The future of the food industry is one of constant innovation. It supplied about $1.79 trillion worth of food in 2019. Of this total, $978.2 billion was supplied by foodservice facilities. All you have to do is look around a grocery store and you’ll see choices in food like we’ve never had before. Even the frozen TV dinners look different. Now we have all natural, organic, gluten-free, and everything in between. Gone are the days of healthy food tasting like cardboard. Food manufacturers are responding to customer tastes. And the future of the food industry will look different than it is, even today.

Future of the food industry

The future of the food industry will include customized meals for each individual genome. Different people respond to different foods, even healthy ones. It will be engineered to be more nutritious.

Expect to see more plant-based foods. And ones that taste better. The secret ingredient in the Impossible Burger is heme – the oxygen-carrying molecule that makes both meat and blood red.  The heme they use is produced using fermentation and extracted from plants.

Examples of the future of food

Here are more examples of the future of the food industry:

“Given the staffing shortages and pandemic restrictions still plaguing the hospitality industry, at Foodi Menus we’ve seen a drastic increase in food-service providers turning to digital solutions to help successfully maintain operations over the past year and a half.  While online-enabled displays like QR code menus exploded back in mid-2020, many operators did away with them as quickly as they reasonably could – in large part because they directed to menus that were not mobile friendly, such as PDFs. Yet, for operators that provided more intuitive interfaces, they are intent on keeping their digital displays in place for the foreseeable future. In fact, we’re seeing a resurgence in QR codes linked to the next generation of menu display: Smart-menus.
For hospitality professionals intent on expanding through the current industry hiring shortage, smart menus provide additional capabilities that allow for more dynamic, efficient, and engaging experiences for guests and operators alike. With the ability to add more information about menu items, QR code-enabled menus have reduced the time team members spend answering questions, meaning fewer staff can manage the same number of guests. In addition to extra information, the next generation of menus is going to be all about custom experiences. Since QR-menus don’t need to be professionally designed, printed, shipped, and changed out every time an update is made, it creates an opportunity for custom and dynamic menu experiences that can be modified day-to-day, or even hour-to-hour.
In addition to custom display experiences, smart menus offer many of the same benefits that have made social media a huge driver of business marketing efforts over the last two decades. With more information about customer preferences, and more opportunity for custom dine-out experiences for guests, smartmenus open up a whole new level of engagement for an industry that has always been fueled by customer experiences.

Smart menus

Between quick and easy custom menu updates, the reduction in printing expenses, and lower exposure risks through contactless menu alternatives. We anticipate many restaurants and bars will continue their use of smart menus for the foreseeable future.While safety, experience customization, and expense factors make managing food-service operations using smart menus easier for the industry. The biggest benefits will be for hotel and event spaces. Specifically, in-venue mobile order and payment features. Since the payment interface is now with customers wherever they go, mobile order and pay offers yet another level of dynamic experiences. Hotels that started using QR codes for room service adopted those same features for poolside events. And are now gearing up for holiday functions which keep guests immersed in the experience without having to interact with a person to make a purchase.
As the food-software space continues to expand, we at Foodi Menus anticipate smartmenu-enabled events to thrive even as staffing shortages remain.

Foodi Menus is an online menu design and management platform that enables hospitality teams to easily create compelling, mobile-optimized smart menus, regardless of their technical expertise. Whether your menu is displayed on social media, your website, or using a QR code, with Foodi you can rest assured it will look great on mobile and drive new customers to your business.

Benjamin R Fisher, Founder & CEO

Foodi Menus

www.foodi-menus.com

Culinary diversity

Whatever your favorite food may be at the moment, there is a high possibility that it will look different in two or three decades. Overall, it is predicted that the culinary landscape may undergo significant changes in the years ahead. It’s because people’s attitudes and habits to food are changing.

The bad news is that there is no sufficient available land to offer bigger populations in the future with the type of diet most people follow these days. This is an implication that the crop we’re currently cultivating as well as the food we’re eating will undergo a major change.

While we may be undertaking many challenges in the future, always remember that we won’t be left without any option. After all, eating may help in satisfying our social and emotional needs. To give you an idea, here are the possible food items that will be included in food menus in the future:

· Edible insects· Seaweeds or algae· Plant-based meat· Laboratory-grown meat

Changes in grocery stores and restaurants

Also, I want to share that there could be possible changes in grocery stores and restaurants. The future of buying will focus on making creative and seamless experiences. While it does not necessarily mean the establishments will use robots as cashiers, know that it is something customers want to experience or have. Actually, the future of grocery stores is about the choice of customers.

On the other hand, the restaurant will switch to a ghost kitchen for delivery and pick-up without an eat-in dining room. In fact, the same thing may happen to grocery stores acting as delivery and pick-up hubs but do not permit people inside. In the forthcoming, the half an hour delivery time will become commonplace. Believe it or not, your groceries may possibly be delivered by drones.

Food innovation

For the food innovation, there are lots of things we need to watch out for, and these include:

1. A 3D printer that allows personalized diet as well as substitute protein-based meals. It also guarantees accurate and reproducible nutrition.2. The beverage and food industry will introduce robots into their value chain in order to advance consistency, efficiency, and scale during production.3. Restaurant digitization is another innovation that might change the food industry. The best thing about it is that it can offer improved customer service while allowing smooth and perfect operation management.

Mary Jones

Editor at Cooky Mom

How food will change

There are several verticals that need to be considered in order to better understand how food will change in the future. Below you can find a list of the most important ones:● Food will be grown in labs, not fields.● The role of supermarkets and other retailers will shift toward providing access to food instead of creating it.● Consumers will take more responsibility for picking and purchasing their own food and groceries.● Food will be more personalized, with customers being able to choose from a selection of specific ingredients that go into each dish.● Organic goods will become increasingly popular.

What are new food innovations that are coming out?

One of the new technologies being used in food is 3D printing. This technology can be used to print just about anything from chocolate to meatballs. It works by melting a certain material and creating a layer on top of a previous layer.

These technologies include things like big data analytics, robotics, self-driving vehicles, and 3D printing. These technologies will be used to improve the quality of food by making it easier to farm and produce. They will also help consumers by decreasing waste at every stage of the process.

Genetically modified foods – In the near future, scientists hope to genetically modify food to make it healthier and tastier. They’re already working on “high-fiber wheat,” which produces 25% more fiber than current varieties. They also hope to develop a tomato that contains 40 times more lycopene.

How will restaurants or grocery stores change?  

Restaurants and grocery stores will change drastically in the future. With the advent of grocery store automation, many traditional grocery stores will be replaced with fully automated options. The idea of “going to the store” might become a thing of the past, as consumers will instead order their groceries online and have them delivered. This delivery service will likely be automated, so it won’t even be necessary for someone to sign for the delivery.

Similarly, restaurants will likely see an increase in automation, especially in drive-throughs.
Janet Coleman

Disruption in the food industry

“After the unprecedented disruption of 2020, forward-thinking restaurateurs are turning to technology to help them survive and thrive through anything. Technology is completely revolutionizing industries and the food industry is no exception. Restaurants and grocery stores will change drastically in a few years, because of new technology.”

“Checkoutless grocery stores: One of the most amazing, new technology is in grocery stores. The new Amazon Go store has no checkouts at all! Customers are able to use their phone app to get access into the store. Then you just pick what you want and go. When you leave, it charges your card for everything you took. There are no cashiers needed to work, and it saves a lot of time.”

“Robots in restaurants: Restaurants will be fully run by robots and machines. The first restaurant we can see this happening in is Henn-na, which means “Strange” in Japanese. This restaurant has two robot chefs and they make food faster than a human chef ever could. This saves the cost of having three or four employees and makes the food even better quality because a robot has perfect timing when making the food.”

“Virtual Reality: Virtual reality is the future of restaurants. People will be able to put on a headset and sit in an amazing restaurant even if they are at home or in another country. This can happen through social media like Facebook or YouTube, where you can watch videos of people eating in other countries while sitting in your living room wearing virtual reality goggles.”

Kunwar Gill

Epos Now

https://www.eposnow.com

Customizable apps

Koala is an industry-leading platform that creates premium, customizable apps for restaurants to offer digital ordering.

With a shift to AI order taking, this will also be highlighted in drive-thru ordering. AI ordering will decrease errors along with combating the labor crisis. Additionally, our team foresees drive-thrus enacting personalized menu boards that will change based on car recognition to increase brand loyalty.

Brett Spiegel

www.Koala.io

Sommelier in your pocket

The AI-powered Sippd app is revolutionizing how consumers find and order wines while dining out with its restaurant Wine Menu Scanner demonstrated in this short TikTok video. Acting as a sommelier in your pocket, the app lets users take a photo of a physical wine list and  transform the traditionally intimidating and confusing list into a digitized mecca of wine information.

In the form of a digital wine menu, Sippd users will then see a 1-100% personalized wine score (what we call Taste Match) to each wine, helping users know which glass or bottle best aligns to their taste buds. Tasting notes, suggested food pairings, and community reviews for each wine are also available helping users further enhance their dine-in experience.

Since our launch in April 2021, we’ve heard positive and powerful feedback from the sommelier and wine educator community who find Sippd helping consumer’s better understand their own palate, thus giving them the confidence they need to be able to engage with the in-house sommelier and wait staff for a more impactful, meaningful experience.

Our new feature called Combine Taste Match is also further facilitating conversation and social connection around wine with AI-powered group recommendations for groups of 2 to 4 people.  Just merge your taste profile with friends to see group Taste Match scores representing everyone’s affinity to the wine for a purchase everyone will love. Compatible with our Wine Menu Scanner, it’s a hit for people who want to impress their partner, family, or colleagues when out at dinner.

Alicia Ortiz

sippd.com |

3-D food printing

Two of my favorite food industry innovations is 3-D printing and the robotic kitchen. Custom candy and other foods can be made into any shape you want.There is even a personalized chocolate dessert with an invisible series of grooves in the surface. It plays a song when placed in a special ‘record player’.

Robotic kitchen

But the robotic kitchen is something I am really looking forward to. Moley Robotics out of the UK has already developed a ‘robotic kitchen’. The Robo-Chef has the same skills a human chef has at a fraction of the price. That doesn’t mean it’s cheap. But certainly cheaper than a live-in chef. The ‘chef’s’ recipes can be selected from a recipe catalogue. Just send your chef a message and they will get to work preparing your favorite gourmet dinner. The chef will even clean the kitchen afterwards. OK, I am definitely interested!