How Food Marketers Can Leverage Social Media To Spot New Trends

As food marketers, we are always trying to keep on top of trends — what are the latest flavors, nutrition trends,  protein preferences, and consumer concerns?  Food blogs present an incredible, although overwhelming resource for trend-spotters.  For advice about how food marketers can tap into social media resources, I turned to my high school classmate, Priscilla Martel, owner of All About Food. Priscilla is a food industry expert who is a writer, contributor to recipe sites, and more.  I began to realize the full depth of her experience when we walked  the Fancy Food Show together in New York in June.

Priscilla’s best advice is to identify innovators in your area of interest.   For seafood that might be Rick Stein, an English chef from Cornwall whose passion for seafood has led him to cook for the Queen of

Rick Stein

England, Tony Blair, and Jacques Chirac. She also mentioned Rick Moonen,  Chef Eric Ripert (“arguably the best fish cook in America”), Chef Roy Yamaguchi (of Roy’s Restaurants in Hawaii) and seafood restaurant chains like the “totally on trend” Bonefish Grill.  For beef, Priscilla recommends Steve Raichlen, a recognized grill expert and author of the Barbeque Bible web site and blog.  For natural and sustainable foods, check out Mark Bittman (“changing the way America eats”)  and the Culinate blog.

Trade organizations provide a broader perspective.   Gourmet Retailer is an excellent source for specialty food trends and to tap into the latest foodservice trends go to the Restaurant Business MonkeyDish blog or the Flavor Trends.

For more mainstream trends, Priscilla suggests looking at Martha Stewart, Rachel Ray or Design Sponge (“run by a woman who is considered a Martha Stewart for Millennials”).

The Food Section blog focuses on top foodservice trends.  Tastespotting.com aggregates images from food blogs, Eater covers the restaurant scene,  SeriousEats is one of the top online food communities and blogs, and  The Atlantic also offers an informative food blog.

Food Blogs

You can also turn to major metropolitan publications like the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle for their trend-oriented food coverage. 

If you like your trend info short and sweet, you can also follow top food writers and chefs like Ruth Reichl, Corby Kummer, and Mark Bittman on Twitter.  Look at their followers or anyone else you respect in the industry and follow them.  Organizations like the National Association of the Specialty Food Trade (NASFT) and Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) also tweet about current trends.

If all this sounds a bit overwhelming, don’t worry. You don’t need to follow each and every one of the above. In fact, Priscilla recommends that you find a balance by selecting a few chefs, a couple of organizations and a few newsletters to follow on a regular basis. 

Get Started with Social Media Today: 4 Action Steps 

1. Identify chefs you want to follow (either via their blog/web site or Twitter).

2. Bookmark them or set up an RSS feed to get regular notification when there is new material.

3. Pick one or two more general websites or blogs to watch.

4. Sign up for one or two new e-newsletters and set up a rule to automatically have them put into a “trends” folder you create in Outlook.  When you have a few free moments (or just need to come up to speed quickly on current trends),  read the latest ones.

Happy trend-spotting!