The biggest food trends of 2017

The company has already successfully developed chicken and duck meat - and honestly, it looks pretty good. Would you give it a go?

2017 has been the year vegetables fully shed their “I should eat this” label and have become desired. Some experts are going as far to say that they’ll even become comfort food and not part of a diet plan. Expect to see restaurants talking about vegetables in languages that were previously reserved for delicacies and meat (carving, marinating, filleting etc). Movements towards this have already begun with the opening of The Hague’s Vegetarian Butcher restaurant, The Herbivorous Butcher in Minneapolis and the release of Cara Mangini’s book, The Vegetable Butcher.

At home, flexitarianism is expected to increase in popularity. With big names such as Sir Richard Branson, Emma Thompson and Jamie Oliver, already supporting meat-free Mondays, and Waitrose predicting part-time vegetarianism becoming the norm, expect your friends to announce they’ll only eat meat on weekends after 6pm imminently.

Purple vegetables are the next big thing. Waitrose has seen a rise in sales of aubergines by 18% this year and Wholefoods are raving about the likes of purple sprouting broccoli, purple asparagus and yes, even purple cauliflower.

Yes, caring about what we put in our bodies and you know, that old planet of ours, is officially in. A recent Waitrose study found that 80% of us now actively consider how and where our food is sourced when shopping. Cue aisles stuffed with more grass-fed meat, organic produce and farm-to-fork ready ingredients. Freezing food is set to become fashionable and eating left-overs are on the menu too. Why? Because it’s one of the easiest ways to actively help the environment straight from your home.

Following in the theme of consciously eating and flexitarianism, insects are tipped to be next year’s hottest ingredients. Why? As we become more aware of just how difficult it is to feed 7 billion people, chefs will get inventive with this largely untapped food source. Why? Because currently there’s 200 million insects for each human on the planet. It makes sense, right? Aside from this, do you know how much protein there is in one little bug? A typical serving of crickets (3.5 ounces) contains a whooping 13 grams of protein. Expect to swap those protein shakes and chicken breasts for something a little crunchier and a lot cheaper.

Everyone loves a little luxury, right? Right. That’s why we won’t only be welcoming in a host of exotic condiments from far flung regions but we’ll be swapping our bog standard soy sauce, pomegranate molasses and maple syrup for “quality” versions. Whether that’s single origin (aka all ingredients comes from one source), aged or organic, our inner snobs will reign in 2017. Wholefoods advises looking for “black sesame tahini, habanero jam, ghee, black garlic purée, date syrup, plum jam with chia seeds, beet salsa, Mexican hot chocolate spreads, sambal oelek, Mina Harissa, and Frontera adobo sauces." Got that?

Food buyers at Souschef.co.uk predict that Middle Eastern food will become less about the region as a whole and more about the individual countries. Expect people to start talking about Lebanese food, Syrian food and Iranian food rather than “Middle Eastern”.

Grains are nothing new, they are often included in diet plans, but how we eat them and what kind we eat will change in 2017. Of course, we all know quinoa, buckwheat and lentils by now but as we move forward, new kinds of grains will be incorporated into our diets. Think teff, einkorn, emmer and spelt. Unlikely to appear in big-name supermarkets immediately, expect to see them popping up in blogger’s and chef’s recipes. Why? Well, apart from the fact they’ll fill our desire for new flavours and we’ll be looking to add a new spin to 2016’s grain bowls, the rising price of meat isn’t slowing anytime soon meaning we’ll be looking for economical ways to fill up with hearty meals.

Yes, Brexit is already having an affect on our food culture. On one side, we’re allying with Europe to prove that we’ll support our neighbouring countries. How? Well, we’re already embracing a resurgence of French cooking. This autumn, Pierre Koffman released his book, Classic Koffman: 50 Years a Chef and Raymond Blanc’s The Manoir and Anthony Bourdain’s Appetite: A Cookbook were reprinted. Clerkenwell’s newest Italian restaurant Luca is tipped to be one of the hottest spots in 2017 and it’s no secret we’re embracing pasta once again with new versions being made from the likes of quinoa, lentils, and chickpeas.

On the flip side, when things are politically unstable people tend to turn to what they know. That’s exactly why nostalgia will be a large theme running through our eating habits over 2017, too. We’ll be embracing local sourcing, distribution and purchasing which is likely to spawn a boom of smaller, independent shops. We’ll also be making our own produce (see DIY below) and British vintage food will be bang on trend. Think 1940s tinned fish and old-fashioned floral flavours like rose petals and crystallised violets.

The craze for coconuts is only going to get bigger. Expect to be tempted by coconut sugar, coconut flour and even coconut tortillas.

Preserving, smoking, curing, pickling, brewing, making your own cheese, pasta, bread and condiments. You name it, we’ll be doing it. Lakeland launched a make-your-own cheese set this year and it sold out nationwide. Online retailers like Sous Chef have seen an increase in sales of it’s meat curing kits and according to Waitrose, 39% of people see eating out as less of a treat nowadays, so they'll be looking to get more inventive behind closed doors.

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