2023 Food Trends and Forecasts

2022 has come and gone and another year in the world of food has come to a close. We saw a lot of great trends in 2022 and there were a lot of big events that changed the current food scene. Markets have just started to recover, and the supply chain is getting caught back up to pre-covid numbers. Let's take a look into what we can expect in the upcoming year in the world of food 2023!

• Alternate/cell based proteins

-Alternate proteins will be THE trend of 2023

-Cell based foods received a green light from the FDA earlier this past year and companies will be looking to be the first to get their product to market

-Alternate proteins started with cell-based chicken, and others like “BlueNalu” are beginning to rethink seafood, not just from “cell-based salmon” but have taken the leaps into toro (fatty tuna belly)

-We will see proteins get to market, then go through a revamping faze and by August I would estimate we begin seeing the first “flavored alternate protein meals”

Cell Based Meat from proteinreport.com

• Catering is making a comeback

-2020 to 2022 was a terrible period for personal chefs and catering with Covid restrictions in place, as well as travel bans

-Nearing the end of 2022, we are seeing catering numbers and sales that are similar to 2019 before Covid

-Individuals are beginning to hire out, have parties and want great food in their home again prepared by a professional. Look for catering and other at-home services to be a trend this year that regains its traction

• Korean food makes an impact

-Sriracha helped pave the way with spicy/funky Asian ingredients and making consumers feel comfortable with an unfamiliar item 

-As consumers branched out, they found gochujang (spicy fermented pepper paste). Gochujang has been showing up on menus across the world as people realize that fermented/funky foods are packed with flavor 

-TTeokbokki, an extremely popular street food in South Korea, has been appearing in supermarket frozen sections more frequently and appearing on more menus. TTeokbokki is a dish consisting of rice cakes cooked in a spicy sauce (usually gochujang adds the heat in this dish) Scallions and vegetables are added as the consumers choice.

-Look for doenjang to also become more popular and show up on menus. Doenjang is a fermented soybean paste that is similar to gochujang

Tteokbokki from penguintaste.com

• Experimenting with plant based will continue

-We are still trying to figure out where plant-based cuisine is headed. More individuals have cut back on animal protein consumption in 2022 as sustainability (global warming more specifically) becomes a focus to younger consumers who want to help improve the world’s climate

-As discussed above, cell-based protein alternatives will be huge in the food market this year 

-Chefs continue to educate themselves on how to make vegetables and plants as delicious as possible, and look for creative ways to feature them on their menus

• Supply chain will continue to dictate trends

-Trends follow a lot of different developmental periods. Mostly we saw chefs and developers react to the market in 2022

-Where chicken was too expensive because of avian flu, we found ways to provide similar meals without the protein

-As we see markets fluctuate, chefs will keep planning around the best price points

-This is a common development style, but has been more prevalent as of late due to constrictions in the supply space

• Revamp in restaurant schedules

-Individuals in restaurants are having the thought of “we design our restaurant as efficiently as possible, the kitchen and food is designed around being time-friendly, but what about our schedules?”

-More design is going into what is sustainable for individuals schedules in 2023

-Many restaurant operators are toying with the idea of Monday-Friday schedules and closing on weekends to allow their staff to have better work/life balance

-It will be interesting to see how this shakes out, as I am skeptical with restaurants doing a majority of their business on weekends

• Non-Alcoholic cocktails and beverages will continue to grow

-Fine dining took the non-alcoholic cocktail scene and ran with it. More or less, sprinted.

-This trend exploded in 2022. 3 star Michelin restaurants Noma and Alinea both released NA beverage cookbooks/recipes and the books are nothing short of a work of art

-Much like with food, we are finding new ways to infuse, pickle, spice, season, and toy with consistencies of cocktails

-Gen Z and Millennials have both trended downward in alcohol consumption and this is why we will see this trend continue to flourish

2023 will see a lot of new concepts. Some will work, most will not, and others will explode in popularity. Markets will shift, the weather will change and we will react as best we can to the ever changing climate. I believe chef’s will have a more creative 2023 than 2022 as markets recover and more products are available. Looking forward to an exciting year! 

Have a great 2023!

Stephen