NRA 2025 Recap

Last month found the Oregon Fruit team in Chicago for the National Restaurant Association show. Spanning three colossal halls at McCormick Place in Chicago, the NRA is our largest trade show of the year and a focus for our Foodservice team - but the experience provides learnings for our aseptic customers as well. 

The Beverage Boom: Functional, Fruity, and Forward-Thinking 

One thing was clear across the show floor: beverage is booming — especially non-alcoholic options. Custom beverages are playing a larger role on menus across the country, and increasingly important to both the customer experience and bottom line. We saw:

• Functional sodas like  Olipop loaded with prebiotics, adaptogens, and botanicals
• THC- and CBD-infused beverages continuing to gain mainstream momentum
• Customizable beverage dispensers and tech innovations
• Non-alcoholic options more popular than traditional alcoholic beverages
• And exciting new customer concepts like HTeaO,  a Texas-based iced tea chain with over 160 units — that are putting real fruit front and center 

This shift away from alcohol-heavy offerings and toward functional, flavorful beverages mirrors what we’re seeing with our customers in brewing, too. Taprooms are diversifying. And real fruit is becoming the key ingredient to stand out. 

Clean Label Is King 

Visitors to our booth particularly loved that our purees are: 

• Shelf-stable
• Free from dyes, preservatives, or artificial anything
• Made from real fruit — not blends or concentrates with filler 

In fact, ingredient panels got more attention this year than we’ve ever seen. With restaurant operators eliminating dyes and reformulating for transparency, clean label matters more than ever. 

Standouts from the Show Floor 

The show wasn’t all business. We had fun, too — especially when a show worker tried our blackberry lemonade and stopped dead in her tracks to say "daaamn that's good" (then came back six times with friends.) That kind of real reaction? You can't fake it. 

Some other highlights: 

• Our friends at Oatly  and  Crathco featured Oregon Fruit products at their respective booths. Crathco featured our lemonade in their beautiful bubblers, and Oatly  offered booth visitors two amazing new cold drinks: a Peaches & Cream Soda with our Peach Pourable Fruit, and an Oat-Berry Dream Cappuccino drink made with our Strawberry Pourable Fruit.
• Our booth was twice as big as last year, and better staffed (shoutout to new employees Pete and Katie!)
• Heavy traffic on Strawberry and Peach Diced Pourable Fruit — we definitely should’ve brought more
• Our guava-passionfruit-calamansi punch (a nod to Hawaiian POG, but with a twist) was a huge hit
• New concept ideas like the “Core 4” bubbler station — lemonade, sunset punch, pacific punch, and a tea — sparked a lot of strategy conversations 

Big Takeaways for Brewers 

While this wasn’t a beer show, the insights apply  directly  to you:

• Non-alc programs are in demand, especially in taprooms
• Functional and infused drinks are growing fast — and fruit plays a starring role
• Real, clean-label ingredients aren’t  a trend anymore. They’re an expectation
• And when people taste something truly good, they come back — and they bring friends 

If you’re exploring fruit-forward NA beverages, functional sodas, or just want to stand out with flavor that actually tastes like fruit, we’ve got what you need. Shop now.