Marcela Gonzalez
Have you ever been scrolling on TikTok wondering why everyone is making the same pasta sauce or buying the same brand of cookies?
This need to “fit in” with the crowd is nothing new. Belonging is as much of human nature as love and freedom are. Feelings of exclusion are said to activate the same brain regions as physical pain does, and in this digitalized world, following trends serves to create that sense of togetherness.
As a small business owner, being aware of current trends will allow you to:
Socially connect with your customers
Create innovative products
Stay competitive
Meet customers’ expectations
Detect shifts in buying behaviour to mitigate risks later on
With this in mind, we compiled timely e-commerce and food trends that we thought could give a boost to your small food business.
Current E-commerce Trends for Small Food Business Owners
E-commerce is booming, be it because of its convenience, easier checkout or product variety, online shopping will account for 20.1% of all retail sales this year.
E-commerce takes away the pressure of having a physical store. Some platforms offer online shops where you can put up your storefront—like FreshFind, which helps you keep track of everything including inventory and order fulfillment.
This online landscape is always evolving, with practices like artificial intelligence and mobile commerce gaining popularity, it’s important for small businesses to stay on top of these trends to engage with customers in new ways.
Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) Sales
Just as its name implies, DTC selling is a more direct way of selling where brands take care of the entire supply chain instead of relying on intermediaries like wholesalers, distributors and retailers.
You’re probably employing this sales method without realizing it, or have done it before when you started your small business.
While it involves a larger involvement on your part, Direct-to-Customer sales can:
Increase your profit margin, since you’re holding onto the portion that would go to one of these intermediaries
Give you complete control over your branding and marketing
Allow you to build direct relationships with your customers
Make you thrive in the digital marketplace and among tech-savvy audiences
Capture immediate feedback to improve your products
Subscription Boxes
This popular e-commerce model has been around for a while and remains an opportunity for small food businesses to introduce new products, build customer loyalty and increase sales.
To successfully create a subscription box, you need to choose your items with a target audience in mind, invest in attractive packaging and offer flexibility to allow your subscribers to pause, skip or cancel their orders. You don’t want them to feel like they’re overbuying!
Finally, pick a subscription box business model that best fits you, whether that’s curating your collections, personalizing them to each customer or simply replenishing your products.
Mobile Commerce
Phones are the one thing we carry with us everywhere we go. Naturally, online marketplaces and applications are expected to work just as well on these devices as they would on a computer.
If you want to reach your customers wherever they are, it’s necessary to have a mobile-optimized website or app with a nice UX and UI design and mobile payment options like Apple Pay and PayPal.
Other benefits of mobile commerce include:
Faster transactions
Lower marketing campaign costs
Data collection and insights on customer behaviour
Social Commerce
Similarly to mobile commerce, social commerce is a form of e-commerce that uses social media platforms to sell products.
It’s become increasingly common for customers to purchase goods and base their purchase decisions on the content they see daily. Many popular platforms like TikTok, Facebook and Pinterest have introduced social commerce features that allow you to put up storefronts that blend seamlessly with the platform.
A significant portion of Canadian customers—around 74%—spend nearly three hours per day on social media, giving you a wide time window to engage with new and old customers.
Because of the fast-paced nature of this medium, however, visually appealing content and products are a must to capture your audience’s attention.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Although there are many concerns about AI replacing human workers, its applications have had to do with increasing customer satisfaction and optimizing operations.
72% of organizations have adopted Artificial Intelligence in at least one of their business functions. This number may seem daunting—how can you implement AI as a small food business owner?
Personalized recommendations: Sites like clerk.io automatically gather data to show your customers the products that match their preferences. AI can also be used to tailor search results and website experience.
Chatbots: These machines help answer customers’ most common questions and requests instantly, allowing you and your team to focus on more complex tasks. Ada is an unscripted chatbox whose language and voice can be customized to align with your business.
Nutrition information: If you’re a food business working with nutrition labels, ChatGPT can help you generate them to comply with regulatory standards, calculate nutritional values and highlight allergens.
Buy Now, Pay Later
This payment option presents customers with the possibility of splitting their purchases into interest-free installments. It is integrated into whatever online checkout platform you use, and oftentimes there aren’t any credit checks.
Offering BNPL can benefit your small food business in the following ways:
It decreases the risks of frauds since you’ll receive the full payment from your BNPL provider right away, whether the customer ends up paying or not
It increases your sales by attracting customers who might have delayed or abandoned their purchase
It can raise your average order, as customers can spend more without feeling the financial pressure
These are some e-commerce trends that you can start implementing in your business no matter where you are on your journey as an entrepreneur. Remember that you don’t have to do everything at once: Take what’s useful to you now and save what could be in the future.
Current Food Trends for Small Food Businesses
Every small food business is different. It’s hard to create a list of specific ingredients to incorporate that is accessible to every food business out there (we tried, anyway).
While we advise you to incorporate some of these flavours into your kitchen, the point is not to change your products into something they aren’t just for popularity’s sake.
Local Products
After all of the hard work you’ve put into starting and maintaining your business, it’s time for you to pat yourself on the back!
Don’t be fooled by the term “trend”—the interest in buying local is not waning anytime soon, as people genuinely buy these products because they want to support your business. The most popular items are fruits, vegetables, bread and snacks.
Technology has been a tremendous driver for small businesses, it has given them exposure like never before, making customers keen on supporting their regional economy and more than happy to attend farmer’s markets and food festivals.
Healthy Foods
This is part of a bigger wellness trend—or rather, lifestyle—that has become popular on social media. This mix of exercising and getting enough sleep is supported by healthy eating. And so while balance is preached, customers have been attracted lately by:
Products that can be incorporated into plant-based diets like nuts and nut butters, meat substitutes, fermented foods and cereals
Gluten-free products like gluten-free oats, sauces and fresh and frozen fruits
Dairy-free substitutes like yogurt, milk or baked products
Organic products, which must comply with specific standards that have to do with sustainability and environmental harmony
Eco-conscious Foods
The impact our food consumption has on the environment has become a buying criterion for customers. In the case of Canada, 70% of customers seek food that has environmentally sustainable production. They want to consume products from brands that have adopted:
Sustainable farming practices like the use of recycled water
The use of renewable energies when producing and processing products
Food waste reduction programs
Human production through and through
Some examples of products that require fewer resources and have less environmental impact include beans and lentils, mushrooms and leafy vegetables.
Specific Examples
Breakfast Foods
It’s no wonder that you’re seeing videos of everyone going to get brunch or breakfast at really cute or niche places—breakfast was and is the hot meal for this year.
A combination of factors like increased work hours and the influence of social media has turned breakfast into both a necessary meal and a pleasurable experience.
With this in mind, products like jams, granola, biscuits and breads can be a great addition to the start of your customers’ day.
Spicy Foods
Our multicultural society has forced the most reticent palates into trying new flavours. Many cuisines, like Korean, Indian and Thai, have exchanged these bits of their cultures, giving customers exciting sensory experiences that, paired with social media challenges, have turned spicy foods into a mainstream culinary trend.
Hot sauces are the main way to add that spicy tang, but there are other options like jarred peppers, candy or herbs.
Cookies
Did you get to see the millions of people reviewing the viral Crumbl Cookies? Or did you try the cookie croissant yourself? It seems that cookies are always popping off somewhere these days.
Be it because of their variety of flavours, their different textures or crazy combinations, cookies are a sweet treat whose popularity will remain in the years to come.
Rather than trying new flavours, we suggest that you boost the marketing of your cookies to get customers to buy your cookies and no one else’s.
Matcha
Some people say it tastes like grass while some love it, but the truth is that this controversy (among many other things) has made matcha into a synonym of “aesthetic” and “well-being.”
There already are so many powders out there that you might be wondering, Is it even worth it? but as always with trending products, there’s an opportunity for it to be better and create a customer’s favourite or turn someone’s opinion.
Smoothies
They are quick and easy, portable and have pretty colours, need we say more? This delicious and customizable way of eating fruits and vegetables has made products like nuts, frozen fruits, cocoa and protein powders a must-have in everyone’s pantry.
You could even create your own recipes using your products, giving your customers another reason to purchase from you.
Current Marketing Trends for Small Food Businesses
Being trendy doesn’t stop at your products! As you have already read above, e-commerce forms like social and mobile commerce involve generating interest in your product just from a social media post. To make things easier for you, we gathered some tactics you can use to boost your products’ online presence.
Big Food Pictures
The grind starts the moment you take your pictures. This trend consists of zooming out to take an out-of-scale selfie or picture of you holding your product, with some people going the extra mile and making stickers out of the food to paste them enlarged. Either way, it looks comically bigger and even more delicious!
The above is an example from user @veggiekins on Instagram.
Short Form Video Content
Tiktok this and Tiktok that—you might be tired of hearing about this platform, but it has truly changed how we consume media, turning micro-content consumption into the new norm for Gen-Z, Millennials and Boomers.
To capture today’s audiences and make content that’s easily accessible through a phone screen, it’s important that you craft short, catchy videos showcasing your product. This will increase your chances of becoming a trending topic and generating engagement.
Interactive Content
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