Product strategist helping brands like Urban Outfitters, Miu Miu, Loewe & Acne Studios shape what’s next. I read culture, spot shifts, and turn them into future products, stories & experiences. Ask me anything on trends, branding, or product vision 👀

Victoria Diaz

Hello! Thanks a million for submitting your question.

Since I consult for Danone’s Future Food Lab, my experience with food trends is pretty much limited to packed and processed food (a.k.a. soft drinks, cheese, yogurts, cookies, crackers, sauces, snacks of all sorts, etc.). So my key focus is on texture, temperature, flavor and color trends, plus packaging and “mechanism.” In the food industry we call “mechanism” the user experience—how the person actually consumes the product: do they shake it? Is it dry food? Wet? Do they eat it with a tool or straight from the package? Is it something you chew, lick or drink? All those processes or mechanisms can be almost 40% of a packed food’s popularity… and yes, they have trends too :-) (Remember the ’90s, when everything was “shakable” or came with an integrated spoon on the packaging? :-D)

Since your question focuses more on sources for trend discovery than on the food trends themselves, here are a few good ones. TBH, for food trends I use (and trust) WGSN’s Food & Drink trend reports, but access is very expensive, so here are a few more affordable/free options:

McCormick Flavors – They’re a big flavor company, but in their Insights section they share nano and macro flavor trends, interesting white papers, and even a podcast on food (mainly flavor) trends. Just keep in mind they’re a corporate flavor distributor, so some info might lean toward promoting trends rather than purely observing them. That said, they have a trend course and a nice mapping of how flavors trend across cultures and generations.Tastewise – It’s a paid, food‑exclusive platform, but they also publish some free, very interesting reports, like their Food Intelligence 2026.Pinterest & Reddit – Personally, I get a lot of valuable insights on food styling, temperature and packaging from Pinterest Trends and Reddit data. It’s valuable because it shows emerging trends before almost anyone else.The Food People – Focused more on the UK market, but their Foodwatching, Drinkwatching and Menuwatching are great monitors of food culture, pricing and styles.

A couple more I like to keep in my back pocket:

IFT (Food Technology magazine) – Their “Top 10 Food Trends” by A. Elizabeth Sloan is research‑backed and respected in R&D circles. Good when you need something a bit more evidence‑based but still readable.Datassential – Menu and consumer research (Menu Movers, Global Flavors, etc.) that shows what’s actually trending on menus and among consumers. Perfect if you want concrete examples and real‑world traction. They use Salesforce data to show what actually sells by pricing, packaging size, and all related to supermarkets or food stores sales reports.

Hope this helps you build a solid, non‑WGSN trend radar. Let me know if you any follow up question :-)Hugs,Victoria

Hello! Thanks a million for submitting your question.

Since I consult for Danone’s Future Food Lab, my experience with food trends is pretty much limited to packed and processed food (a.k.a. soft drinks, cheese, yogurts, cookies, crackers, sauces, snacks of all sorts, etc.). So my key focus is on texture, temperature, flavor and color trends, plus packaging and “mechanism.” In the food industry we call “mechanism” the user experience—how the person actually consumes the product: do they shake it? Is it dry food? Wet? Do they eat it with a tool or straight from the package? Is it something you chew, lick or drink? All those processes or mechanisms can be almost 40% of a packed food’s popularity… and yes, they have trends too :-) (Remember the ’90s, when everything was “shakable” or came with an integrated spoon on the packaging? :-D)

Since your question focuses more on sources for trend discovery than on the food trends themselves, here are a few good ones. TBH, for food trends I use (and trust) WGSN’s Food & Drink trend reports, but access is very expensive, so here are a few more affordable/free options:

A couple more I like to keep in my back pocket:

Hope this helps you build a solid, non‑WGSN trend radar. Let me know if you any follow up question :-)

Could you please share some insights on Food trends, what’s becoming popular, how brands are communicating, and which trends are emerging. Could you recommend any good sources or reports for this?