What will we be eating in 2011?

By Sharon Stephenson

Years ago, I worked as an after-school waitress in an upmarket restaurant. The sous chef, who has gone on to have the word ‘celebrity’ slotted in front of his title, was somewhat of a culinary adventurer, experimenting with such ‘exotic’ foodstuffs as Italian risotto.

“Men are, in a sense, left holding not only the baby but also the shopping basket.”

It was runny, creamy and beautiful: pretty much everything a good risotto should be. Yet it was constantly sent back to the kitchen. "I ordered risotto, not gluggy rice," was the common refrain. Back then, punters expected a tarted-up version of the boxed risotto that was available from the supermarket, a reconstituted dish of bland fried rice studded with even blander frozen vegetables. These days you can buy Arborio rice at most corner shops.

"We've certainly come a long way in a very short time," agrees Eddie Stableford, Managing Director of London-based trends agency Bryt.

"Pizza, poppadums, Pad Thai and Peking Duck - they are all on the weekly menu of your average suburban home," says Stableford. "Globally, there has been a rapid rise in modern food, partly as a result of being able to travel to places we once only knew in an atlas. Ingredients our mothers and grandmothers would never, ever have dreamed of using are now commonplace and are breaking down barriers, introducing an ever curious public to new places, adventures and foods. What's more, it's considered good to try new taste experiences, to push the culinary envelope and find the next 'big thing'. As this happens, many 'niche' flavours become mainstream."

Witness the food trends of the last few years: flexitarianism, cupcakes, raw food and protein-only diets. For a while, being a locavore and consuming only food and drink sourced within a certain radius of home was all the rage. And probiotic drinks, eating seasonally and keeping chickens have long been the new black.

"Not surprisingly, food trends reflect the social, economic and cultural shifts taking place around us," says Stableford. "What we eat, and how we eat it, is largely a reflection of what's going on in our world and our reaction to that."

So what are the soothsayers picking as their top culinary trends for this coming year?

NGF looks at what and how we'll be eating and drinking in 2011 - and the impact this will have on producers, suppliers and growers as they work to meet consumer and industry demand.      

Demographic Shifts

Of the food and beverage trends for 2011 identified by leading research company Mintel, the most significant are those related to demographic shifts.

According to Mintel's principal trends analyst Richard Cope, this trend can be broken down into two distinct strands - the first of which his company calls 'On Her Own Terms'.

"This trend is basically about female empowerment and the rise and rise of women becoming dominant figures in the home and workplace," begins Cope. "Women in the workforce are now better qualified, work longer hours and command higher salaries. For example, recent research shows that 30 percent of women in the UK in partnerships are the dominant earner in their families."

The knock-on effect is that men are, in a sense, left holding not only the baby but also the shopping basket.

"If more men are going to be doing the grocery shopping then that raises some really interesting questions about whether retailers and brands need to change the way they're marketing products and produce to male notions of value or health or providing for children - and whether these notions are different to female notions."

This will necessitate a more masculine take on health and value, to create food products targeted more at men as individuals or as people shopping for their families. "At the same time, men may be tempted to buy more products they are interested in. This has already happened in the cosmetics industry, with the emergence of a distinct 'male cosmetics' segment - and, to some extent, in the US it has started to happen with food too with a trend towards 'macho-cheffing' which involves quantities of meat and alcohol."

Also under the umbrella of demographic changes is the trend labelled by Mintel as 'Retired for Hire'. "The aging society in the West is probably having the biggest influence on all consumer trends at the moment. We looked at the idea that people aren't retiring, either because they haven't made provision and so are carrying on working because of financial necessity, or because they say they want to work. We are seeing an increasing number of people say they want to work, they enjoy it and want to be more engaged, more part of society."

According to statistics recently released by the United Nations, one in three people will be eligible for their pension by 2050, so this is a very significant sector. Add to this the fact that research conducted by the UK's Chartered Institute of Personnel Development revealed that three-quarters of those aged over 55 said they planned to continue working after retirement age "in order to enjoy and prolong a better standard of living", and it's easy to see that an aging demographic is going to prove very significant in dictating its needs to retailers and producers.

Says Cope: "By choosing to continue working, these people will have more disposable income and will continue spending, which makes them more powerful consumers. For example, in the UK it's believed that the over-50s control around 80 percent of the nation's wealth. What it means for producers and retailers is that this sector needs different products than they would if they were going off into retirement, for example products geared toward vitality, healthy and energy will become more important, as well as other products aimed at keeping people energized and sharp mentally".

Which is where the spectre of advertising raises its ugly head. "At the moment, energy drinks, foods and snacks are targeted at the youth market.  But as the older generation  becomes bigger consumers of these products then advertisers are going to have consider how to appeal to them. This demographic doesn't want to be targeted in the same way young people are, but hey also don't want to be seen as old. So it's a challenge for advertisers to appeal to them, because currently we are seeing this sector say they are pretty much ignored by advertisers."

Cope says there will also be a rise in demand for products that keep consumers looking good. "People who are continuing to work need to fend off competition from younger workers, so they want to be able to look good and be able to do the job as well, if not better, as younger colleagues which is where the cosmetics/beauty industry comes in."

The Big Issue

The figures don't lie: the UK is now the fourth tubbiest nation in the world, with a quarter of its citizens sporting a body mass index of 30 or more, slotting them into the 'obese' category. A further one in four Britons is considered overweight, according to research company Datamonitor. That means a whopping 40 million people are deemed to be at an unhealthy weight.

Briton is behind only Australia (71.1 percent), the US (69.9 percent) and the United Arab Emirates (68.4 percent) in the world fat league tables. The UK's closest European rival is Germany at 62 percent while in France the figure hovers around 42.3 percent mark.

"You can't argue against it - we are getting fatter," says Cope. "This is not by no means a new trend, but food and beverage manufacturers are increasingly having to face a decision about whether they cater to the trend, or they attempt to counter it with healthier alternatives."

When it comes to the former, there are plenty of companies wiling to hop on the fat bandwagon.

"We will see some rebel brands who celebrate the idea of personal freedom and stick two fingers up to the state. These brand will embrace the concept of indulgence and gluttony, and argue that consumers who want to eat this kind of food should be able to."

He cites the example of global fat-food chain KFC who recently released a burger in the US, Canada and the Philippines called the 'Double Down' which dispenses with the usual bread bun and instead uses two deep-fried chicken breasts to bookend the calorific entity. "It was the fastest selling burger they've ever had," says Cope.

At the other end of the obesity spectrum, there are those people for whom 'super-sizing' is a swear word. "There is a lot of pressure on people to keep the kilos at bay by eating healthily. This trend manifests itself in producers and retailers offering healthier options, such as McDonald's introducing a range of salads and healthier options. A lot of this behavior is in response to the increasing social pressure to eat healthily.

"There is a lot of anger bubbling up out there at the moment about obesity and its effects on society. Obesity is increasingly being seen as 'the new tobacco' and, just as people have said they are unhappy having their taxes pay for someone who smokes and has lung cancer, they are now turning their anger to obese people and saying, why should my taxes pay for gastric surgery and heart disease, and so on? Some brands will tap into this backlash to fuel the market in healthier food, in helping people who want to maintain a healthy weight to do so and that's going to be a key issue in 2011."

The twin forces of catering for, or of countering, obesity also creates niche markets for researchers looking at ways for us to, quite literally, have our cake and eat it too.

"Recent research coming out of the UK claims that if you took a pill call a 'statin pill' after eating a burger and shake it would basically eradicate the cholesterol of those foods so that you wouldn't put on weight. It's still at a theoretical stage at present but it raises the argument about whether it might be okay to call on certain indulgent foods if you then could offset them through science or medicine, without the need for exercise. I  can see this being a big area in terms of research and product development to help people keep the lifestyles they've got by relying on pharmaceuticals to keep healthy."      

Grow your own

A third key trend identified by Mintel for 2011 is entitled 'Garden State'. Again, says Cope, the desire to grow one's own vegetables and hark back to basic values is not new but Cope warns against dismissing these sustainable initiatives as a passing fad.

"Our research would suggest that it isn't a niche or fringe trend but rather a reaction to the world becoming increasingly urbanised. The United Nations claims that by 2050, 70 percent of the world's population will be living in cities. So the general knock-on effect is that while people might be living in concrete jungles, they don't want to lose the connection to the land."

The primary way this trend manifests itself is via a rise in the number of people growing their own fruit and vegetables. "People are increasingly cut off from their food sources, from good local products, which means that they either have the option of processed, tasteless food such as an apple that's sat on a refrigerator shelf for two weeks and doesn't taste of anything, or very expensive organics. I think part of the reason people are growing their own is to fill that middle ground."

The statistics speak for themselves, with one in five people in the UK growing their own fruit and vegetables and a 20 percent increase in the waiting list for allotments. Not surprisingly, sales of seeds have "gone through the roof" says Cope, which mainly translates into opportunities for garden centers or at the supermarket level which cater to the self-sufficient drive by stocking herbs for window boxes. Or for those who want to get their hands dirty, Cope cites the example of a company in Germany that rents pre-pared vegetable gardens. "People pay a fee to rent them which allows them to till them and grow food."

The trend also creates opportunities for food companies to push the 'we grow our own' message. Just as one semi-rural branch of UK supermarket giant Sainsbury's did by installing beehives and selling the honey on-site.

"Obviously you need a lot of land to grow your own produce or have beehives, but with lots of mega stores being sited out of town there is great potential to do this."

Riding the coat-tales of the sustainability trend is the increasingly consumer-driven trend for better farming and manufacturing processes that benefit both humans, such as Fairtrade products, and for animals, such as free-range initiatives.

And, of course, it also corresponds with our ongoing interest in cooking and making meals from scratch - a trend prompted not only by recession-fuelled austerity but also our love of celebrity chefs and cooking shows.

Says Stableford: "We love watching chefs slice, sauté, steam and roast and now we're dusting off the gadgets and discovering they're more fun to use than admire. Our kitchens are crammed with utensils and things like baking pans and fish kettles, things that let us indulge our love of cooking real food from scratch and from the land, rather than from a carton".        

Where it's App

A close relative of the trend above, this will see consumers increasingly utilise technology and, in particular, Smartphones, to make informed consumer choices.

"The Smartphone market is growing enormously in Europe - something like 41 percent between 20098 and 2010. In the UK, 28 percent of internet users now have a Smartphone, says Cope. "Which gives rise to various applications (apps) and geo-tracking technology that allows consumers to monitor what they're eating."

For example, there is an app called Augmented Living Goods that basically allows consumers to read bar-codes on food and uses those to produce data about a product's origin.

"People are still very interested in where their food comes from, how many air-miles it has, how far its traveled, how old it is and how it's grown and reared. They're in tune with the seasons and want to know the provenance of what they're putting into their mouths."  

This is a trend that Cope predicts will have even more of a significant impact on consumers and producers alike in 2011. It focuses on people eating lower on the food chain, if you like, and reflects a reduction in consumer spending by almost 30 percent from this time last year.

"The legacy of this trend is, of course, the recession and the resulting drive for austerity. It's really about people taking a preventative attitude towards their spending and trying to act in moderation. It's basically an anti-wastage attitude."

But its reach is wider than just individual waste; Cope says people also want to buy from companies who don't waste money or resources either. It also extends to those who can afford to spend, who may be beset by what's being termed 'luxury shame'. This means  high-end consumption is out and discount shopping is in.

"In the food context, at its very basic level, this trend translates into things like people buying more tinned or frozen food. There is a greater awareness that freezing foods early locks into nutritious benefits, that just because something is frozen doesn't mean that it's any less fresh than something that's sold as fresh but has, in fact, been sitting on the refrigerator shelf for two weeks."

It's a trend that has been gathering steam for the past few years. For example, between 2004 and 2008, there was a 100 percent increase in frozen food sales in the UK alone, a trend that is borne out across Europe.

Cope admits it has echoes of a "bunker mentality" where people search for stability in a tumultuous world. "It's about people taking the long-term view and again, being prepared for the worst. In the US for example, retailing giant Walmart was offering a year's supply of canned goods for a certain price. It's the bunker mentality of consumers being prepared for whatever life can throw at them, of being prepared."

Retail Rebirth

It's no secret that the recession has been tough on retailers, particularly in the food arena. But focusing solely on lowering price point, on discounting prices, may have backfired for some retailers, says Cope.

"If retailers discount too much, it can have negative connotations as in, you become associated as a low-cost store. So this trend is about how retailers will be looking at more creative ways to get people into their shops but avoiding doing it purely on discounting or price."

One way of doing this is to expand your offering - for example, clothing stores like Ted Baker are adding a barber in-store, while KMART is adding a laundromat. "In the food sector, its something that's been going on for a few years. For example, Asda in the UK has tried to differentiate itself by making their stores more 'community oriented' by welcoming in local businesses such as fishmongers or butchers to open concessions in-store. This gives the stores a more local community kind of feel."

In France, Carrefour supermarkets are making use of their large retail spaces to add features that encourage people to spend more time in-store. These include offering hairdressing salons or nurseries for the children while you shop.

"They're also doing things such as live cooking lessons, which allows customers to use the products they're using. So you come to the lesson and then buy all the food to take home and recreate the dish yourself. It's something that can really make food shopping more interesting, more interactive and help to build up trust for people with retailers."

An interesting development within this trend is for non-food retailers to get involved in the food sector. "There's been quite a lot of cross-over between confectionery and baking with fashion stores and lots of high-end boutiques getting involved in that." One of the most significant is UK footwear/accessory designer Patrick Cox who has recently opened a boutique bakery in London's Covent Garden.

"Its a good fit for these kind of retailers because the shop has connotations of high-end indulgence at different price points but this cross-over trend is also about trying to add something extra to make the shopping experience more enjoyable. It gives people another reason to shop and meet people. The phenomenon of social shopping is quite established in areas like fashion, at least for women. But with events like in-store cooking lessons, retailers are looking to move social influence into the food arena, to give customers other reasons to go into the shop in the first place, and then expand the visit."

Who Needs Humans?

As the name suggests, this trend is all about automation in society, about machines replacing roles that humans once had.

"Some of it strays into quite left-field territory about robots and rent-a-friend groups. But at the heart of it, this trend is about people becoming more isolated who may, or may not, be looking to make connections," says Cope.

On a food and beverage level, this trend is really concerned about the rise of vending machines and self-checkouts, and raises the argument about whether we want to get advice from people when we buy our food, or if we'd prefer to do it without human contact in a high-speed kind of way."          

This of course, has ramifications for producers and suppliers wishing to meet the demand for faster food and snacks.

"Research we did in 2009 showed that 51 percent of Britons considered vending machines a quick and easy way to get what they need. Across Europe the trend is even more expansive; in Spain, for example, there's a butchers shop that offers meat vending machines where you can buy fresh meat from a machine 24 hours a day. While in Germany, you can buy dairy products and breakfast-type products from a vending machine."

And here's one that will cause the purists to spit out their dinner in horror: in Italy, the birthplace of pizza, they've recently launched a vending machine that dispenses slices of hot pizza. And anecedotal evidence suggests it's been selling like, well, hot pizza.   

"People are essentially more open-minded to buying things from vending machines, but it also shows how people's perceptions of freshness are changing. They're coming round to the idea that something frozen or from a vending machine may be just as good, if not better, than food that has travelled a long way and sat around for a long time..."

FOODIE TRENDS FROM ACROSS THE POND

Want to know what our trans-Atlantic cousins will be chowing down on in 2011? Here's what trend analyst firm Freeman & Co sees in the crystal ball for 2011:

-   The Pie's the Limit: Move over cupcake, make way for pie. It's predicted that pies, ranging from whisky-buttermilk to traditional banana cream, will become the number one foodie trend in 2011. Decadence, say the experts, is endless with everything from individual deep-fried pies, bite-sized minis and even pies blended into shakes expected to grab the food headlines.     

-   You're the One: Single-purpose eateries serving a variation of one thing - experts say expect such places as the Peanut Butter Palace, French Dippity Dog or even the Big Biscuit which specializes in, what else but large biscuits, to open soon.

-   Smaller is Better: Traditional meals are going the way of the fun snack. Smaller portions are perfect for smaller wallets and eating on the run so mini pizzas and bagels, two-bite hot-dogs, mini tacos and burritos, cake truffles, even pot roasts and pot pies, will all be downsized.

-   Deep fried veggies: It's predicted that throwing previously unloved veggies into the deep-fryer will turn them into culinary sensations. Get ready for deep-fried cauliflower, Brussel sprouts and kale chips.