Chicory’s Bi-Weekly Recipe Trends: Week of 10/26/2020

As we approach the final weeks of October, typical autumn food trends explode as consumers anticipate Halloween and take advantage of seasonal produce like winter squash and root vegetables.

While we see some of the same trends repeat themselves this season, like prolific potato and squash recipes, they appear in larger number than ever before, indicating that consumers’ increased cooking habits are here to stay, at least for a while. With Halloween quickly approaching this week, consumers are ramping up their spooky celebrations in even bigger ways than last year.

And finally, Whole Foods predicts that new ingredients will appeal to adventurous consumers next year, so we dug into the trends in our shoppable recipe network to explore any early indications of this, finding a few interesting ingredients on the rise.

Halloween May Be Bigger This Year Than Last

Although trick or treating has been a hotly debated topic this year considering safety protocols and proper social distancing guidelines, Chicory’s shoppable recipe network indicates that consumers will still be celebrating Halloween this year through sweets.

Views for Halloween-themed recipes were 9% higher than last year, indicating that consumers may be celebrating the holiday at home with food and family rather than typical outdoor activities like trick or treating or corn mazes.

The top Halloween recipes this year are:

Consumers Discover New Ingredients

Whole Foods recently released their top food trends predictions for 2021. Among the trends were new takes on basic recipes, with a prediction that consumers will use new ingredients that they had never tried before. Some “reimagined classics” were “hearts of palm pasta, applewood-smoked salt and ‘meaty’ vegan soup.”

Trends in our network validate this prediction. Traffic patterns show that, with more time at home, consumers are reimagining classic recipes. While the ingredients and recipes that Whole Foods did not show significant growth yet within our network, two notable ingredients showed interesting upwards trends:

Kohlrabi, also known as German turnip, exploded this year. Potentially riding the high of homesteading and home gardening trends, kohlrabi is a fairly easy crop that produces plentiful root vegetables, even in backyard gardens.

Another ingredient with meteoric growth, mirin is a common Japanese condiment that’s just beginning to make its way into American diets. The popularity of the ingredient mimics the trend that we’ve seen with sriracha, Huy Fong’s chili garlic sauce and Chinese five spice and indicates a new cuisine being explored by American home cooks.

It’s Prime Potato and Squash Season

If there’s ever any indication that consumers have officially transitioned their diets into autumn mode, it’s the appearance of potatoes and other root vegetables in their favorite recipes. More consumers than ever fall before are reaching for these starchy, healthy ingredients this season.

In fact, views for recipes with potatoes are nearly double those compared to the same time last year and views for recipes with squash are over 1.5x higher compared to this time last year.

Last week, we saw the keyword “Thanksgiving” skyrocket--earlier than in past years. Consumers are getting their fill of making holiday favorites like mashed potatoes and caramelized squash during their regular meals because many (71%) don’t plan to celebrate the holidays in big groups. 61% are less likely to host than they were last year (according to Chicory’s 2020 holiday survey).

Top Movers: Ingredients

Changes in ingredient traffic during the last two weeks in October show that most consumers are incorporating their favorite warm autumn flavors like allspice, cinnamon, apples and ginger into all of their meals, including breakfast. Whether in an apple and chicken sausage bake dinner or pumpkin waffles, the flavors of fall are bringing consumers comfort all day long.

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