The Culinary Visions Panel, a food-focused insights and trends research practice that studies a wide range of culinary topics important to consumers and food industry professionals, has unveiled its 2019 Food and Flavor Forecast, detailing the foods and flavors most likely to captivate consumers in the coming year.
The panel received insights from culinary professionals, scoured more than a dozen trade conferences and surveyed more than 5,000 consumers to come up with its findings.
According to Culinary Visions Panel’s 2019 Forecast, here are five major food trends that will have the greatest impact on product development in 2019:
Replenishing With Purpose: Consumers who want to get more out of their meals are looking for functional foods that don’t just satisfy their hunger but also pack a nutritional punch, with 73% of those surveyed ingesting specific foods for specific dietary functions, setting high expectations of the food they put on their plates.
Beyond Dietary Restrictions: Consumers are limiting foods they ingest instead of just avoiding them altogether, as people are looking to maintain healthier lifestyles in general and are not sticking to strict diets, with 66% of consumers responding that eating foods they feel good about it more important than watching their weight.
Ethical Concerns: According to the survey, today’s consumers are looking to leave a light carbon footprint behind. Efforts that result in reduced packaging, as well as ethical ingredient sourcing help alleviate consumers’ concerns about ethical foods.
Healthful Without Compromise: Today’s consumers want access to healthy foods at all times and places, the survey noted. Expectations for convenient, grab-and-go foods with better-for-you ingredients are now the norm and not the exception. Consumers’ effort to put more plants on their plates is giving rise to the veg-centric food trend. Veg-centric food does not necessarily mean vegetarian. It means that consumers are gravitating toward a plant-based diet – without cutting out the meat that they love. While 88% and 87% of the consumers surveyed said they want their diets to include more fruits and vegetables respectively, 82% of the same consumers still said that they love meat.
Quest For World Flavors: Consumers are expanding their appetites to encompass global flavors and international ingredients. Embarking on a deeper exploration of Latin American, Asian and Mediterranean foods means using food ingredients and flavor profiles from Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Korea, Philippines and Morocco, the survey noted.
