at Freshmade, is a brand strategist with 19 years of CPG branding experience. Reach her here to chat about better-for-you branding anytime.