How Will Americans Eat in 2022? The Food Forecasters Speak.

Last year at this time, optimistic trend forecasters predicted that the cork would burst from the bottle by summer. With vaccines in arms, food culture would vibrate in a robust economy. American menus would be full of innovation driven by waves of international travel, and a new generation of digital-native cooks would rewrite the rules.

Clearly, the prediction game can be a losing one. But so what if things didn’t turn out like everyone thought they would? Trying to forecast food trends is still fun, and sometimes even accurate. (Kudos to those professional prognosticators who in recent years nailed the mainstream rise of quesabirria, soufflé pancakes, delivery-only restaurants and CBD. And a special citation for those who saw early on that those ripples of veganism would become a plant-based tsunami.)

So how are things looking for 2022? Not great. The year is starting with a surge of a highly contagious variant of Covid-19 that is only adding to the economic uncertainty. Social-justice concerns remain top of mind for many, as does pressure from a fast-changing climate. All of it will affect how food is grown, cooked and packaged.

But don’t despair. “Constraint breeds innovation,” said Anna Fabrega, a former Amazon executive who recently took over as the chief executive at the meal subscription service Freshly. She and other food industry leaders in the United States say 2022 will be another pragmatic, roll-up-your sleeves kind of year, shaped by the needs of people working from home and by the culinarily-astute-but-fickle Gen Z, whose members want food with sustainable ingredients and a strong cultural back story, prepared without exploitation and delivered in a carbon-neutral way — within 30 minutes.