Culinary Data Monitoring: How Chefs Account for Consumer Tastes?

'#food' - A Constant Trend in User-Generated Culinary Content

According to best-hashtags.com, this is just a sample of the most popular food-related hashtags on social media. According to the Association for Computing Machinery, food is the second most popular topic shared on social media after #selfies.

A closer look at how consumers interact with food online reveals a deeper connection between data and consumer tastes:

99% of Millennials and Gen Z use social media to choose a restaurant
Social media is where consumers most frequently mention and express opinions about food and beverage brands
50% of people admit to trying a new restaurant directly because of a social media post.

This is just a sample from a small part of the internet (social media) representing one segment (restaurants). There is a much wider variety of data sources (e.g., marketplaces, search engines) and sectors (e.g., food retailers, digital grocery stores) that can benefit from data-driven analytics. Let's explore them in more detail.

Data-Driven Gastronomy: "What Is the Food Industry Cooking Up?

Restaurants in their "digital form," including online menus and increased takeout and delivery orders, experienced a serious surge due to the restrictions imposed by COVID-19 and lockdowns. Consumers abandoned physical restaurants in favor of safer options. Food retailers that failed to adapt to digital technology did not survive.

Beyond the pandemic-related changes, it's also important to consider what you are working on:

Marketing and brand positioning of a new packaged food product
Analysis of consumer taste preferences in a specific market
Building a distribution network and identifying purchase signals, along with location analysis.
Or an application/software for automating restaurant search, building consumer motivation models, and real-time category analysis.

Your food intelligence can benefit from datasets generated by consumers/competitors:

Menu Monitoring

Millions of restaurants worldwide post digitized versions of their menus—whether in a food delivery app or on their own website. By identifying which locations (e.g., London) and which categories (e.g., Asian cuisine) interest you most, you can map the state of the food market at a micro or macro level. Analyzing this data over time reveals which dishes are disappearing from menus and which remain constant, allowing you to identify "evergreen dishes" that hold high value for a specific target audience.

Tracking Recipe Engagement

Recipe engagement is an excellent way to understand consumer trends. For example, discovering YouTube channels, videos, or influencers that have high view counts, shares, and link clicks can be extremely valuable for your brand. If you are a marketing professional, these datasets can lead you to collaborations with these content creators. If you are developing a new product, this data can point you toward incorporating a previously unknown ingredient. If you are responsible for design, you can use this information to print a recipe on the product packaging.

Search/Review Trends

Like other buyer journeys, the gourmet's path typically begins online. Think of someone searching "best Chinese food in New York" on a search engine or "reviews of Italian restaurants in Paris" on social media. These keywords and consumer reviews can be collected, tracked, and analyzed to help digital marketers better target audiences. Negative reviews about delivery can prompt competing apps to make targeted improvements in an attempt to capture a larger market share. Long-tail keywords like "Rome dining on a shoestring" can inspire content managers to write an "ultimate guide" that attracts attention and traffic.

Two Food Trends to Watch in 2024

Data is a driving factor in identifying consumer trends, as seen in the information presented in a recent article from Food Technology Magazine:

Trend No. 1: Plant-Based Foods
25% of adults currently consume plant-based meat or poultry products. Sales of these products are expected to grow from 13 billion rubles (in 2023) to 20 billion rubles (in 2024). In the dairy segment, milk, ice cream, yogurt, cream, and cheese will be the largest categories with double-digit growth following alternatives to beef, poultry, and seafood. The data indicates growth opportunities and high market demand for companies willing to create more diverse snacks and desserts for vegetarian-obsessed consumers.

Trend No. 2: Functional Nutrition
Consumers are increasingly interested in treating their ailments by switching to healthier eating. This is evidenced by the fact that 33.3% of adults are more likely to buy a product/drink if it lists multiple health benefits, and 50% of consumers look for products that help manage stress/anxiety. Other top "food goals" include improving sleep, boosting energy levels, and skin care.

Conclusion

Understanding what people want in the context of real-time trends can be extremely effective when developing a new food product. And discovering new recipes that increase consumption frequency and boost brand engagement can be vital for gaining leadership in your industry. Along with business outcomes, understanding competitor behavior and marketing campaigns from a data perspective can be the deciding factor in whether your product or service becomes a "#trend" next year and beyond.