Food trends 2025 | From functional foods to multicultural snacks

What foods will be on our plates in 2025? What will we see new on grocery store shelves? Here’s an overview of the food trends that will fuel the year… and the years to come.

Added value

Chocolate to sleep better, granola bars to relax, tea to be more productive or even chips to increase libido… We will see functional foods and drinks flocking to the shelves.

“A company, rather than making several flavors of chocolate, makes a chocolate for the skin, a chocolate for the hair and another for stress,” he says. The nutritionist saw the proliferation of these products at the last international food fair, SIAL Paris.

A change is also taking place in Quebecers’ choice of drinks, notes Guillaume Mathieu, co-founder of ilot, an agri-food strategy consulting firm which released its guide at the end of November Bouillon with its must-haves for 2025. “Now, people are looking to drink a drink with added value. It could be a flavored protein water or even a post-workout non-alcoholic beer with electrolytes,” he gives as an example.

Snacks galore

The industry has understood that snacking (snacking, in English), or having several snacks during a day rather than three meals, is still very current. We remember the famous TikTok phenomenon of 2024, the girl dinnercomments Jordan LeBel, professor of food marketing at Concordia University. “The trend perhaps responds to our somewhat crazy lifestyles,” he believes.

What’s popular in the world of snacks? Proteins. “It’s really a matter of who will be able to put the most protein in their snack,” says Bernard Lavallée.

Snacks have also been considered “little luxuries” by consumers in 2024 and the trend will continue this year, Nestlé believes. As the budget is tighter, we treat ourselves with snacks rather than restaurant meals. Snacks will further embrace multicultural flavors with unexpected fusions, Whole Foods Market predicts.

More multicultural products in our grocery stores

Grocery stores will sell even more multicultural products, says Guillaume Mathieu, who believes that Quebec retailers will catch up with other provinces such as Ontario or British Columbia. Several reasons explain this trend, according to the co-founder of ilot. First of all, new arrivals no longer shop only in specialized grocery stores, they are increasingly turning to low-cost brands for savings and convenience.

What to do when travel is less accessible for many of them? “Food is one of the last defenses. We can have fun, we can escape, we can discover at a lower cost,” he maintains. Quebecers are therefore exploring multicultural dishes, which often turn out to be inexpensive – just think of instant ramen noodles.

Quebec still in the foreground

“I would not be surprised if in 2025, we talk a lot more about Labrador tea and the different types of herbal teas that we have here in Quebec,” suggests Guillaume Mathieu. The consumer must make choices and the price of a cup of coffee at a given moment no longer makes sense. »

As several products in our pantries have seen their prices increase – olive oil, chocolate and coffee are good examples – the co-founder of ilot believes that several Quebec products will be able to find their way into our baskets. “Camelina oil, a few years ago, was roughly the same price as very high quality olive oil, and today it is less expensive,” he illustrates.

The local will become regionalized. One in two Quebecers say that products that display a specific region of Quebec are more authentic and of better quality than those simply labeled as coming from Quebec, according to the Léger survey published in the last Bouillon.

“We are looking for a connection to our food,” believes nutritionist Bernard Lavallée. To be able to tell you that it was he who grew your food, to even have a face of the person, it’s like a seal of quality. »