Datassential was founded in 1999 by a few idealistic friends focused on the pursuit of a single mission; to help the food & beverage industry make simply smarter decisions. By embracing big data and software, our small company has grown and empowered hundreds of leading food & beverage manufacturers, retailers and operators to more effectively develop, market and sell their products.
Inspiring
Innovation
Develop and deliver transformational products through our suite of innovation software-driven by the industry’s largest menu and consumer affinity database, spanning over 100,000 menus globally.
Streamlining
Sales
Equip your sales and marketing teams with the data and tools they need to sell more effectively. With information on 1.5M+ unique foodservice locations, our operator database takes the pain out of growing.
Revolutionizing Research
Sometimes, software alone isn’t enough to get the job done. Datassential provides category-specific research and insights services on a multitude of key topics and trends.
It all starts with the menu
Food trends happen first on restaurant menus, and MenuTrends is the gold standard used by hundreds of food manufacturers, restaurant chains, and retailers. Uncover emerging flavors, monitor ongoing trends, and innovate with confidence. Track and analyze today’s hot food trends and forecast what’s to come.
Our Mission
Simply Smarter Decisions
We help food & beverage companies of all sizes and segments more effectively develop, launch and sell their new concepts by leveraging data. We believe innovation is the product of insight, and that both should be accessible to participants across the food & beverage industry, which is why we’re committed to facilitating inspiration through our products and services.

Remarkably easy and insanely flexible

10 million
menu examples

Our People
Building A Community of Awesomeness
Data is meaningless without human interpretation, creativity, and action. From the very beginning, Datassential has been defined not by our data, but our incredible team and the relationships they’ve developed with our community of customers. We remain committed to building and strengthening this community by connecting awesome people with awesome data tools.
The Menu Adoption Cycle (MAC)

Our Impact
A Massive Menu Change For Food & Beverage
Consumer preferences and purchasing behaviors are changing at unprecedented speeds, and as a result, the menu of strategies traditionally employed by food & beverage companies to effectively reach and engage customers must transform in parallel. Our talented team is focused on helping the food & beverage industry better leverage data and insights to forge their own path forward into the future.

“Datassential is an integral partner to our Marketing and R&D teams. The breadth and depth of their Food & Beverage trend data, and the support their teams provide, is unparalleled in our industry, and has helped our company’s innovation efforts tremendously.”
– Director Foodservice Sales, BIMBO Bakeries USA
“Datassential’s syndicated data products are so easy to use and navigate! They have provided our teams with tremendous insights that have helped our company make key business decisions and deliver value-added solutions to our customers.”
– Foodservice Marketing Manager, Clemens Food Group
“Datassential’s software tools (MenuTrends, INSIDER and SCORES) provide valuable insights and context to our product categories, marketing, and innovation initiatives.”
– Director of Marketing, Sigma
“Datassential continues to stand out as a company that provides valuable solutions and incredible support to our organization and the industry as a whole, and for that we are very grateful.”
– Senior Director of National Accounts, Monin
“Datassential is my top choice for insights. MenuTrends and FLAVOR are tools that have helped us identify popular dishes and ingredients along with valuable context regarding segment-specific insights and demographic information. Their SNAP platform is a critical component of our concept development process.”
– Senior Manager, Marketing Research & Insights, Kerry Foodservice
“Oftentimes our customers and our internal stakeholders look to our team for the crystal ball on what will happen next…we are so grateful for our partnership in Datassential and having you guys to lean on for guidance on navigating these tough questions.”
– Schreiber Foods
“An effective marketing insights and data provider needs to have credible information, an extensive research panel, and attentive customer service. Whether it was their COVID-19 research, trend webinars, or their easy-to-use SNAP platform, Datassential has all of the tools that our company needs and always finds new ways to exceed our expectations – every time.”
– Marketing Manager, Illes Foods
“Datassential was the first to immediately survey and assess the impact of COVID on consumers, operators and the industry. Their immediate and ongoing insights on the extent of the impact, as well as the predictors/outcomes of ongoing behavior were invaluable for us.”
– SVP Marketing, US Foods
“Datassential’s tools are best-in-class, and we rely on their full suite to develop winning new concepts faster and more effectively. Backed by Datassential’s data & insights, our innovation process delivers great results for our Operators and their Consumers. Datassential is not just a vendor; over the past 15 years of working with them, I’m proud to consider them part of my team.”
– Director of Marketing | T. Marzetti Co.
“An effective marketing insights and data provider needs to have credible information, an extensive research panel, and attentive customer service. Whether it was their COVID-19 research, trend webinars, or their easy-to-use SNAP platform, Datassential has all of the tools that our company needs and always finds new ways to exceed our expectations – every time.”
– Marketing Manager, Illes Foods













