An increasingly important part of consumers begins to demand from the food industry healthy, personalized, sustainable products that provide physical or emotional well-being. These are some of the trends tracked by the Healthia Certification Observatory:
1. Self-care: The hectic pace of current life, constant connectivity and widespread mistrust towards the regulatory systems of the agri-food industry, have caused many consumers to focus on 'self-care' and prioritize the time and efforts devoted to searching ingredients, products and combinations of foods and beverages that provide nutritional, physical or emotional benefits that improve your self-care priorities.
2. Think global, eat local: In many countries there is an increasingly pronounced tendency to make dishes created with ingredients that are obtained at close range.
3. The boom of vegetable proteins and vegan desserts continues: Whether it is whole grains, sprouts, seeds and even algae, the main observatories of trends predict that animal proteins will continue to give prominence to vegetables.
4. Drink water in the food and dinner wins positions: it is striking how to ask for water again when we sit at the bar or at the bar table, up to 8% more. On the other hand, alcoholic beverages remain stagnant, especially those with higher alcohol content. The BBC Good Food team has detected that one of the main trends for the year 2018 are soft drinks, premium tonic waters with interesting flavors, alcohol-free liquors and botanical mixtures are flooding the market to fill a gap.
5. Healthy food instead of diets: Although half of Europeans and Americans follow some type of diet, what is beginning to take is making healthy choices, the demand for healthy food continues to increase. In total, 7 out of 10 consumers admit to feeling happier when they buy foods that they know are healthy.
6. More vegetables: Vegetable foods will continue to climb positions. To confirm this, consumers recognize that they are incorporating more plant foods into their diet for health reasons.
7. Transparency 2.0: Consumers want to know the real story behind their food, and the path a product goes through from its origin to the store. Consumers increasingly seek, if a product is organic, if it holds the certification of fair trade, and if the product in question took into account animal welfare. The clearer and more honest the food is, the better it is perceived among consumers.
8. Nothing is thrown: The trashcooking or cooking, especially in vegetables, but also in low-priced fish and meat, is testing the knowledge and techniques of the best chefs to get exquisite dishes in which everything is used and nothing is thrown away. This way of proceeding every time has greater support not only among consumers, but also of the heavy weights of haute cuisine.
9. The fourth food emerges: It is not about gluttony, but about adapting our meal schedules to our busy lives. Whether it's a snack between breakfast and lunch or a snack between lunch and dinner, by 2018 many of us will add one more meal to our daily routine.
SOURCE: ABC.