The world of food is moving ever faster and restaurateurs, retailers and manufacturers need to make sure they don’t lose touch. Hanni Rützler, renowned food trend researcher, analyzes the hypes and developments around food worldwide in the Food Report for the tenth time in a row – and in turbulent times.
The pandemic has already had a massive impact on global trade and just-in-time supply chains and has further fueled the criticism of global sourcing that climate activists have been voicing for some time. The food trend, which has now also been dynamized by the war and reflects the desire for a new, more sensible relationship between locally produced and globally imported food, will develop into future-proof guard rails for the food industry.
What is New Glocal?
New Glocal not only takes local and global aspects into account, but also gives them a new hierarchy. Regional availability becomes the primary criterion. And where the food trade continues to rely on international imports, the rules of the game will gradually change.
Trend forecast: The trend towards glocalization is being driven by strong dynamics: The ecological consequences of a ruthlessly globalized food industry are increasingly coming to public attention. The first outages and shortages during the pandemic have already highlighted the dependencies on globalized supply chains and their fragility. Geopolitical crises make the vulnerability of the system even more painfully clear.
Implications for the local food service industry
But what does this mean for our local gastronomy? New Glocal will not be a passing trend, but a harbinger of the next evolutionary stage in global food production, which will be characterized by a new focus on regionality and sustainable management with resilient links to supra-regional and global structures. Step by step, this will also lead to a reorientation of the product range in supermarkets, but also to the expansion of international direct sales. And for restaurateurs and hoteliers in particular, it is more important than ever to ensure functioning supply chains. The closer the supplier, the better.
