2017's Top Refrigerated Food & Beverage Trends

By Suzy Badaracco, Culinary Tides, Inc.

To understand why food and flavor trends are born, or step into the spotlight in any given year, it is important to understand their surrounding couriers and influencers. A courier acts to shuttle a trend in from a neighboring focus, while an influencer can be seen as an ally to a trend. For the coming year, I have examined food and beverage drivers for patterns.

Consumer, Health, and Technology trends impact and shift trends in the food industry. They move as a dance — when one arena experiences a shift, the other areas will shift in response. Without understanding what is influencing a food, flavor, or beverage trend, there isn’t much hope of predicting where it will go next. And that is the difference between tracking trends and forecasting them.

Some of the predictions listed here represent “Poster Children” for the trends of the food industry in 2017: