Talking Food With Bidfood

The fascination of American flavours continues, with much more visibility of regional specialities, ingredients and cooking techniques. Latin American food is building up popularity with fresher, lighter options helping consumers to be a little more healthy but with the same big taste.

As Middle Eastern ingredients become more familiar to us and we realise just how tasty this cuisine is, consumers begin to fall in love with it. Seasonings like za’atar and dukkah are helping to drive this trend as they add a warming spice to any meal.

The Asian cuisine has been trending for a while. Consumers are looking for more authentic, regional variations and for favourite cuisine fusions. With the advent of fun with food and a move away from limiting traditions, we’re able to play with our food and create fusions and hybrids with favoured cuisines.

Afro-Caribbean is a cuisine that is only just starting to trend, although jerk flavours have been around for sometime. This cuisine fits a lot of criteria that us Brits love. It is a cuisine full of flavour, with a good hit of chilli heat.

Mediterranean food has been very popular over the last few years, with the Mediterranean diet answering a number of consumer’s health needs. Now, as authenticity in cuisines becomes more important, following a move towards provenance and origins in our food, regional European foods are taking over.

British food is something to be proud about. With the growing popularity of British food comes not only the embedding of classic British dishes but the remix of traditional plates to suit modern day palates. Buying from local producers, growers and manufacturers means understanding more about our food and where it comes from.

We want to get together and share food with others, and we want that food to be top quality. All time favourites are being remixed giving them a new lease of life. Street food is coming of age and moving indoors to allow informal dining with friends and family.

Social media has become a staple aspect of our lives. Couple that with the move towards interactive dining, and our food has become more experimental. Colour, fun and creativity has ruled our food for a long time and this isn’t set to change.

We are looking to lower our impact on the world we live in. In an attempt to improve not only our health but the health of the environment around us, we're considering different diets and adopting ethical behaviours.

Consumers are becoming more knowledgeable and want to know as much as possible about the food chain. We no longer want mass produced food, we want food that is made with love and care, for us and the environment.

The Talking Food Podcast with Bidfood will look at the issues and opportunities impacting foodservice. Series one is all about food trends, and it’s a really exciting area to work in – constantly changing, often surprising, and always enjoyable. Every year the insights team at Bidfood sets out the food and drink trend predictions for the year ahead, and it's the predictions for 2019 that Bidfood be talking about in series 1.