Let’s face it: 2024 was a pretty scary year — and that was just the politics. In the culinary multiverse, there’s a buffet of news about food, restaurants and culinary technologies coming in 2025 — some truly terrifying trends and some hopeful developments.
Sea squirt burger with fries: Pronofa Asa, a Scandinavian company, is preparing to market a ground meat substitute made from ciona, more commonly called sea squirts. The Guardian reports: “Burping and bubbling in the freezing waters of the North Sea, sea squirts are translucent tubes that resemble gelatinous sacs.”
Body shaming Poppin’ Fresh: Expect social media protests from traditionalists this year when they get a look at General Mills’ revamped Pillsbury Doughboy. Formerly plump Poppin’ Fresh will reportedly be slimmer with longer legs, more defined eyes and a blue tie.
Does he inject Wegovy every week?
Sad sandwich sign: J.M. Smucker has opened its third Uncrustables plant in McCalla, Ala. — another is located near Longmont. The company’s goal is to sell $1 billion in frozen sandwiches in the coming year. Remedial PB&J classes are needed.
Those anchovy people: According to a 2024 Harris/Instacart poll, the list of foods Americans hate is topped by anchovies, followed by black licorice, oysters, beets, blue cheese, okra, capers, brussels sprouts, fennel and olives. About 37% of Americans — Democrats, Republicans and independents — say they have food preferences they consider to be controversial.
Grilling will be less thrilling: According to The Hartman Group’s U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends survey, 36% of U.S. consumers ate less outdoors in 2024. About 20% say they will be grilling less in the future due to extreme summer temperatures.
Safe feeling in produce? Restaurant Business reports that Walmart is testing police-like body cameras for door-checkers at its stores to record escalating confrontations.
Watch out for your feet: Seoul University of Science and Technology researchers are reportedly developing Palletrone, a shopping cart drone. The rotors are set in a protective cage. Noise is an issue.
Social media: Searching for rat cakes, mushroom drinks
- Pinterest’s reports that popular searches in 2024 included “rat cake” (up 170%) and “pickle cake” (up 45%). Meanwhile, Grubhub reports that delivery orders involving pickles increased 14%. For 2025’s food trend predictions, Yelp searches last year increased for “mushroom drink” (501%) and “cookie flights” (384%).
- The National Restaurant Association’s What’s Hot Culinary Forecast for 2025 includes Korean cuisine, hot honey, Vietnamese cuisine, hyper-local beer and wine, fermented/pickled foods, and wellness drinks.
- Datassential’s 2025 Food, Flavor, and Beverage Trends predict that foods from Haiti, Peru, China, Japan and Italy will be hot. Look for sweet drop peppers from Peru, pikliz from Haiti, and Japanese bonito flakes.
- Finally, the Pantone Color Institute color of the year for 2025 is “Mocha Mousse.”
Food Tech: Here’s the good news
• Boulder-based New Hope Communications’ 2025 predictions include the rise of water-less, waste-less food formats like plant milk “sheets” and concentrates among natural produce trends .
• Starting Jan. 1, all eggs sold in Colorado must be from a cage-free facility if the farm has more than 3,000 egg-laying hens.
• California has passed a law requiring “Best If Used By” and “Use By” dates on packaged food and prohibits misleading and wasteful “Sell By” labels starting in 2026.
• ChefWorks new sustainable chef coats made from cotton and recycled polyester are credited with diverting more than 570,000 water bottles from landfills in three months.
• Westfalia Fruit is replacing plastic PLU stickers on mangoes with laser-etched labels, potentially reducing plastic use by 10 million stickers.
Pizza in space with a Boulder oven
In 2024, NASA shared a photo of astronauts assembling a poor excuse for a pizza aboard the International Space Station. In coming years, the inhabitants may be able to enjoy an actual baked pizza in space using SATED, a new zero gravity cooking appliance developed in Boulder by scientist Jim Sears. SATED stands for Safe Appliance, Tidy, Efficient & Delicious.
Nasa.gov reports that tomatoes and chile peppers are among the vegetables already known to grow well on the International Space Station.
Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto
Boulder-based Escoffier School of Culinary Arts looked at restaurant technology trends and how we relate to them according to generation.
• 64% of Americans prefer tech-free dining
• 21% — especially Millennials and Gen Z — would patronize restaurants with sustainable practices;
• 70% of Gen Z and 84% of Millennials are likely to use pre-ordering apps;
• 58% of Millennials would order from robots.
Why do you give them names?
The following robots are in operation or in development:
Autocado: An avocado-processing machine being adopted by Chipotle.
Robo Pal: A chicken-cooking robot working at 101 Chicken, Fort Lee, N.J.
Sara: An AI-powered bartend-tron at the Wyndham Orlando Resort who can make 20 drinks per hour, verify ages and handle payments.
Bo-Linda: An AI voice system who takes drive-thru orders at 200 Bojangles locations.
NapSpin: A robot developed by a Northeastern University graduate, who automates rolling silverware into napkins (and deprives waitstaff of a legitimate reason to sit down at work).
Robots with no name: To date, Whataburger’s facial recognition payment system, Instacart’s AI Caper Carts with cameras and sensors, and the Shake Shack/Uber Eats autonomous delivery robots in Los Angeles remain nameless.
Words to Chew On: Death to bucket list dining
“People who consume a steady diet of bucket lists and viral videos rush from one restaurant to another so they can post about it… most of these people will never return.”
– From the final column by New York Times dining critic Pete Wells
John Lehndorff host Radio Nibbles and Kitchen Table Talk Thursdays on KGNU. Podcasts: kgnu.org/category/radio-nibbles. More food news from Boulder Weekly