In May 2021 famous Food Report 2022 was published in its 9th edition in German and in its 1st edition in English. Nutrition expert and food futurologist, Hanni Rützler, describes global food trends that give answers to challenges, desires, and wishes and consistently change the way we eat.
The Food Report is considered a pioneering publication in food production, food trade, and gastronomy that offers orientation, inspires, and encourages to break new ground. We spoke to Hanni Rützler about the changes in the food industry and the most important insights from this year's report which is devoted to the motto "upheaval and break-up".
(c) Food Report 2022 by Hanni Rützler
As one of the leading food trend experts in Europe Hanni Rützler is exploring the change within the food culture for 25 years now. She's observing global trends in a very early stage in which they are not yet able to be measured quantitatively. She is studying inconspicuous changes such as how and what we eat. As a nutrition scientist and health psychologist, she acts professionally between the disciplines and knows how to bring together different findings and make them fertile in a surprising way.
How corona will change our long-term consumption and eating behaviors The ongoing changes in the food economy can now be observed with a critical and far-sighted eye. In these times of upheaval, the ability to assess which changes will stay in the long term and what will fade from the scene again when the acute crisis subsides is crucial. In the future “New Normal” will be geared more to people’s needs and wishes; and sustainability, in its ecological and social sense, becomes just as much a new criterion of quality as transparency and credibility.
The Food Trends 2022
Zero Waste: Due to the Cradle-to-Cradle trend and the advancing Sharing Economy, there is an emerging demand not only for repurposing or recycling waste or what appears to be waste but for not generating the waste in the first place.
Local Exotics: Local Exotics reconcile the contradiction of local food production and the yearning for culinary discoveries and exotic enjoyment.
Real Omnivores: Seaweed, Cultured Meat, and Plant-Based Substitutes - real Omnivores are eating types that combine enjoyment with responsibility without subordinating to a radical regime of abstention.
Further focal points of the Food Report 2022
Vegourmets – Post-corona gastronomy will be richer in vegetables. Hanni Rützler is convinced: "Those who want to succeed in the restaurant and hospitality trade in the future need a distinctive profile. The creative solutions developed around delivery services and meal kits during the crisis will no longer be sufficient on their own." On the one hand, a mix of dining-out and dining-in is becoming the “New Normal”. On the other hand, plant-based dishes will be an integral part of any good restaurant in the future. This requires not only a huge portion of creativity but also specific know-how in the kitchen.
E-food – Connectivity drives forward structural change in the food system. The term "E-Food" does not only describe the expansion of e-commerce in the food industry. The turn to E-Food has also the disruptive potential to permanently change our entire food system. In addition, connectivity creates new social and cultural structures that will turn the restaurant trade, food production, agriculture, and all our cooking and eating habits completely upside down. This new connectivity allows the full range of different players to come into contact with one another, exchange views and find more direct routes together.
Many trends, a lot of opportunities. What will become reality?
Here's a summary from our perspective. The coming years are mainly driven by three trends:
Values and personal approaches are gaining in importance, e.g. more and more people prefer locally sourced products and are desperate for companies to act sustainably and entrepreneurial to protect the well-being of people and the planet.
A holistic understanding of nutrition is taking hold (animal protection out of ethical reasons is becoming more important, what we eat should have a less negative impact on the climate).
In gastronomy "veggie" is becoming the focus of all dishes.
The global trends Hanni Rützler is describing are so recent and new, they can't be measured by quantity. Years later we will see which of these trends will have become popular in the mass market. The key question each and every one of us has to ask is: Which of those trends is relevant to my own business and how can I use these trends to grow with them?
The question is not if those trends will become reality. The question is when they will become reality.
This article was written by Dr. Simone K. Frey and it is based on the NUTRITION HUB event on 14 July 2021 "NUTRITION HUB und Hanni Rützler präsentieren die FOOD TRENDS 2022" with Hanni Rützler. Interested to read the whole Food Report 2022? Get your English edition here. If you want to get in touch with Hanni Rützler: office@futurefoodstudio.at
Dr. Simone K. Frey, founder NUTRITION HUB