Food Industry Trends 2023: Major Food Trends to Help Grow Your Business

In the first post of our 2023 food industry trends series, we highlighted five up-and-coming restaurant technology trends to watch. Now, it’s time for food to take center stage as we predict the hottest food trends coming your way in 2023. 

Adopting emerging food trends helps your restaurant stand out from competitors, remain relevant, and become more profitable as you answer to changing consumer needs. But, more importantly, translating trends into your menu allows you to help shape how we approach food, health, and the world we live in today.

Here are the biggest food trends we expect to rise to the top in the coming year.

Plant-based food reinvented

The first major food trend on the list may not come as a surprise. The plant-based food market is expected to grow to $162 billion by 2030, confirming it has gone from a fad to a standalone sector with huge potential. 

Increased demand for high-quality plant-based food is fueled by consumers reassessing what they eat and how it affects their health and the planet. With more and more people embracing a flexitarian diet, numerous restaurants have already added plant-based dishes to their menus. The next step is to diversify your plant-based offering, improve quality, and prioritize flavor.

Plant-based ingredients expected to be in exceptionally high demand next year include yuzu fruit, the ube – a purple yam from the Philippines, and all kinds of specialty mushrooms, like maitakes, oyster mushrooms, crimini, and trumpet mushrooms.

How to capitalize on this trend

Do you want to rise to the occasion but don’t know where to start? You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. These easy-to-implement vegan menu ideas will set your restaurant up for success.

• Create a ‘build-your-own’ poké bowl, burger, or taco concept, including plant-based and vegan ingredients and toppings.

• Offer meat-free burger alternatives using patties made from soybeans, lentils, tofu, jackfruit, nuts, etc.

• Put plant-based appetizers or sharing food on the menu, like cauliflower wings, nachos with a range of toppings, veggie spring rolls, and (fried) halloumi sticks.

• Prepare vegetable curries with seasonal produce and lots of spices.

• Make your dishes vegan by replacing cow milk with cashew, almond, soy, coconut, rice, or oat milk and substituting eggs with ground flaxseed or bananas.

Sustainable glocal flavors

Glocal food combines global cuisine with locally sourced and produced ingredients. 

The glocal food trend is a different approach to fusion. It’s all about preparing dishes and mixing food from kitchens worldwide using low-carbon impact ingredients, like local produce and food from sustainable agriculture. 

Vertical farming is a good example of sustainable agriculture predicted to become more widespread in 2023. It’s the practice of growing plants indoors in vertically stacked layers, reducing the crops’ need for water and fertilizer and eliminating pesticides. Additionally, vertical farms can be set up anywhere in the world, facilitating shorter supply chains and significantly reducing carbon emissions.

How to capitalize on this trend

While you can fuse and mix ingredients, preparation methods, and traditions from cuisines across the globe, the key to getting this trend right is to be conscious about your food sources and suppliers.

You can ease into this trend and start ‘glocalizing’ your restaurant’s menu by:

• buying your ingredients from local suppliers; 

• adapting your menu to seasonal changes;

• only using food produced as a result of sustainable farming practices.

Do you want to take it up a notch? Grow some of your own ingredients (think vegetables and spices), and use fewer animal products that produce high carbon emissions, like lamb and beef.

Charcuterie, cheese, and butter boards

The next up-and-coming food trend in 2023 is charcuterie, cheese, and butter boards. (That’s right, we’ll never get bored of the board!). 

While charcuterie and cheese boards are familiar favorites, the butter board is a new addition. And it is exactly what it sounds like: a charcuterie-inspired board coated with a generous amount of softened butter, which serves as a base for various toppings and condiments. It’s a perfect sharing dish your guests can scoop up using chunks of toasted bread, crostini, or crackers.

Charcuterie, cheese, and butter boards are easy to make and personalize. That makes them popular with hosts and guests alike – and with restaurants, who can provide their customers with a fun and budget-friendly meal that enables them to socialize and make new memories. 

In addition, food boards are very Instagrammable, so you may find yourself trending on social media once you create a winning signature butter, charcuterie, or cheese board!

How to capitalize on this trend

This food trend is easy to adopt, but the real magic happens when you choose a delicious board that fits your brand personality.

If you create a butter board, make sure you use high-quality (salted and grass-fed) butter for the best flavor. Then, you can experiment with toppings until you find your favorite flavor combinations: sundried or chopped tomatoes, fresh herbs, oil, nuts and seeds, fresh and dried fruits, honey drizzle, or even chunks of meat or fish. Anything goes!

Select local, organic, and plant-based toppings for bonus points. And if you really want to stand out, you can replace the butter and go for hummus, tzatziki, cottage cheese, or any other dip instead. Or try a sweet board slathered with Nutella or peanut butter!

Retro food

Comfort food and nostalgia go hand in hand. So in today’s climate, it’s no wonder the hashtag #vintagerecipes has been trending on Pinterest and TikTok. Following the social media hype, restaurants have started to put retro foods back on the menu, a trend that will likely continue in 2023.

Operators aren’t just recreating vintage dishes. Instead, they’re putting a spin on tried and true customer favorites, adding new flavors and ingredients to ‘make the old new again’. The trend satisfies customer demand for shareable, casual dishes that are big in taste (and mainly made with low-cost ingredients!).

How to capitalize on this trend

If you want to tap into the vintage food trend, it makes great business sense to focus on a few meals that can bring comfort, joy, and nostalgia to a large audience. So, choose a couple of retro dishes that fit the gist of your clientele, find a way to elevate them, and let them work their magic!

Here are a few comeback food ideas to get your creative juices flowing:

• Macaroni and cheese. Put a spin on it by adding different kinds of (plant-based) cheeses and extra ingredients like bacon or even seafood. You can also think creatively and create a signature mac and cheese burger or mac and cheese pancakes.

• Deviled eggs. Restaurants are coming up with unique deviled egg flavor combinations, topping the classic egg side dish with bacon and ranch, Sriracha, chorizo, Pimento cheese, or shrimp. If you want to go really wild, you can try deviled Scotch eggs.

• Waffles. A popular childhood favorite, waffles are now finding their way to the dinner table. You can serve savory waffles with chicken, cheddar and bacon, or smoked salmon. There are endless possibilities.
  

Low-waste cuisine

Research shows 30% of the food produced worldwide is wasted annually. Luckily, food waste is a solvable issue. Enter the low-waste movement, which aims to minimize food waste by using and upcycling food products otherwise destined for waste. 

This movement is another example of how increased demand for sustainability impacts how consumers (want to) eat. Fighting food waste is at the top of your customers’ minds, with 72% of consumers saying they are more conscious about food waste today than three years ago. Therefore, F&B operators will continue to look for creative ways to make food go further and reply to consumers’ calls.
That’s where the low-waste cooking trend comes in. The concept centers on leaving as little waste as possible after preparing a meal. That means reducing packaging and repurposing food scraps like carrot tops, potato peels, chicken bones, and broccoli stems. In other words, nose-to-tail and leaf-to-root cooking will be on the menu in the year ahead.

How to capitalize on this trend

Low-waste cooking doesn’t just mean you use every single part of any food product. You can also achieve less waste by automating back-of-house operations like inventory management. Restaurant management platforms integrate inventory management into your POS, allowing you to sync inventory in real time between your sales channels. This integration helps you avoid overbuying stock while providing valuable data you can use to plan ahead and repurpose leftovers.

Sustainability is the overarching theme in 2023

Consumers will focus even more on food transparency, health, and sustainability in the year ahead. Meeting that demand means you’ll probably have to make a few changes to your restaurant’s menu. For instance, you can add more plant-based dishes, buy more locally sourced ingredients, and proactively fight food waste by upcycling products.

Another way to win over your customers next year is by preparing nostalgic retro food that whisks them back to their childhood. In addition, they expect fun, shareable dishes that are low-cost, photogenic, and packed with bold flavors from across the world.

So, get ready to finetune your menu offering to satisfy consumers' cravings and expand your brand!

Discover more 2023 food industry trends and learn how restaurants’ business models need to change moving forward.