To support with the unveiling of these trends Bidfood has launched its 2024 interactive guide designed to help operators navigate the changing market and consumer behaviours, adapt their menus and fully explore the latest cuisines and flavours taking hold of the industry.
Catherine Hinchcliff, head of corporate marketing and insight at Bidfood, said: “This year we’re excited to see that the trends and flavours surfacing are around adventure and trying something new, as well as comfort, authenticity and provenance. All of which will allow chefs to be creative and have fun when planning their menus for 2024.
“Sustainability remains a prominent factor to us as a business, and continues to influence consumer decision-making. This year, instead of being a standalone trend, we’ve incorporated it into all our trends which reflects the way many chefs weave sustainability into everyday ways of working.
“Once again we worked with CGA by NIQ to conduct our own bespoke survey and exclusive research. We also worked with a semiotician and futurist, Dr Rachel Lawes, to get a steer on how food and drink trends will evolve over the next two to three years, as well as visiting and interviewing restaurant operators in London and Manchester to see how they are manifesting on the high street.”
Food & drink trends in 2024 include:
- Mind, mood and body: The eating out choices consumers are making when they focus on the nutritional properties of food and drink with their physical and mental health and wellbeing in mind
- Flavours less travelled: The authentic dishes, drinks and cuisines that consumers are seeking out to feed their sense of adventure
- Rustic & rural: The authentic, rustic charm we see characterising stripped back décor and farm to fork, provenance-led menus
- Let’s play: The dishes and drinks that really stimulate our senses visually, emotionally or through new, exciting flavour contrasts
- British fusion: The 'magic' that happens when familiar British flavours and formats we know and love merge with exciting global dishes and cuisines