Have you gone into a high-end restaurant lately and been rebuffed when you tried to customize a menu item? If not, watch for it - it’s coming.
Do you have the itch to invite people over and have a gala dinner party, feeling perfectly OK with making it a mix of catered food, packaged items and a little homemade treats thrown in to make it yours? If so, you aren’t alone.
Are you curious about what Saigon cinnamon is and how it differs from the good old cinnamon of your childhood? It’s what companies are counting on - that your curiosity over new iterations of familiar food will drive new purchases.
These touch on some of the top food trends we are identifying in 2015. The Food Channel has released its "
Top Ten Food Trends,” based on research conducted in conjunction with CultureWaves. The list outlines significant food movements that consumers, food-service professionals and manufacturers should watch for in the coming year.
It’s a fascinating process to put this list together each year. We comb through our database of behavioral insights, consult with our chefs and food professionals, and usually start with about 75 ideas before culling it down to 10. The ones that rose to the top this year are all forward-thinking, so don’t be surprised if you don’t see them happening yet.
- The Dinner Party Revival - In your home or in a “third space,” such as your office, we see a resurgence of dinner parties, perhaps because people are so connected online that they are forcing sessions where they can connect offline.
- The Loss of Ethnic - The single flavor palate is gone in favor of a global palate. We aren’t just substituting our American palate for something more exotic, though. We are actually mixing cuisines from two or more countries and creating something entirely new that isn’t really ethnic anymore.
- Hand-touched Over Handmade - We no longer have to make everything from scratch for it to be ours, as long as we did something to make it a little more personal.
- The Casualization of Wine - Millennials in particular are drinking so much wine that it’s being rebranded as an everyday drink. It helps that it has a health halo, giving people a little more license to enjoy.
- My Kitchen - In an attempt to get you to concentrate on what they’ve prepared, chefs are giving you knife and fork food instead of finger foods, banning ketchup if it doesn’t go with the flavor combinations they’ve prepared, and are even discouraging food photography if it takes too long. The new trend is, “It’s my kitchen, my rules.”
- Food Incubators - The rise in food media over the past eight to 10 years has caused a lot of people to want to take their own ideas to market. Food incubators reduce the cost of entrepreneurship and give you business support, and they are springing up in major cities. Could Springfield be next?
- Seasonal Transitions - Transition food is where we are inserting a new mini-season into our calendar. Autumn may give way to winter, but before it does we have to make sure pumpkin season has run its course and that gingerbread is ready to step up. This combination of two seasons may actually create new special occasions in the future.
- Spice Alchemy - What we’re seeing now, with the proliferation of global spices and spice combinations, is that people are experimenting with the spices - becoming mixologists with spices, in a way.
- Replicating Restaurants - Do you have a home espresso machine or a Belgian waffle maker? If so, you’re the target for this trend. We are beginning to see new appliances and smaller workspaces that replicate the restaurant experience at home.
- Cooking by Life Stage - We expect that food and recipes will no longer be based solely around a traditional family of four, but instead will be offered by life stage rather than age-related demographics. Boomers won’t be cooking for two-they’ll be cooking for their sandwich-generation lifestyle or not cooking at all as they enter the early retirement stage.
We look at these trends because food is a great starting point for understanding human behavior. It’s exciting to think about watching over the next year as these trends come to life. And, who knows, you just may find yourself throwing a dinner party in 2015. After all, it’s right on trend.
Kay Logsdon is editor of The Food Channel. She may be reached at editor@foodchannel.com.
