Food trends not only occur due to popular demand but also to availability of certain goods. This is very true of the past as many products were consumed through ease of access. Although accessability is important. Popular demand also dictated what was trending in the industry. The food trends of both the past and present will be explored in the subsequent piece.
In regards to past trends within the food industry in the UK there was a large focus on seasonal and local produce in the 1940’s. With world war two, there was limits on what was able to be imported into the country and so regional and local produce was the most prevalent source of food in the UK. This was witnessed in many countries as leaders looked internally to satisfy needs of the population (Milanov, 2020). Furthermore, people were much more likely to purchase their foods from butchers, bakers and green grocers rather than at the ‘multi-purpose’ supermarkets used contemporarily.
The post-war 1950’s-1960’s saw a rise in both indulgence and convenience with ready meals, frozen meals and takeaways becoming much more prevalent within the British diet. This can be attributed to advancements in technology providing homes with fridge-freezers.
The 1980’s saw a large rise in eating meals outside of the home with 1⁄3 households in 1983 eating three meals a week outside the home compared to 1952 where half of households never ate outside the home.
(GovUK, 2016)
Through time we can see that there has been a significant rise in the amount of indulgence the average person has through food. This being partly due to changes in expectations/attitudes but also importantly through the accessibility of certain food types.
Modern food trends are extremely dynamic, changing quickly due to economic, social, environmental and even technological factors. More than ever, the consumer has ultimate power to control what is popular with the industry as there are not many limitations (in the UK) to what is accessible (Milanov, 2016). In terms of modern food trends, there has been a huge rise in health, environment and experience. The health aspects and environmental effect of food has become increasingly more important to the average consumer with a huge increase in plant based, low carbon and health conscious options/ways to eat. In 2020, the plant based ‘meat and dairy’ industry made sales of 29 billion USD, 8% of the global ‘protein food’ industry (Minassian, 2022). Low carbon foods fall under the category of plant based eating, as does health foods. Health foods in the UK like probiotics and fermented foods have also benefited from a rise in popularity (Aubrey, N.d). Continually, as peoples lives in the first-world, modern UK have become easier and full of more luxuries, food has also experienced this shift to being an experience/enjoyment rather than just a necessity (Milanov, 2020).
Food trends define the cultures and time periods in which they exist and give interesting insight into an era/population. Food is something that everyone must partake in and so exploration into the concept of what is popular in the food industry is broad and both interesting and useful to the industry itself.
Stay tuned for the next post as we will be delving into upcoming trends within the food industry as well as innovation within the food industry and what these upcoming trends could mean for food advancement.
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