The State of 2025 Food Trend Predictions
What black garlic, hot honey, lavender, and dragonfruit have in common
Last year, I wrote a newsletter devoted to my predictions for 2024 food trends. This year I set out to do the same and found myself stuck.
I talked about this the last go-round, but it seems to me that trend predictions fall into two camps. One method relies on assessing vibes: looking around at micro-trends in creative spaces and guessing which might be more broadly adopted. This tactic relies not on data but intuition. So much of culture is transmuted online, and print media by its nature will always fall a few steps behind. I genuinely believe there are a few chronically online people who have a knack for figuring out which trends are about to blow up. I no longer think I’m one of them.
A big part of that is that I rarely consume short-form video - I have TikTok but almost never open the app (despite a recent desultory attempt to start posting there more frequently). I also shuttered my cake business last year. This means I’m no longer feverishly attuned to cake decorating as a creative practice. I feel more like a detached observer of visual trends in desserts. In general, the whole endeavor feels less meaningful. I also don’t live in a large coastal city, where I might have more opportunity to engage with the work of “global tastemakers” in-person. This isn’t to say that all trends begin in large urban centers (far from it), but you’d be excused from believing so based on the sorts of fads that get picked up by mainstream media.
The second camp in food trend prediction relies on industry data to foretell what will happen next. Last year, I wrote:
“Most trend reporting seems to be driven by hard data - generally consumer polling run by large corporations, or by noting shifts in search terms on Google. I’d argue, however, that this type of reporting is actually responding to trends, rather than predicting them.”
I still tentatively stand by that statement, but I’m also keen, this year, to dig a little deeper. My first exposure to this sort of trend forecasting occurred in 2008, when I read an article by Kim Severson for the New York Times about the rise of salted caramel. These days salted caramel is so widespread as to be a cliche. It’s almost hard to remember there was a time when it still felt fresh. Severson points to this cultural shift occurring when mass market brands adopted the flavor - Haagen Dazs, Starbucks, and Wal-Mart all debuted salted caramel-themed goods in 2008. She writes,
“Salt caramel’s rise as the flavor of the year illuminates the fast flow of food trends in a country that can grab hold of a relatively unknown ingredient like chipotle and move it through a cultural sluice box that ends at McDonald’s.
Something of an overachiever compared with other upstart flavors like asiago cheese and wasabi, the flavor combination made its successful run from rarefied Parisian pastry shops to American big-box stores in about a decade, a relatively short period, according to people who study food trends.”
Severson interviewed an expert, Kara Nielsen, who at the time worked for the Center for Culinary Development in San Francisco - an agency that specializes in developing consumer packaged goods, with clients like Kellogs, Frito-Lay, and Pepperidge Farm. Nielsen describes five stages of adoption for new flavors in the marketplace. They tend to begin in “small ethnic restaurants or fine dining establishments” (Nielsen’s words) before making their way in front of successively larger audiences. Salted caramel has now achieved ubiquity in the flavor marketplace: stage five, the end.
When I was still contemplating my own food trend listicle this past December, I thought about chestnut - I’d just used it for a cookie recipe, as had Nicola Lamb, and I’d seen a flurry of interest in chestnut stuffing recipes around Thanksgiving. A trip to the mall put the kibosh on that. Walking past a Starbucks, I noticed a prominent ad for a new chestnut latte. The flavor had entered what Nielsen described in 2008 as “high stage four”: by no means was it a new trend.
It is, of course, important to point out the colonial overtones of harvesting trends from so-called “ethnic” restaurants or cuisines. I’m guilty of it myself. Last year, I joked that 2024 was finally going to be the year of rice pudding. Of course, rice pudding is a staple food in cuisines across the globe. How can it be “in” if it never left? It might be more accurate to say that an ingredient becomes broadly “trendy” when it is no longer in danger of potentially alienating a white audience. Large food corporations don’t take many risks. By the time Haagen Dazs debuted a rum tres leches ice cream in 2019, the market had been well tested by smaller food businesses with less overhead and more flexibility.
Food trend prediction might seem frivolous, but it can have profound social and economic effects. Alicia Kennedy wrote of the fallout of the quinoa fad in her piece “Climate Nausea”, which draws a line between quinoa’s coronation as a superfood (also, ironically, in 2008) and the subsequent market collapse, which left Bolivia’s agricultural economy in ruins. She writes,
“The little interests, the cool factor, these have real implications when they lead to overproduction and changes to age-old agricultural practices. How cool can tinned fish or mountains of butter be before the bottom falls out? This “taste,” this “cool factor”—these are not neutral.”
Worth pointing out, too, is the way that MAHA (Make America Healthy Again, the movement spearheaded by RFK Jr and fearmongering moms across the country) is shaping food trends, with raw milk being the most obvious example. I’m morbidly curious how this will continue to shake out, especially with the rising pseudoscientific mistrust of preservatives and seed oils. I find it chilling that more and more food brands are pledging to go seed-oil free (like Sweetgreen and True Food Kitchen) based not on scientific evidence, but public pressure.
With all that being said, what are food and dining industry groups predicting for 2025? Below is a roundup. My biggest takeaway is how dated some of these ideas already feel, the heat factor of each trend already beginning to cool once it reaches the level of corporate notice - like hot honey, which you can get at the airport, for crying out loud. Also widespread are categories so vast they begin to lose their meaning as “trends” - like the idea of Southeast Asian cuisine as a trend, which crops up multiple times.
I should also note that most of the major food media outlets - like the NYT, Food and Wine, and the Food Network - used these lists to build out much of their own 2025 predictions. From my perspective, they seem to cherry-pick pithy forecasts, like “yuzu”, and elide the parts of these lists that could make you feel a little queasy to repeat in print, like “global flavors”. I’d also argue that we lose some context when the prediction is divorced from its source. It’s easy to see why a group like the Specialty Foods Association would promote certain ready-to-eat processed foods as a trend, especially when they then include examples of their own member’s products. Ditto with Baldor, whose prediction list could double as a catalog. For the sake of brevity, I didn’t include all the predictions in each list for beverages, so if that’s your special interest you might want to dive into the links.
Last, I’ll point out that only three of these lists included methodologies.
The industry group The Specialty Foods Association is a non profit that represents 3000+ CPG (consumer packaged good) food brands. They predict:
Snacks for dinner (in a very Miranda Priestly voice: groundbreaking).
“Global” ready-to-eat processed foods, like simmer sauces, frozen dumplings, and pre-made pupusas.
“Chef-driven” meal kits.
“Functional” foods, including those that include mushrooms or plants with purported mental health benefits, like ashwagandha (do these align with MAHA?).
Chilis, especially ones with a mild, smoky flavor.
Vinegars, including “drinking” vinegars and infused vinegars (hello, Tart Vinegar!).
“Natural” sweeteners like honey and maple.
Oil-based hot sauces, like chili crisp and salsa macha (the latter is mentioned in multiple lists).
Black garlic.
Lavender (would love to see the data on this as it feels super cliche to me).
Flavored cheeses.
The Good Housekeeping Institute (self-described as a “consumer product testing and advocacy center’) predicts:
High-protein foods will continue to reign.
“Global flavors” and “international snacks” (I know, I know).
“Functional” mocktails.
Luxury produce (like the Oishi berries and pink pineapples).
“Next level water” - basically, water with additional purported health benefits (i.e. the Vitamin Water rebrand).
“Better baby food”.
Sourdough in products other than bread (such as crackers or pasta).
Organ meats ☹️
Upcycled food products, made from trimmings or things that would otherwise be thrown away. I’ve seen a few products in my local Whole Foods made from the byproduct of oat milk production - are their other widespread examples, and can actually claim market share?
Personalized nutrition (we’ve seen this in the haircare and vitamin markets already).
Did you know Whole Foods has a “Trend Council”? It’s made up of “a collective of more than 50 Whole Foods Market team members ranging from foragers and buyers to culinary experts”. This seems vibey but I’m including it anyway since I assume they have lots of opportunity to observe shopping habits. The Whole Foods Market’s Trends Council predicts:
“International snacking” - they give the example of popcorn with, you guessed it, “global flavors”.
Dumplings (not mad).
Crunchy textures, with an emphasis on dehydrated fruits and candy as well as salad toppers.
“Enhanced” water.
Tea, both stand-alone and as a flavor additive.
Compostable packaging.
Sustainable booze.
Sourdough CPG products (other than bread).
“Plant based aquatic ingredients” which is a mouthful of a phrase when they really just mean seaweed (sea moss gummies are one example).
Protein-boosted products (the emphasis on these seems to stem from the popularity of GLP-1’s, whether they say so explicitly or not).
The Michelin Guide sought input from their inspectors for this list. They predict:
“Elevated” plant based dining.
“Unusual toppings and ingredients” which feels impossibly broad, though they mostly seem to mean putting caviar on unexpected things.
“Flame cooked flavors” i.e. charcoal grilled food…?
“A fresh take on southeast Asian”. They don’t say “elevated” here (they probably know better by now) but that’s the vibe they’re putting out.
Chinese cuisine - they refer to a “Chinese culinary renaissance”.
More eco-friendly or regenerative practices in restaurants.
“Global treats”. They give tacos as an example. Quote: “humble street food classics will also receive the accolades they merit”.
Drink pairings (that aren’t wine), including cocktails and NA options.
I found this following report from a mention in Food and Wine. The NEXT Flavor Report “is a first-of-its-kind compilation of third-party market research and proprietary data gathered by the Rubix Foods NEXT Flavor Network – a collective of influential taste-making social media creators with Gen Z audiences – who have helped us unveil the unfiltered, unbiased and real-time cravings of this highly sought after generation who will reshape the flavor trends and strategies of restaurant menus in 2025”. You might laugh but this is the one of only three reports I reviewed that included a methodology, and they have the largest sample size (they interviewed over 15,000 young people). They predict:
“Complex heat” (so not just spicy - the flavor needs to have depth, and it can’t be too hot).
Fruits like dragon fruit, guava, and passionfruit.
Floral infused flavors like hibiscus, lavender (!), and cherry blossom.
Sweet/Spicy combo flavors like hot honey.
Salty/Sweet flavors like brown butter, caramel pretzel, and salted maple.
CPG food brand mashups (I hate to report that the Cinnamon Coast Crunch Hormel bacon collab is an example).
Variations on the “core four” Gen z sauces: barbecue, buffalo, mustard, and ranch (chimichurri ranch was one prediction that made it to the NYT roundup).
Unexpected food combinations: quote, “Freaky Mashups”. They predict we’ll continue to find pickle flavor in unexpected places - “Gen Z is passionate about pickles”.
“Worldwide” flavors / “Global” cuisine (again!!!). I will note that they predict a substantial increase of interest in saba of all things and they reiterate that black garlic will be trending.
“Turning items into flavors” - like a beverage becoming a sauce (Dr. Pepper barbecue sauce was one example), or breakfast-inspired flavors like pancake and everything bagel cropping up in snacks and beverages.
The National Restaurant Association, that bastion of union-busting we love to hate, issued a trend report based on a survey of industry professionals on what’s “hot, not hot, or an emerging trend”. They didn’t include the number of people who responded to the survey in their methodology. They predict:
sustainability (this feels performative, no?).
Korean, Vietnamese, and Filipino cuisine, and Southeast Asian cuisine more broadly.
Honey and hot honey.
“Functional” mushrooms, including mushroom-infused beverages.
Pineapple, tamarind, and ube.
Fermented and pickled foods.
Spicy maple (hot honey’s Canadian cousin entering the chat).
Miso (can someone build me a computer program to analyze how many recipes were developed with “miso” in the title in the last 6 months? I get it, its delicious!).
Matcha.
“Wellness drinks”.
Smaller, more streamlined menus (I am fine with this).
A “macro trend” they isolated is an emphasis on the value of a meal (another thousand fast casual concepts take flight).
Baldor Foods, a specialty food distributor based in the Northeast and the mid-Atlantic. Their report seems to be mostly based on recent sales trends. They predict:
Climate sensitive and regenerative produce.
Yuzu and Sudachi citrus (hi Yuzoco!).
French food (they point to a 40% increase in sales in the cut of beef commonly used in steak frites).
“Designer produce” with another nod to Oishi berries, as well as limited-edition lettuce crops.
Fig leaf (I resoundingly agree here).
Cacao Barry’s Extra Brut Cocoa Powder, which they report has seen a 50% increase in sales. Can anyone in NYC explain to me why?
“80’s Decadence Revival” including caviar, again. Is this just partying like the world is going to end? Because it feels like partying like the world is going to end.
Tropical fruit, with another nod to dragonfruit.
Pistachios.
Jackfruit as a meat substitute.
Spicy foods, like Carolina Reapers.
Of all these, the list of Baldor foods with the greatest sales growth is the most interesting to me, including:
Marigold Flower Blossoms (164% percentage growth).
Hawaiian Basil (129% percentage growth).
Finger Limes (113% percentage growth).
Cotton Candy Grapes (88% percentage growth).
Goldenberries (70% percentage growth).
Kumquats (65% percentage growth).
Lamb Roasts (61% percentage growth).
The Carbonate Group Hospitality Trends Report, which the NYT leaned on heavily in their own coverage, is a collaboration between marketing firm Carbonate and the SF-based consulting firm AF + Co (they’ve been publishing their report for 17 years). They predict:
Pistachios (they call it their flavor of the year).
Kataifi (as seen in the viral Dubai chocolate bar, which also features pistachio).
Freezer martinis (these are just martinis stored in the freezer? idk).
“Simple seafood” like raw bars and fish preparations with a very light touch.
Croissant adaptations (like croissant dough as a container for other foods: an “adaptable platform”).
Conchas (I can’t help but wonder if Teresa Finney and Comadre Panaderia have something to do with this).
Self-serve ramen concepts.
Japanese and Korean convenience food more broadly.
Asian late-night dessert cafe concepts.
Turkish cuisine.
Yemeni coffee shops (there’s a heavy emphasis on NA third places in this report). They also point to Yemeni honeycomb bread which I had on my last visit to Detroit (it’s DELICIOUS).
Miso in coffee (sure!)
Finally, a somewhat niche food and bev economic trend report developed by FLIP, the Food Liability Insurance Program, who I used to buy business insurance from when I still sold food. They have long list of sources included at the end, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but in their methodology they indicate they only surveyed around 250 people. Their list is maybe less about trend prediction and more a presentation of data from 2024 - I suppose the idea is that those patterns will continue. Take this as you will! They predict:
People will continue to spend more on dining out than ever, and eat more of their meals outside the home.
Affordability will be the main concern in dining out, and casual dining will be more popular than fine dining.
People will continue to hate QR code menus.
Honey / hot honey will be popular.
Ditto Southeast Asian cuisine (again).
Guests will want to be able to customize their menu options.
Mexican food will be ever more popular.
Food cost will be a primary challenge for small business owners (shocking, right?). Quote: “Food prices are up 28% since 2019”.
Notwithstanding the optimistic predictions of tech reporters, food business owners will be hesitant to implement AI tools.
Despite having some of the tightest profit margins, baking continues to be a growth industry in food.
“Natural” sweeteners, whole grains and ancient grains, sourdough and vegan options will continue to be popular, and customers will still seek out wheat-free options.
States will continue to loosen restrictions on cottage food.
The gourmet pet food and snacks industry will continue to grow.
Reading this satisfied such a specific part of my brain and I wanted it to go on forever. I am particularly excited for freezer martinis (lol) and equally confused by lavender. I’d say about 75% of the time someone requests a custom cake from me, they write “I’m thinking something like lavender?”… it feels like an outdated “interesting” ingredient, but maybe it’s a good approachable gateway to other floral flavors. And maybe I’m being judgmental.
I miss the Som drinking vinegars, they were delicious.