Food

How to innovate the menu by amplifying and enhancing 2021 trends in 2022

Graham Humphreys and Nikki Freihofer of The Culinary Edge dish on what operators can expect in the year ahead and how to take action.

CEO Graham Humphreys and Associate Director of Strategy Nikki Freihofer both stay ahead of the trends in their positions with The Culinary Edge, a food and drink innovation company. Together, they share their insights on the 2021 menu trends that have staying power and what we can expect to see emerging in 2022.

Be prepared to find out what appuccino is, why flexitarian eating is on the rise and how neo-nostalgia is impacting the menu. The duo explains how to handle the increase in customization with less labor and how operators can position ghost kitchens to maximize efficiencies and profit.

graham humphreysNikki Freihofer
Graham Humphreys, left, and Nikki Freihofer

Listen as Humphreys and Freihofer look back on the best trends of the past year and envision what we can look forward to in the year ahead.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts

Subscribe on Spotify

Also, we are now on Alexa. Log into your Amazon account, look for “Menu Feed podcast” to enable the skill. Once it’s enabled all you need to do to listen is say, “Alexa, play ‘Menu Feed.’”

Members help make our journalism possible. Become a Restaurant Business member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.

Multimedia

Exclusive Content

Financing

Despite their complaints, customers keep flocking to Chipotle

The Bottom Line: The chain continued to be a juggernaut last quarter, with strong sales and traffic growth, despite frequent social media complaints about shrinkflation or other challenges.

Operations

Hitting resistance elsewhere, ghost kitchens and virtual concepts find a happy home in family dining

Reality Check: Old-guard chains are finding the alternative operations to be persistently effective side hustles.

Financing

The Tijuana Flats bankruptcy highlights the dangers of menu miscues

The Bottom Line: The fast-casual chain’s problems following new menu debuts in 2021 and 2022 show that adding new items isn’t always the right idea.

Trending

More from our partners