Phenomena and trends in food production
Food is essential fuel for people to get through long days of events. Equally, food is also an intrinsic part of the event experience; a pleasure and an experience that can be one of the highlights of the event as well as one of the most anticipated things. In the coming years, there has been a lot of talk about special diets, such as vegetarian and vegan, local and organic, superfoods and eco-friendliness. Gluten-free or vegetarian options and, for example, biodegradable dishes are now the norm and expected at every event. But what are the phenomena of the future and what will we eat at future events?
THE VISUAL ERA
We are living in a time of strong visuality: we pay attention to the appearance, presentation, aesthetic beauty of things and share our experiences in visual form, for example through social media as instagram pictures. The same phenomenon extends to the world of food, where the spectacle of food and its thoughtful presentation are increasingly important. Many of you will be familiar with the term ‘instagrammability’ and many cafes and restaurants are consciously looking to create dishes that will entice customers to take pictures and post them on their social media channels.
The food must look attractive and match the look and theme of the event, both in terms of flavour and colour. Enticing dishes to post will create a much-needed buzz around the event and will also bring positive visibility to the caterers. Why not also combine art forms with food service: an acrobat walking among the visitors at an event wearing a serving hat from which visitors can pick up food? The serving of food itself can be a performance or an artwork.
INTERPLAY OF SENSES
The colours used for food and serving are not just choices that support a coherent event look or are aesthetically compatible and pleasing. Food is a multi-sensory experience.
- The interplay between the eye and the mind is astonishing: serve the smoothie from a red container, which makes it taste sweeter without adding sugar. In fact, red tones have been shown to add sweetness and remove acidity. The result is a healthier and tastier product!
- The taste experience can also be customised by changing the colour, shape or weight of the dishes. Even small differences affect our sensory perception of the texture or sweetness of the food. Swap a thick plastic spoon for a lighter alternative and the food you spoon out will feel thicker and more expensive.
Even the sounds and lighting around you affect your taste experience. By using all your senses, you can create a whole new world of taste experiences!
TECHNOLOGY GIVES RISE TO A NEW KIND OF FOOD PRODUCTION
Emerging technologies and new innovations in food production will also be introduced at events. Already today, 3D printing of food could be one of the future experiential ways to serve food at events. What an experience it would be to print your own 3D printed ingredient to top off your dish!
Several years ago, at the HSY Climate Seminar produced by To Do, Lauri Reuter, PhD, gave a talk on a possible future technology that could revolutionise food production. At that time, he was already talking about a technology that would grow food under laboratory conditions from cells taken from animals or plants. This could be done, for example, for products whose availability or production will be threatened by climate change. One such product could be cocoa beans, for example, which are used to make chocolate.
So the technology already exists. These products have already been launched on the world market. So why shouldn’t future events be able to eat fully laboratory-produced food: steak, ice cream, cheese, chocolate? Perhaps this will be the norm in a few decades’ time. As technology improves and food can be made from microbes, we may well reach a point where this is not a rarity that only a select few can taste, but an option available to all.
Foods made from microbes could even revolutionise food production and its many alternatives: what does optimal protein without animals sound like? What about a sweet-tasting protein that replaces the sugary alternative? The above scenarios are also particularly environmentally friendly. They can significantly reduce climate emissions and the land area needed for food production, among other things.
Consumers, and certainly visitors to events, will become more aware and critical of ecological choices. Greenwashing and seemingly environmentally friendly actions are no longer enough; real choices and actions are needed.
Check out Lauri Reuter’s full speech at the HSY Climate Seminar 2021 here.
THE WELL-BEING OF THE INDIVIDUAL ALONGSIDE THE WELL-BEING OF THE ENVIRONMENT
In addition to the environment, visitors will also become more aware of their own choices and eating habits. They will demand more accurate information about the nutritional content of the food on offer and where the food on our plates comes from. Traceability and transparency of food will increasingly influence consumer choices.
The event visitor may also want a more personalised service in terms of food: no communal lunch breaks, but everyone can eat when they want, according to their own rhythm. Personalised meals, made up on the spot from ingredients that suit you. Rationing, which would provide the visitor with the quantities of different minerals and trace elements needed to meet his or her individual needs. A ration that supports the visitor’s diet not only to stay healthy but also to prevent disease. Each visitor is able to create a schedule that suits him or her, including eating, and thus optimally maintain a high level of vitality throughout the event. In this way, the visitor can enjoy the event from start to finish and get the most out of it. These can be complemented by a range of apps and technology to make food selection easier. It will be interesting to see what science will deem as solutions that work so well that they will actually end up in mass production and on consumers’ plates at reasonable prices.
Food is always a social experience, and this is also true for events. Will we soon be able to create experiential events with experiential food for you too? Call me maybe?
