Last year in our Hospitality Trends Report, we called banana coffee drinks a growing trend to watch.
Sure enough, banana-flavor in coffee was everywhere in 2026. Starbucks introduced the Iced Banana Bread Matcha Latte in February 2026, following it with the Iced Banana Bread Chai in August. Dunkin’ introduced a whole lineup of Banana-flavored beverages. Even a nearly 40-year old traditional San Francisco neighborhood coffee shop had a sandwich board on the sidewalk advertising their Banana Bread Latte.
In July, the overwhelming prevalence led The New York Times to say, “Everything’s Bananas,” and wondering if bananas could be the next pumpkin spice.
Have we reached peak Banana? Or is there still more opportunity in categories where banana is an unexpected flavor or ingredient.
Banana Water
Bananas, a relatively starchy, low-water content fruit, are now showing up in the latest all-natural sports drink alternatives.
Banagua launched midway through 2025 on retail shelves. They quickly scaled, with distribution in major supermarkets including Kroger and Vons, and were named the Best New Brand by Beverage Digest.
Made from two organic heirloom varieties of Thai Bananas, and with no added sugars or preservatives, the company touts the drinks’ high levels of electrolytes, antioxidants, and nutrients, offering an energy drink made from only natural ingredients. They also are certified organic and non-GMO.
Woodstock Foods also makes an organic banana water with similar characteristics and claims.
A Little Sweet Treat
Koké (New York, NY) is a new Japanese plant-based, gluten-free cafe and bakery that opened in New York this year from the team behind Patisserie Fouet. The menu includes flavored matcha and hojicha drinks, mochi cookies, gluten-free salt bread, and rotating soft serve, including their viral black sesame. The Caramelized Banana Matcha has become a signature. They even partnered with Glow Recipe for a collab featuring the Caramelized Banana Milk Latte (made with espresso or matcha) offered with a skin care pouch featuring Glow Recipe’s Banana Milk moisturizing cream and lip balm, leveraging the wide appeal of banana milk across different categories.
While the black sesame soft serve is a constant on the menu, Koké recently introduced a banana soft serve, which guests can top with miso caramel, rice puffs, sesame chocolate sauce, pistachio, or banana chips.
Healthy Indulgence
Bananas have long been the backbone for smoothies, but they are finding new form and function in the soft-frozen category.
Frozen banana “soft serve” sits at the intersection of smoothies and frozen yogurt, offering an all natural, non-dairy frozen dessert. Although the technology for creating a soft-frozen product made from bananas has been around for a while, only a few concepts have come out of it, so far.
Banán (2 locations Honolulu, HI, 1 location San Francisco, CA) offers a menu of banana-based soft serve, as well as açaí bowls, composed sundaes, and smoothies. Flavors of banana-based soft serve include: banana, chocolate, peanut butter, strawberry passionfruit, and açaí; each made with no added sugar, no dairy, and only healthy, wholesome ingredients. Limited seasonal flavors have included mango or pumpkin spice.
Composed sundaes include the seasonal Uncle’s Mango with mango banán, dragonfruit drizzle, papaya, pineapple, and sliced banana which feels one step away from a virtuous açaí bowl, while the like the Chocolate Brownie Bowl with chocolate banán, whipped coconut cream, shaved coconut and chewy brownie bites definitely feels like health-coded indulgence.
Across the country, other places or leveraging similar technology in different ways. Just Bananas sells Banana Whip at rotating farmers markets in and around Carlsbad, CA. Frozen bananas go through a special masticating juicer to create a creamy, ice-cream like consistency made entirely out of banana. Customers can opt for toppings like chocolate or peanut butter shell, fresh strawberries, raspberry sauce, granola or shredded coconut. Happy Zoe Vegan Bakery (Brooklyn, NY) sells highly instagrammable Banana Whip in a rainbow of colors and flavors including: matcha, blue spirulina, guava, dragon fruit, mango, pineapple, strawberry and more. Each vibrant layer stands out.
Insight-OUT: Bananas’ affordability, availability, familiarity, natural sweetness, creamy texture, nutritional halo, and ability to move easily between indulgent and better-for-you applications, make it unusually versatile. Use bananas as a platform for innovation across hydration, functional snacks, beverages, frozen desserts, and other categories where consumers are seeking something both recognizable and new. Play with both unique flavor combinations and tried-and-true favorites like banana pudding or bananas foster to inspire new offerings.
As a banana lover, I'm all for this trend