Fever pitch: pull out your thermometers, 'cause things are heating up! Here's our annual roundup of the newest trends, hottest markets and business ideas that promise to sizzle in 2005

Entrepreneur, Dec, 2004 by Karen Axelton, Steve Cooper, Amanda C. Kooser, April Y. Pennington, Karen E. Spaeder, Laura Tiffany, Nichole L. Torres, Sara Wilson, Natalia Olenicoff, Rebecca Villaneda, Jeri Yoshida

McNally can attest to that: His product was used by 61 countries during the Athens Olympics; Johnson & Johnson and NASA are also on his client roster. One success secret is pretty simple, he says: "Value is a recession-proof asset."--S.C.

FUNCTIONAL FOOD

Water isn't just water anymore--it can now be fortified with vitamins and minerals to enhance your health. And the same goes for nutrition bars, shakes, snacks, cookies--you name it, and companies are adding nutrients like calcium and soy protein to enhance it. Such "functional foods" experienced an average of 9 percent growth year-over-year, accounting for $22.8 billion in U.S. sales in 2003, growing from $13.7 billion in 1997, according to the Nutrition Business Journal.

Promising benefits that range from defeating dehydration to alleviating joint pain, functional foods are marketed to play up their health and wellness benefits. It was, in fact, a search for something to relieve his mother's menopause discomfort that led Dr. Aaron Tabor to create his company, Revival Soy. Founding the company in 1998 while he was in medical school, Tabor wanted to create a line of shakes, bars, snacks and such that would harness the positive health effects of soy but taste good, too. Tabor patented the process he'd found for isolating the most beneficial elements of soy and, adding them to his products, began putting the Revival Soy products through clinical trials. To date, the company has 20 such trials completed or underway, offering evidence of the products' health benefits. "I've been able to touch hundreds of thousands of people now, [compared to] if I'd just gone into clinical practice," says Tabor, 34. Selling direct to consumers via a toll-free number and the internet, Kernersville, North Carolina-based Revival Soy has annual sales of more than $20 million.

Patrick Rea, research director with Nutrition Business Journal, notes that nutrition bars remain one of the most popular functional food items, while drinks and snack foods also show a strong market presence. Still, he notes that it's a challenge to get noticed among all the competition--especially because you'll want to get your product on the shelf beside those from huge companies. To get started, check out Functional Foods 8: Nutraceuticals magazine (www.ffnmag. com), not only to find out what's going on in the market, but also to see the listing of functional food technologies and innovations to possibly license and put into food products.--Nichole L. Torres

FINANCIAL PLANNING

Now entering their retirement years, 77 million baby boomers are finding themselves forced to deal with financial planning and asset management if they want to live comfortably well into retirement. From the wealth boomers are expected to inherit in the next few years to management of the money they've earned in long careers, there's a need for good financial planning. Still, according to a 2003 survey by financial services company ING, 62 percent of baby boomers spend one hour or less on retirement planning activities per month, while 32 percent say they don't spend any time on it at all.