Top Food Trends of 2022 & 2023

As screen time grows, and consumers increasingly watch with a phone in hand (one 2019 survey put the share of TV watchers who do this at 55%), there's a battle for the last hand, and healthy snacking options are aiming to win it by becoming one-hand-eating friendly.

Protein powder has been growing in popularity for years, and while it's a good way to add protein to shakes and smoothies, it's not very compatible with preexisting meal habits. Quest Chips is a growing brand of protein chips that’s at the center of these trends.

One feature of chips, compared to bars, is that consumption is more continuous rather than discrete. If you planned on eating a single bar, it's hard to accidentally eat a bar and a half. But with chips, it's easy to passively consume them. That's especially possible while doing something else; there's a whole category of listicles that recommend the right snack for binge-viewing Netflix, and even an abundance of articles on content pairings for particular shows.

Rather than a traditional meal that could require a fork, knife, and plate, TV-focused snackers are increasingly seeking out hand-held snacks. A snack for gaming, a snack for texting, or a snack for watching TV. Food companies noticed and started pushing to create snacks that are utensil-free and clean-up-free.

Snacking has been growing too and, as this happens, the line between snacks and meals is blurring. Research shows that consumers are eating more meals at non-standard times and that snacks now account for over half the times younger generations eat. It’s a function of a more fragmented day that's less likely to be bookended by a context-setting commute.

When Instagram first started influencing restaurant traffic, some restaurants switched from round plates to square ones to fit in with the social media company’s image format, which was square-only until mid-2015. The rectangular shape maximizes the amount of food in the frame and helped restaurants stand out in the feed.

In similar ways, restaurants are increasingly putting more effort into eye-catching interior decoration rather than exterior design; if more customers are choosing dinner based on their social media feeds, rather than by walking down the street, it's what's on the inside of the restaurant that counts.

And as TikTok and YouTube usage continues to rise, the popularity of aspirational dining grows too. Wagyu beef, a type of meat prized for its marbling, is a luxury food with strong visual appeal, making it popular for this type of content. Millions of consumers watch videos of wagyu being cooked and eaten even though most can’t afford it on a regular or even semi-regular basis.

Its aspirational nature is also clear when looking at the numbers. The "Wagyu" tag has almost 700 million views on TikTok, compared to 1/5th that volume for “Barbacoa”, another type of meat, despite Barbacoa having higher consumption.

This widespread appeal creates buzz and the increased buzz eventually helps get the product in front of the consumers who can afford it, driving up sales in the long run. It’s a marketing strategy many companies use: Lean into the features of a product that appeal to a less relevant but wider audience as a way to create a buzz that draws in the ultimate target audience.

There has been pushback on marketing non-Japanese beef as Wagyu, especially from 1997 to 2003, when the Japanese government banned the export of Wagyu cows. Since then, different varieties like American Wagyu and Australian Wagyu have grown in popularity.

Expensive foods, more broadly, are an important export for Japan. Consumer behavior studies have shown that gift recipients put more value on an expensive version of a typically cheap item than on an average-priced version of something usually more expensive, even if the price tag of the latter is higher. This means that a $300 bottle of wine would be received more favorably than a $1,000 computer.