Food Trends for 2020

The Top Three Trends

We know that when creating menus, you have to look at what works for your business and while we would all love to have absolute free reign over what we serve, certain aspects are customer-led, and we have to cater around that.

Food trends are a great way to start. Allowing you to anticipate customer needs and reduce the number of changes made, ultimately reducing your time investment in working to customer requests. Luckily for you, Total Foodservice has done all the research and narrowed down the food trends that are most likely to affect your menu creation. So here they are!

• Vegan

Over the past few years, we have seen a major rise in the demand for vegetarian and vegan menu options; this is not going to slow down.

Our advice is to create a vegan menu, then it suits both vegan and vegetarian diets while reducing the number of items you need to continually stock. If someone wants to add a dairy component then there is also the opportunity to upsell, such as adding halloumi to a vegan menu item. Creating your menu this way doubles up on customer spending options and halves the amount of work. One menu with add-ons works so much better than having multiple options you need to keep stocked.

Also, meat alternatives that are ‘meat-like’ such as the Moving Mountains Burgers (89483) are continuing to grow in popularity; a plant-based meat, requiring fewer resources to produce. They’re wildly similar to a traditional beef burger in flavour and texture. They’re a really good one for people to try – a great ‘give it a go’ option for meat-eaters too. We have no doubt these burgers will impress! With the increasing presence of these products and the impact of high meat consumption on our health and the planet, people are choosing to have more and more ‘environmentally conscious’ food options

They’re a great thing to publicise on your social media and create a buzz around to get more people coming in to try them too!

• Street food

Street food will continue to grow in 2020.

We stock the Street Food range with spice pastes, Hirata (bao) buns and parathas to create amazing street food options. Either to put on a snack menu or create main menu items out of.

Street food menus are great as they offer a fabulous amount of variety which helps entice people in, to try new flavours and fall in love with them. A cuisine that will be particularly popular in 2020 in Vietnamese food. From Pho to Banh Mi and Goi Cuon – rice paper spring rolls what are served fresh with mint, coriander and lettuce leaves, a super fresh amazing; or the fried versions which offer a crispy texture which is to die for. We will be seeing a growing demand for these complex, balanced and fresh flavours.

• Pasta is having a comeback – thank god!

It’s finally happening. Pasta is having a resurgence and it’s about time if you ask us! Diets are leaning towards balance, not cutting out particular food groups meaning pasta has slowly been reintroduced and 2020 is going to see it grow.

Pasta dishes are great for your profit margins on the dish and your customers are happy because they get a large portion. We have some great Tortelloni options making your prep extremely easy. We also have a whole host of different pasta’s which you can add your own amazing sauces to. Try our Orecchiette Pasta (95429) with a rich slow-cooked beef ragu for a truly sensational pasta dish – utilising the cheaper cuts of beef, slowly cooked, for optimum taste and the biggest profit margins. As we know, the gluten-free need continues to grow, and we have gluten-free pasta options too so you can cater for all needs.

We are big foodies here at Total Foodservice and a dish like this would have us extremely satisfied!

Contact Us to get your hands on all these amazing products and tag us in your new menu creations on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.