#3
2025 Food Trend Snapshot: From Consumption to Experience
The food trends that defined 2025 show that food is no longer limited to being a simple object of consumption. Instead, it has expanded into a cultural medium—gastronomy—that expresses emotions, experiences, and even personal identity. Throughout the year, viral content spread across social media captured not only specific dishes or recipes but also shifts in consumer emotions and lifestyles.
Among Gen Z, the approach to food has moved from “what we eat” to “how we experience and connect with it.” Rather than highly polished presentations, content that emphasizes sensory elements—such as texture, sound, and atmosphere—along with relatable, real-life moments generated stronger engagement. Platforms like TikTok accelerated this shift, transforming how food content is consumed, shared, and remembered.
Sensory driven everyday eating moments
In 2025 food content, the most powerful driver of virality was not flavor, but sensory experience. Mukbangs such as seafood boils did not focus on explaining taste or quality; instead, they drew viewers in through dripping sauces, the sound of cracking shells, hands-on eating spread across the table, and reactions that were almost excessively honest.
Scenes that captured texture and sound in a raw, unfiltered way—delivered directly through the screen—often generated far more sharing and engagement than carefully staged or highly produced videos.
Social Media Beyond Borders
The rise of Dubai chocolate symbolically demonstrated that food trends in 2025 no longer move along national lines. On social media, visual appeal that can be instantly understood through video is often evaluated before origin or brand story—and once that appeal is proven, trends rapidly cross borders.
Dubai chocolate gained particular attention because the global trend was repeatedly reshaped through user reviews and comparison content, expanding into a much larger movement in the process. This momentum naturally extended into growing interest in pistachio flavors, and today, Dubai chocolate–inspired and pistachio-flavored products are easy to find not only online, but also in neighborhood bakeries, cafés, and supermarkets.
Eating Becomes Content: 6 foods, 6 ways
The “6 foods, 6 ways” format was one of the most commonly seen mukbang styles in 2025. Trying and comparing a single ingredient or menu item prepared in six different ways felt less like a review and more like a shared experiment—or even a game.
Rather than searching for a single “correct” answer, viewers naturally participated through comments, sparking votes and playful debates. In particular, this format spread rapidly as creators continuously reinterpreted and replicated it in their own styles, ultimately building into a much larger wave across social media.
Celebrity Collaborations and the Culture of New Product Drops
Celebrity collaborations remained a powerful catalyst in 2025, but a notable shift emerged this year: collaborations were consumed not as advertisements, but as launch events. When a new product dropped, people checked when and where it would be released—and how fast it would sell out—before even considering the taste. Purchasing became less about consumption and more about participating in a trend. Reviews accumulated in real time, while unboxings and first reactions immediately turned into the next wave of content.
A clear example of this phenomenon was the celebrity collaboration drops by Crumbl. Its limited-time cookie collaboration with pop singer Benson Boone was available only for a short period, with anticipation videos from fans building even before the release. After launch, unboxing clips, first-bite reactions, taste reviews, and comparison content quickly followed, naturally sustaining the viral momentum.
Antipasto Salad and the $19 Strawberries
Some foods went viral unintentionally. Antipasto salad gained sudden attention when a woman shared her experience on TikTok about leaving an Independence Day potluck after an uncomfortable situation. In her story, the antipasto salad she mentioned was repeatedly referenced, eventually becoming a symbolic image representing the viral “TikTok drama” itself.
As reactions exploded, the original poster later shared the recipe, and the food shifted roles—from being the cause of the incident to functioning as a visual anchor that held the story together. In this case, the dish mattered less for its taste and more for its power to carry narrative and emotion.
The “$19 strawberries” represent a similar type of viral phenomenon. A video showing a single Japanese strawberry being sold for $19 at Erewhon, the upscale Los Angeles grocery market known for the Hailey Bieber smoothie, spread rapidly on TikTok.
What captured attention was not the strawberry’s sweetness or variety, but the lifestyle and consumer culture symbolized by its price. The question—“Is it really worth it?”—naturally expanded into broader conversations about class awareness, the commercialization of wellness, and urban consumption culture. The divided reactions themselves became content, turning debate into the driving force of virality.
Protein as an Option, Not a Regimen
Wellness remained a key theme in 2025, but the approach clearly shifted. Protein was no longer confined to the worlds of gyms and strict diet plans; instead, it moved naturally into familiar everyday categories such as coffee, beverages, and snacks. Rather than demanding special commitment for the sake of health, protein was presented as an option that could be chosen without significantly altering existing routines.
A clear example of this shift was Starbucks and its protein beverage offerings. By introducing protein cold foam and protein lattes, Starbucks positioned protein not as a new wellness category, but as a way to enhance nutrition without compromising the familiar beverage experience. Wellness came to be understood not as a goal or discipline, but as something adjustable within daily life—and protein, in turn, became a low-pressure, customizable element of everyday consumption.
The Power of Year-End Seasons: Limited-Time Menus and Collectible Goods
In the U.S., the fourth quarter holiday calendar can almost be said to set the rhythm of content itself. Halloween draws attention to seasonally themed menu items with bold colors and strong concepts, while the year-end period intensifies “proof-of-purchase” culture around collectible items such as limited-edition merchandise and cups. In 2025, Starbucks’ holiday cups and tumblers once again sparked waves of purchase confirmations and unboxing content immediately after launch. In particular, glass cups featuring the Bearista character were repeatedly mentioned across social media. As in previous years, interest centered less on the beverages themselves and more on the limited-edition goods.
Among seasonal menu items, Chili’s’ neon-colored Wicked margarita briefly captured attention during the Halloween season. Evoking the green and pink hues associated with the movie Wicked, the drink stood out more for its visual concept than its flavor. Meanwhile, recurring limited-time desserts—such as McDonald’s’ Holiday Pie—also resurfaced as annual talking points. Seasonal staples like the Holiday Pie and Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte continue to be discussed every year on social media precisely because of their limited-time availability during the year-end season.
Conclusion
Looking back at the content landscape of 2025, it is clear that—at least within social media food culture—there has been a gradual shift toward ease, balance, and low-pressure choices that do not require sacrifice or excessive effort. Protein is no longer positioned as part of strict health management but has settled into everyday life as a natural add-on alongside coffee, beverages, and snacks. Likewise, global flavors that were once consumed as novelties are increasingly blending into familiar, everyday menus.
The form of content itself has also evolved. Rather than relying on intense stimulation or exaggerated production, audiences responded more strongly to preparation processes, repeated routines, and ordinary, unremarkable moments of daily life. In this sense, the food trends of 2025 feel less like a shift in taste or menu preferences and more like a cultural record of how people found comfort through food, shared opinions, and connected with one another.
Taken together, this context suggests that in 2026, food experiences that resonate will be defined less by rarity or spectacle and more by how naturally they fit into everyday life. Food will remain at the center of content, but its expression is likely to grow quieter, more realistic, and more seamlessly integrated into individual lifestyles.
<Sources: Trill, Starbucks, People.com, today.com, business Insider>
