As we approach 2025, many F&B businesses are preparing themselves for a resurgence by proactively reviewing their current operational strategies to better accommodate consumer demands and integrate into the digital era in order to seek new business opportunities. According to the “Provisional statistics of restaurant receipts and purchases for third quarter of 2024” issued by The Census and Statistics Department, HKSAR last November, the value of total receipts of the restaurants sector in the third quarter of 2024, provisionally estimated at $26.7 billion, decreased by 1.3% over a year earlier. Over the same period, the provisional estimate of the value of total purchases by restaurants decreased by 0.1% to $8.8 billion. There is no doubt that the performance of the Food & Beverage (F&B) industry in 2024 was unsatisfactory, mirroring a subdued growth. The F&B industry must proactively improve its business performance through revenue-generating and cost-cutting strategies, as well as enhance customer satisfaction to encourage consumption. It is essential for businesses to understand the latest market trends before they can improve their offerings and seize new opportunities. Without further ado, let’s take a look at the hot F&B trends highlighted by various research institutes and media from around the globe!
Sustainability & Local Sourcing
According to the “What’s Hot in 2025 – Culinary Forecast" conducted by the US’s National Restaurant Association last year, “Sustainability & Local Sourcing” has become the top of the chart in 2025, replacing “World Stage Soups & Stews”. This implies that more and more consumers will pay attention to green dining and environmental conservation. In the other words, when consumers are choosing F&B services, they tend to care more about the sources and production methods of the fresh ingredients. For example, they concern whether the restaurants support local sourcing to reduce carbon footprint in the delivery process; or whether the suppliers adopt sustainable methods in the farming and production process. It is therefore vital for the F&B industry to advocate "sustainable dining” in their businesses. This can not only help maintain biodiversity and thus ensure a stable supply chain of ingredients, but also attract like-minded consumers by offering healthier and diverse culinary options. Noteworthily, Innova, an international global market insights provider from the Netherlands, predicted that “Food Culture – Tradition Reinvented” will be one of the Top Ten Food and Beverage Trends for 2025, coincidentally resonating with the trend related to “local” elements highlighted by the National Restaurant Association. They both believe that “local” elements will come into the spotlight. Consumers tend to preserve their local dining cultures and tastes, of which they are proud, while experiencing diverse cultural exchange.
The Rise of Fusion Cuisine
Photo source: Hong Kong Tourism Board & Time Out Hong Kong
As the pandemic subsides and international trade and travel fully resume, consumers' desire for diverse dining experiences is increasingly intensifying. Creative and palate-stimulating fusion cuisine is expected to become a new global trend by 2025. On the other hand, many F&B businesses have realized the challenges of crafting a complete foreign dining experience with imported ingredients after the pandemic due to international transportation restrictions and increased costs associated with logistics and imported food. Therefore, more and more restaurants are starting to reconsider how to create fusion cuisine using local ingredients, adding a touch of local flavours to exotic tastes. In Hong Kong, there are quite a number of popular fusion restaurants recognized by Michelin. “Whey” offering Singaporean mixed with western cuisine is one of the examples. Their Singaporean chef uses both local and organic ingredients to create South-East Asian cuisine with western cooking techniques. Some of their signature dishes include reinterpreted Bak Kut Teh, French bread with black fruit jam and Nyonya flavors and Musang King durian ice cream paired with caviar, immersing their customers into an extraordinary feast brought about by the integration of diverse food cultures and ingredients. Moreover, the third major F&B trend highlighted by Innova is “Flavors–Wildly Inventive”, which further reinforces the new wave of fusion cuisine in 2025. The survey indicates that more than half of consumers worldwide are interested in trying new flavours. In addition to the fusion cuisine presented by various restaurants, several well-known food brands have also launched a series of limited-edition co-branded products, such as "Coca-Cola x Oreo" cola and cookies, to attract consumers with unprecedented flavours and surprises.
Customized Dining Experience
Many research institutes and media have also pointed out that consumers will increasingly focus on health, nutrition, wellness and other personalized demands in the future. This is also reflected in the The Top Ten Food and Beverage Trends for 2025. The second, fifth and seventh trends highlighted are “Health–Precision Wellness”, “Plant-based–Rethinking Plants” and “Beauty Food–Taste the Glow” respectively. The F&B industry needs to adjust its menu, ingredients and cooking methods based on personalized demands of different consumers to accommodate diverse dining habits by providing consumers with healthier options. For instance, adding vegan options to the menu or offering choices such as low-calorie, low-sugar or low-salt items. Currently, such personalized dining services are more common in bubble tea shops and coffee shops, where customers can design their drinks according to their preferences, including flavor, temperature, sweetness and milk foam, creating a bespoke experience. In Hong Kong, some Japanese ramen shops also allow customers to choose the thickness and texture of their noodles, making the dishes more tailored to individual tastes.
Utilization of Operational and Sales Data
To improve operational efficiency and create better dining experiences, F&B businesses cannot rely solely on employee experience to adjust strategies. Instead, they have to collect relevant data about their operations, including costs, sales and customer preference etc., in order to understand the actual performance and make data-driven decisions. A targeted operational and sales strategies can not only help generate revenue and reduce costs, but also attract customers. Apart from the POS systems commonly-used by restaurants to record daily sales data, an increasing number of restaurants have started to implement food procurement and inventory management systems tailored to the F&B industry. Such systems can assist restaurants in systematically managing procurement data and strengthen food cost and procurement cost control for formulating better cost-saving strategies. Moreover, the system provides active inventory monitoring and recipe analysis functions. Users can conduct regular stock take and connect to the POS through the system for automatically integrating inventory and sales data for in-depth analysis, further understanding the restaurant's operations and performance. With built-in reports and management dashboards, operators can gain insights from multiple perspectives, including procurement costs, wastage, stock value, ideal and actual dish costs, supplier analysis and even the profit and sales distribution of each dish in your menu. The above data is useful for formulating new procurement and sales strategies to enhance business performance.
As we enter 2025, the F&B industry will encounter various challenges and changes, but it will also present new opportunities. F&B operators must seize these opportunities by embracing digital transformation to replace time-consuming manual processes with automated systems. By utilizing more robust data, they can enhance decision-making and implement targeted improvements while progressing towards sustainable development. If you are interested in exploring digital transformation for your restaurant, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. Our system consultants would be happy to discuss the best digital solutions with you!
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