The Creepy Crawly Food Trends of 2022

If you’ve been paying attention the past couple months to the predicted food industry trends for 2022, you might have seen that edible insects are the next big thing – in fine dining, in pet food, and in farming. With mounting evidence that alternative ingredients (like the coconut flour we mentioned in the first chapter of the FADS Marketing book), some sustainably-minded consumers are seeking out options that are better for the environment.

“The international investment bank Barclays is bullish on insect protein, noting that by 2050 the world is projected to need “up to 70% more food” for the ever-growing human population – and that, unlike beef, edible insects offer top-notch “sustainability credentials.”

You catch that?

“Sustainability credentials.”

Nothing makes people feel more special than making choices that are morally superior and “enlightened.” Focusing on the feelings of consumers, over the rational is one way marketers are going to continue to push us towards the middle path. We know from HBR that emotional campaigns are about twice as likely to generate substantial profit than rational appeals. Appealing to the human desire to feel special, just works so much better than trying to appeal to them with rational arguments about the sustainability of farming beef.

We’re not there yet – but we’re getting closer to the middle path.

And while we are confident we will eventually get to a place where consumers in the West join the rest of the world in eating insects, it is likely going to be through more of a middle path. And we’re getting closer.

According to this piece in Food Dive: “Five years ago, there was still a lot of gimmicky stuff,” Ashour said. “The awareness of citizens on issues of climate change, particularly highlighted by COVID, has really made what we do not only very reasonable, but incredibly timely, almost like an intervention.”

After all, as you know if you read FADS, it will be the trendsetters first, normalizing it for the rest of us, and then it will be scaled to make it affordable and common-place. After all, it’s projected to be profitable.