A new character is lurking (also) in the away-from-home market: it’s superconsumers. However, who exactly are they? And why are they called that? Let’s start with what it isn’t: it is not, as the term might suggest, someone who consumes more. It’s rather someone who consumes in a more participatory and proactive manner.  That’s where their ‘superhero power’ lies.

The superconsumer experiments, advises, invents. They often collaborate with companies to rethink products. Borrowing a concept from the social media world, superconsumers form a community around their favourite brands that does not just comment on a new product, but takes part in its development in a co-creation process.

For the time being, the industries that engage the most in this trials are consumer goods and services, but the potential for the hospitality, away-from-home, and food retail markets is also obvious.

As far as machinery and supplies are concerned, the client is a professional, more motivated and more competent to participate in a co-design process. In the case of products or services offered by the operator to the end customer, it is the highly relational nature itself of these sectors that calls for an active involvement of the most aware consumers.

Hello and welcome to superconsumers, then, perhaps to bring the resulting innovation to Host 2025, at fieramilano in Milan-Rho from 17 to 21 October 2025.