The Next Idea Restaurant and Food Forecast for 2019 The Next Idea (TNI) anticipates 2019 to be a uniquely pivotal year as the restaurant and food terrain adjusts itself towards an increasingly confident, exploratory, and discerning consumer. As we enter 2019 our world is uncertain; Brexit, trade wars, volatile US political landscape, populism, global warming, rising world population, and so it goes on. This may seem a disconnect from 2019 eating out trends, but in reality, our Planet and all of its transformations will have a significant impact on how we eat. It is clear to most that the impact on our food eco-system by Earth’s planetary changes are significant; many factors involving farming methods, where food is grown, the deployment of pesticides and fertilizers, livestock feed, and so on, affect the environmental impact of the food we buy and eat. The significant changes in weather patterns, population, and geo-politics is now impacting what we eat; and this theme will transcend the coming years.
For example; approximately 86% of world food consumption is generated from rice, maize, sugar, wheat, barley, soy, palm and potato. Across the globe diets are actually becoming increasingly similar, both in the food types, and also the varieties of those food types that are consumed. This results in increasing exposure to shortages in the event of a large-scale natural disaster. For example, food shortages in 2007/8 were caused by a yield loss in Australia of less than 1% of global food supply, however the net effect created spikes in food pricing and political unrest in certain parts of the world. As economists tried to make sense of the problem, the one primary metric was obvious: world population growth [Demand] vs shrunken availability [Supply] was out of balance. Combine the world’s macro issues at localized levels and we begin to see shifting and emerging trends in both food production and consumer demand.