Future Forecast 2017: Food and Drink

Data Dining

In 2017, data will be used to create even more personalised food offerings. Grab-and-go eatery Vita Mojo is already letting consumers personalise their meals, reducing carbs or increasing protein to suit their diets. We expect it to become even more personal as genetic testing becomes cheaper and food services such as Habit enable consumers to design meals based on their DNA.

Beyond the Label

Food and drink brands and retailers will continue to fight the lack of clarity in the industry by offering more information than is normally provided on food and drink labels. The Sage Project shows the potential of future labels with its digital platform that visualises food data on more than 20,000 products, and offers information beyond calorie count and nutrition percentages.

Grab-and-go Groceries

Innovation in grocery convenience will continue apace with brands such as Walmart and Amazon rethinking what doing the shopping means. Walmart has already introduced kerbside collection of online grocery orders, while Amazon’s latest grocery offering Go hints at a future when grocery shopping will be so easy it will feel like stealing.

Tonic & Tonic

Forget about the gin, tonic water is ready to shine on its own. A thirst for premium tonic has grown ever since Fever-tree was launched a few years ago, but next year it will go mainstream with new launches such as Merchant’s Heart and The London Essence Company. With concerns over health, and fewer people drinking alcohol, tonic is set to be the fizzy drink of 2017.

No-bar Bars

The bar is disappearing from bars as more establishments enable a more open flow of conversation across large centrepiece tables. Black Rock has no bar, just an oak table that doubles as a table and a vessel for whisky ageing. Tony Conigliaro’s Untitled in Dalston will not have a back bar, but a large concrete table in the middle, with bottles hidden away.