Indian food and a fourth meal tipped as 2018 trends

Indian street food and eating four meals a day are two of the top food trends to look out for in 2018 according to an annual report by Waitrose.

The premium retailer’s annual food trends report also tipped Japanese ‘dude’ food – which combines hearty food from southern US with Japanese flavours – and plant proteins such as pulses, soy, seeds or algae to grow in popularity during the next year.

Consumers are often choosing a smaller mid afternoon meal, such as a salad, before squeezing a small, fourth meal later in the day, and this trend is expected to continue, the report found. “This is not about gluttony, rather it is about adapting our eating schedules to our busy lives,” the report said.

Indian street food is set to surge in popularity, with flavour combinations such as spiced burgers or lamb keema tacos overtaking traditional and heavier dishes such as chicken tikka masala.

Shopping habits are moving even further away from larger, less frequent trips, measured by the number of family-sized trolleys that are now required. Just a few years ago, an average Waitrose would open with around 200 big trolleys and 150 shallow ‘daily shopper’ trolleys. Now, stores will open with 250 shallow ‘daily shoppers’ and just 70 big trolleys needed.

“The future of supermarkets looks likely to be an experiential retail space– immersive hubs where shopping is only one of the activities on offer,” the report found.

Waitrose managing director Rob Collins said: “There was a time when the nation’s shopping habits were dictated by the big supermarkets.

“Shops’ restricted opening hours, their limited ranges and their often out-of-the-way locations meant that consumers had to dance to their tune. The retailers called the shots. No more. Today’s shoppers exercise unprecedented control over when they shop, what they buy and how they consume it.

“Our research for the Waitrose Food and Drink Report 2017-18 found that people have become more flexible in their shopping patterns, more price-savvy and more single-minded than ever before.

“For example a staggering 65 per cent of Britons visit a supermarket more than once a day on a regular or occasional basis. Over half of us don’t decide what we’re having for dinner until lunchtime; one in 10 of us will decide just before we eat.”

During 2017, Waitrose said the top food trends included carbs, herbs, turmeric, the trend for colourful ‘Buddha bowls’, dark green veg, juniper berries and blueberries, which the retailer said now outsell strawberries as the top-selling berry.