The future of food in your home
By Sarita
on April 30 2015
After tracking sociocultural and technology trends influencing and shaping the kitchen landscape over the past 10 years, we wanted to share with you some key insights and opportunity areas that will impact food futures.
Two hot topics set to really influence consumers in the near future are nutrition and food production. We take a look at the intersection between these two areas, along with opportunities for innovation within this space.
Image credit: PDD
What’s happening…
Food scares and scandals, as well as consumer desire for ethical, fair trade and ‘supporting local’ is driving consumer interest in food provenance. Combined with the attitude of ‘the fresher the better’, consumers are demanding new products and services that brings them right to the heart of the process from ‘uber-local’ food production, through to ‘self-sourcing’ and ‘home harvesting’.
Up until now large scale producers and appliance manufacturers have responded in various ways; with an increased stocking of ‘nationally grown’ foods, packaging listing farm and breed names for vegetable and meat, through to better chilling compartments in domestic fridges aimed at locking in the goodness. But expect to see this take a leap further in the future with brands exploring new and innovative ways to bring consumers closer to nature, closer to nutrition and closer to production.
Examples of home appliances bringing consumers closer to nature
Image credit: streamliningip.com
Self-sourcing: From farmer to consumer
Bonaverde coffee machine aims to revolutionize the world of home coffee brewing by enabling consumers to buy raw, green coffee beans direct from farmers around the world. Consumers can roast and grind the beans themselves at home before brewing them in this all-in-one machine.
Image credit: purodeco.com
Home harvesting: Tools to table
Fiskars KitchenGarden, featured at Ambiente 2014, expands its range by creating an indoor table-top garden system for growing herbs; extending its consumer experience to include domestic indoor growing alongside tools for cultivating and harvesting.
Image credit: aqualibrium.com
Uber-local: Micro-sustainable home ecosystem
Aqualibrium Garden is an aquaponic symbiotic system comprising of a series of chambers that function as both garden and aquarium. Water circulates from the fish tank below and up into the soil of the garden. Nutrients supplied from the fish, snails, or crayfish fertilize the soil to aid plant growth, with the plants in turn filtering the water, returning fresh back to the fish tank.
Where it’s going…
Interest in ‘urban agriculture’ will increase, with consumers turning to hyper-local sourcing and grass-roots living creating a demand for both tools and appliances that enable them to get closer to food in its natural state. Consider how your future products could bridge the gap between ‘production and table’, allowing consumers to reap the benefits both ethically and nutritionally.
We will see the emergence of more ‘closed loop ecosystems’ for the home, taking principles from large scale farming and manufacturing and scaling them down for the domestic kitchen. Consider how these systems could create a whole new category of large domestic appliances in the future, and how they would sit amongst other appliances.
More…