The trends that have reigned in 2023 point to a 2024 where health, sustainability and tradition take hold in gastronomy. And consumers are increasingly associating gastronomy with healthy lifestyle habits and sustainability with a mandatory direction to follow. All of this joins the rise and search for the most traditional recipes, both national and international.
A clear case of these trends is the search for recipes and preparations that have health as their main objective. Products such as fish are valued by consumers as healthy and traditional international preparations such as sushi, poke or ceviche are increasing. Recipes such as pickles and stews are recovered to make traditional fish. In 2023, a fish like salmon has led fish consumption in Spain and it has surpassed fish from our coast and it seems that it will continue like this.
In the case of meat, consumption will continue to decline gradually in 2024. And it is that in Spain the European trend is followed where beef and lamb continue to decline. Consumption of chicken and turkey increases as consumers look for cheaper meats. The consumption of fruits, legumes and vegetables will also increase in a market where vegetarians and flexitarians are constantly increasing.
Gastronomy and sustainability
In addition to the health and food binomial, the gastronomy and sustainability binomial has been consolidated and will continue to grow in 2024. Producers and restaurateurs increasingly value it and concepts such as animal welfare are highly valued. All to be able to show the effort that goes into each product and the environmental impact it has. An important value in a sector, the agri-food sector, which is a large consumer of natural resources and where water resources are increasingly scarce.
Finally, the working conditions of workers are an important factor in the gastronomic and agri-food sector and where consumers increasingly demand information. Now the challenge is to be able to safely display all these environmental and human values so that the consumer can decide on this holistic sustainability.
