New: 2024 Trends Report
Angry consumers confront “checkflation” … How a $25 chicken gets to cost $36 … New crunchy stuff for your sandwich … Watch your guasacaca … Sea-cuterie replaces butter boards; paying people to open cans of fish … What’s making Hong Kong restaurants sizzle? … Omakase dinners of the cheap-ish. Friedrice is a thing. Loads of buzzwords. And: Are ”American” restaurants becoming obsolete?
Past Reports
Ultra-expensive dining clubs thumb noses at recession talk … Pickup is the new delivery … The wilting of plant-based food … Artificial Intelligence will design your Chicken a la King (see photo) … Yes, you should dry-age fish… Mortadella makes a comeback … Will consumers accept surge pricing on menus? … Pistachio is the nut-of-the-year … Why ”crema” is popping on menus. Plus: 26 Buzzwords for the year ahead.
How we’ll eat next year: Robots and automation top our trends list as restaurants cope with labor shortage …Vegan chicken everywhere … Quirky fast food from Asia … Goodbye “ethnic”, hello “heritage” cooking … What’s a boozetarian? … Ghost kitchens’ population explosion … Chili crunch is condiment of the year … and NO! Fine dining is not dead! … Plus 17 food buzzwords for 2022.
A post-Covid transformation of how America will eat ... and where. Why lots fewer restaurants may be a good thing. Implications of a permanent increase in home cooking (and drinking). A batch of flavors you need to pay attention to. The "edge on veg". Restaurants taking over urban streetscapes. Immunity is the new sustainability. Plus 20 buzzwords for 2021.
New challenges in 2020. Dealing with Americans who think that plant-based and cell-grown foods are better than the real thing. Millennials killed milk; now they are killing your cocktail. How ghost kitchens could up-end the entire on-line food industry and why it is a danger, especially to small operators. Surrendering your privacy at the drive-thru. Great steaks from ten-year-old dairy cows? And 15 new buzzwords for the year ahead.
Big challenges in 2019. More people eating home as restaurant prices outstrip supermarkets’, while paychecks lag behind. Sitdown restaurants converting to fast-casual, serving upscale food. Breakthroughs in restaurant automation. Cannabis showing up almost everywhere. Get ready for more Chinese specialties; food from the Stans; more sour flavors. What is “motherless meat”? Plus two dozen buzzwords.
Why plant-based foods are the trend of the year. What's ahead for fast-cas restaurants? Cashless restaurants and paying with your smile. Three ethnic cuisines going mainstream. Why the avocado trend refuses to die. And 26 new buzzwords.
In the 2017 food & trend report, we discuss the resurgence of cauliflower, the rise (and cause) of breakfast sandwiches, and the emergence seat-less resaurants.
Two big disrupters for 2016 have nothing to do with food: High-speed delivery of meals to homes and offices; and a national conversation regarding tipping and pay disparities. Restaurants are cleansing menus of additives ... but consumers will demand more. Why there's a new obsession with fried chicken. Poke isn't hokey.
The Uberization of Dining -- Delivery startups are disrupting how restaurants get their food to consumers ... an invasion of the F&B world by new technology. And all at once, fast- and fast-casual chains are dumping artificial additives as consumers demand the "healthification" of foodservice. But we don't hear much from sitdown restaurants and hotels. Plus: Burning Your Food; Do Insects Have Legs?; Where's the Jerky?
Three main threads work their way through consultants Baum+Whiteman's 2015 Food & Beverage Forecast: (1) How technology is profoundly changing the way restaurants... at all price ranges... will work in the near future; (2) How basic flavors of food and drink are being manipulated by chefs' and manufacturers' mashups; (3) Because of this, why despite what other pundits claim, "authenticity" is no longer relevant. Plus 22 buzzwords.