Food & Drink Trends 2024

Restaurant to retail

As restaurants look to earn additional revenue and max out brand equity, they create new, branded fmcg products – think sauces and condiments e.g. Gymkhana has just launched its own Michelin-level curry sauces in Whole Foods.

Restaurant FMCG

In a linked move we will also see more brands looking at Charlie Bighams’ success in providing restaurant-quality home-cooked meals and looking for ways to do the same e.g. Belazu in condiments.

Insects inside

“The insects are coming”, and they have been for, what, ten years?

This year *could* be the year however, with Yum Bug now open in Shoreditch and the world looking for sustainable protein. Sourdough with cricket miso butter anyone?

Kitchen-AI

AI had to feature in this list, it’s a law all comms agencies have to obey now.

Mintel’s Global Food & Drink Trends Report reports AI’s culinary uses include providing recipes based on fridge contents and generating recipe & matching shopping list simultaneously.

More –tini

Pornstar Martini, Espresso Martini, Dirty Martini, Pickletini, Lychee Martini, Appletini…

Martinis are trés in but are part of a wider approach to reinvented retro cocktails, and bars taking a playful approach to cocktail-making.

Sustainable packaging

Brands and retailers are all trying to hit targets and do more when it comes to making packaging more sustainable.

Driscoll’s, the world’s biggest berry brand, now has paper packs across all it’s European stores and has begun the roll-out across the UK.

In drinks, Penrhos, a small Herefordshire gin brand has introduced an aluminium gin product.

Both deliver significantly less environmental impact.

Caribbean, Eastern Europe and Mexico

According to Specialty Food Magazine, their Flavours Less Travelled trend gives consumers the opportunity to feel their sense of adventure by exploring cuisines in their most original format.

The cuisines piquing most interest are Caribbean (rich, spicy stews with seafood, indigenous veg and meats like goat), Eastern European and Mexican (which Whole Foods Markets’s trend report for 2024 also lists as a “must-stock” for retailers..

Ferment forever

You might think it’s just Tim Spector alone in his kitchen, but it seems he may have unleashed a monster with fermented foods being created by everyone from elite chefs to home cooks.

And with good reason… it’s pretty simple, is great for gut health, doesn’t require much kit and can change an ingredient’s flavour significantly.

From chilli sauces and kimchi to garums and on to desserts, expect to see and hear a lot more about fermenting food.

Back in Black

Ten years ago, Mintel told us Guinness was no longer cool.

Now it accounts for 1-in-9 pints sold in the UK, 1-in-6 in London. We also have Brewdog getting in on the scene with Black Heart and UFC’s Conor Macgregor has brought out Forged Irish Stout.

People love the toasty, roasty, malty black stuff (and if you’re after the best pint of G in London, try still-relatively-new, always-jumping The Devonshire).