Food Trends 2025

Sandwich revival

After many cost of living and pandemic influences over the past years the focus on food trends are changing from new, fancy, healthy, different or international, in another direction.

It seems that for the years to come, our food trends are heading more towards MEANINGFULNESS, AFFORDABLE, DIETS, SUSTAINABLE and FUN.

There are many signs showing that consumers are more likely to set, meaningfulness, fun and the unexpected, before the rule books of the known traditional foods, by interpreting old favourites in a completely new exciting, healthy, and cross-cultural different way,

by putting "new life", “add-ons” and "cross cultural" ideas, to already known existing traditional foods from the past or from other cultures in a, wherever possible,

sustainable way.

Many of those new ideas and trends are increasingly influenced by restaurants, modern chefs, retailers and food influencers throughout all of the many popular social medias, particularly media's such as Tik Tok and Instagram.

Many of these new trend ideas, arise directly from many of those social platforms into pop-up Restaurants, the Food Truck scene and Fast Food scene, home kitchens and even into the supermarket shelves.

Today i want to focus on the revival of the world's most famous “to go” lunch item,

invented in the 18th. century in England, by John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich

called;   SANDWICH

Sandwiches have  been consumed over the passed centuries, as a popular type of lunch food or “in between snack” or “on the go snack” to be taken to work, to school, to sport or to picnics.

Sandwiches have to be seen as a prepared, packed lunch "on the go".

Sandwiches have grown an enormous popularity throughout many cultures and countries over the past centuries and nowadays sandwiches are available in an extraordinary cultural variety. in every country in our western world, with extremely many local characteristics.

The amount of small enterprises and pop-up locations focusing on sandwiches have grown extremely in the past years, and sandwiches in what ever kind of how they are produced or presented are very popular, when it comes to enjoying a fast lunch, which you can see with the big market growth from companies like "Prèt a manger", "Subway", "Joe and the Juice", "Paris Baguette", "7-Eleven" and "All'Antico Vinaio"

One of the latest and newest trends when it comes to sandwiches are the so called SUPERCHARGED SANDWICHES

Supercharged sandwiches don't have the primary and biggest focus on the bread, instead their focus is the filling. The filling is thought to be, more or less, a complete lunchmenu on its own, and the creativity of the fillings including proteins has absolutely no limits.  

The supercharged sandwiches additionally have the possibility to focus on many different diets such as vegan, vegetarian, gluten- or lactose free and many more, everything is possible and there is something for everybody’s preferred diet or taste, hot or cold,

nothing is impossible, everything is possible.

Another fact that Sandwiches are trending in popularity, is the fact, that they are longer lasting in their freshness as many other snacks, customisable, quite affordable, come in mostly very sustainable packaging, and are preferred by a very wide range of customers, young and old.

Another interesting addition to the trending sandwich-mania, is the increasing growth of supporting equipment for sandwich production, such as induction grills and other equipments, that can transform, grill, or heat up a freshly produced or bought sandwiches, into a hot sandwich, in less then 30 seconds

Another trendy snack that's returning, and is gaining popularity rapidly in it’s many varieties in major cities around the globe is the HOT DOG. Especially globally inspired hot dogs combined with healthy, sustainable and culturally diverse toppings and options are nourishing this trend.

A Hot dog is a snack consisting of a grilled, steamed or boiled sausage, served in a partially sliced bun. By changing and or replacing the sausage, the bread, the sauces the add-ons or the toppings, the diversity of new creations is immense and enormous, and can fit in almost any diet preference.

There is no proven evidence where the hot dog, or its name, originates from and who invented it. The sausage in the hot dog itself originated from Germany and Austria.

In Germany the sausage is called “Frankfurter” and originates from the city of Frankfurt and in Austria the sausage is called “Wiener” and originates from the city of Vienna.

The difference between both sausages is that the Frankfurter is made from pork meat only, and the Wiener is made from both pork and beef.

With the identical enormous variety in creations, fillings and stuffings, for many different diet preferences, similar to the Sandwich the hot dog will grow as a trend again in 2025. With varying sausage, depending on the kind of diet its intended to serve, especially looking at the amount of vegan kind of replacements for sausages and many other protein substitute produce , that have grown extremely rapidly over the past few years in our modern food industry.

Additionally to Sandwiches and Hotdogs there are even more, very similar foods that 

are very identical to both of these, just from different parts of the world, such as for example:

Panini’s originating from Italy, Burritos originating from Mexico and Banh Mi originating from Vietnam

Paninis, Burritos, BanhMi's and many more combinations of whatever kind of bread or dough or pastry, with a fancy stuffing can be created with the same enormous variety in creativity and for all kinds of different diet preferences.

Many of these new Sandwich-Fun trends are trying to create something very colourful, with unexpected culturally diverse combinations, but simultaneously, healthy and of course most importantly, surprisingly tasty. There are no limits when it comes to creativity and innovation

PFJ 03.24