Social media can be a divisive place but if there’s one thing that unites us all, it’s food. From foodie hashtags and memes to Instagrammable pics, we love to discuss food. And this is reflective of the size of this market. According to experts, the food and beverage industry is likely to earn more than $75 billion and is expected to reach a volume of $100 billion by the year 2024. In this article, the Moondust Agency team is checking out some food brands to watch on social media. What did they get right and what should food brands be doing to market themselves in 2021?

Credit: Eiliv-Sonas Aceron on Unsplash — Credit: **Eiliv-Sonas Aceron** **on Unsplash**

Foodies on Social Media

Whether they’re reviewing restaurants, posting food pics or hashtagging their favourite snack, foodies are out in force on social media.

· Food and beverage businesses have 32% of all shares on Twitter

· 6 out of every 10 big brands on Facebook are food and drink brands

· 90% of people read reviews before trying a new restaurant or takeaway

· 79% of internet users use blogs and social media to make decisions about where to eat and what foods to try

20 Trending Food Hashtags on Instagram

#Food #FoodPorn #Foodie #Yummy #Delicious #Dinner #Breakfast #Yum #Lunch

#Homemade #Chef #FoodBlogger #FoodBlog #Foodstagram #Finstagram #FoodIsLife #FoodBlogFeed #EatForTheGram #InstaFood #FoodPhotography

Food & Beverage Trends

The past year has been a roller-coaster for food consumption and eating trends. From baking banana bread and posted healthy recipes online, through to exploring online deliveries and ending up binging on fast foods. Restaurants scrambled to offer home delivery services following lockdown orders. Led by platform-to-consumer services, such as DoorDash and Uber Eats, food delivery expanded adding billions of dollars in revenue.

· Grocery delivery service Instacart said it achieved its 2022 goals in the third week of lockdown.

· Uber Eats, Deliveroo and DoorDash reported a massive acceleration in orders between February and March 2020

· Gen Z embraced e-commerce during stay-at-home orders. 34% plan to keep up the increased online spending pace post-quarantine. 52% of Gen Z were less likely to shop in person at a grocery going forward.

· Then, in 2021, with deliveries still high, another trend emerged. Sugar free, low fat and healthy food deliveries… we are not surprised!

· Globally, 35.82% of people reported they gained weight during the pandemic. Of those that gained, 71.25% gained more than 5lbs.

· However, brands still need to tread carefully. Promoting weight loss products won’t go down well with the stressed out, fed up, stay at home crowd. Instead, think fresh, feel good and colourful foods.

· Another expected trend in 2021 is spicy foods. Thanks to globalization, people have openly started experimenting with their food choices. 60% of people believe that their food tastes better when spicy. Restaurants are also adding in new adventurous items to appeal to these tastes.

So which food brands should you watch on social media right now? Here’s our top pick.

#1 BALLS & GLORY

Balls & Glory is a franchised chain of restaurants based in Belgium. They specialise in stoemp (a typical belgian potato/veggies dish) and meatballs. The brand is modern and vibrant with a founder and head chef who fronts much of their marketing activities. Balls & Glory were a brand that shone bright throughout lockdowns by providing delivery, live cooking videos and healthy cooking tips.

What They Get Right

· They feature user curated content and videos in their marketing. This adds trust, authenticity and fun to their channels. It also showcases how sociable and inclusive they are. Kids, singles, families… everyone can enjoy the balls!

· Balls & Glory show the quality of their food by photographing and documenting their preparation and packing. This photo below shows the clean, pure quality of a takeaway meal. This is important because consumers don’t want to believe food quality will be compromised by delivery.

· They do some great collaborations with other brands, like this one below

They are doing a challenge in collaboration with @gardengourmet_be. This challenge which is hosted at www.veggiechallenge.be/nl encourages all Belgians to get involved in a healthy meat free eating challenge. What we love is that the videos are fun, not pushy and really do showcase how tasty the food is. Remember, audiences want to be invited to take part in enjoyable challenges. They don’t want to be lectured.

· They make it fun. Most of us want to eat well, but we also have busy lives, multiple stress factors and no inclination to spend hours cooking tricky recipes. Balls & Glory totally gets it. And they make it fun with a no meat challenge. The non-profit organisation Eva launched the second edition of the VeggieChallenge. The challenge was to ban or eat less meat for a whole month. Chef and Balls & Glory creator Wim Ballieu wrote a great piece about that right here.

· They keep their blog up to date. Your website and specifically your blog needs to be the hub of your marketing activities. By keeping their blog updated BallsNGlory keeps readers inspired, interested and coming back for more. They also utilise trending events and create their own monthly initiatives and campaigns.

- Their brand has teamed up with delivery companies like Deliveroo to offer special deals to customers. They promote this through fun videos featuring chef and Balls & Glory creator Wim Ballieu. Adding your founder to videos adds a major splash of authenticity. Especially when they are showcasing their passion for cooking and of course… eating!

· BallsNGlory posts fun gifs that showcase ingredients needed for recipes like this one on Facebook. It’s important to remember how impactful your visuals need to be for video and photos. Bright colours, clean modern background tiles and even green herbs in the background. If you’re promoting healthy food options, take some time to set the scene.

· They show where the food came from. More than ever, consumers want to know how their food and drinks were sourced. Were the animals treated well ? Have workers been paid properly? Were pesticides used? These issues resonate heavily with today’s consumers- especially millennials and Gen Z. In fact, Gen Z’ers are typically known to prefer fresh and wholesome foods. 65% of Gen Z want a more “plant-forward” diet, while 79% would eat meatless meals once or twice a week.

#2 Chobani

Rather than introducing Chobani ourselves, we will quote their own beautiful content. This is a brand that makes ethically sourced wholesome Greek yoghurt. The brand has a café in New York and sells the products online. We’re big on storytelling here at Moondust Agency so this page really hits the spot.

“In 2005, Hamdi took a loan from the Small Business Administration, bought an old yogurt plant, and brought a small group of passionate individuals together to make the real, wholesome yogurt that he remembered from his childhood. He called the company Chobani, “shepherd” in Turkish, to endow it with the hard-working and compassionate spirit of the mountain farmer.”

Chobani is active on social media with solid branding that tells their story, reinforces their message and engages the community.

What They Get Right

· First let’s talk aesthetics. Chobani’s colourful cartoon style graphics make us feel free, fun and childlike. They also echo the all-natural and wholesome sentiment of the company. Their Instagram page is like walking into a retro candy shop, only without all the sugar!

· Chobani champions great causes like calling on congress to end “lunch shaming” for children and students who needed free lunches and were forced to wear stickers or wrist bands.

And that’s not the only cause they are involved with. Amongst others, they also champion events and initiatives to end child hunger. You can see impactful posts about this on their Facebook page.

And they feature their own employees discussing the challenges that face refugees and how meaningful employment can have a positive impact.

· Their YouTube playlists are social media goals! Almost five billion videos are watched on YouTube every day so it’s essential to create useful, meaningful playlists that people want to watch. Chobani has a 15k strong community on YouTube with great engagement on its videos. The key here is to organise your playlists neatly to suit different segments of your demographic. For example, people who want to learn about your brand, viewers who want recipes and even pet lovers!

· On Twitter, Chobani is active and takes part in relevant trends such as International Women’s Day in March. With their 50% women based exec team, they are ideally placed to speak about women in leadership. For this initiative they teamed up with Catalyst Inc to add extra power to the message.

And they teamed up with Team USA to promote their healthy products using the caption Get cooking like Team USA with our Recipe Collection featuring easy, delicious recipes #MadeWithChobani. Recipes: http://www.nobadstuff.com.

· And teaming up with other brands is something Chobani does well. Check out this great contest over on their Facebook page. They’ve nailed their target market with healthy snacks and gym wear, and tuned in to everyone trying to stay well during lockdowns.

chobani teaming with other brands on social

And those who want to make cakes …2.5 million views is amazing! The videos also show the versatility of Chobani’s products. Whether you want an indulgent cake or a healthy smoothie, they have the recipe for you.

#3 Pop-Tarts

From great storytelling and wholesome ingredients through to sugary delicious, sweet breakfast treats. Let’s head over to Poptarts. Remember when breakfast was boring? Poptarts is a fun, cartoonish brand that has a sassy and innovative presence on social media. Your food brand is reflective of its audience and Pop Tarts audience are all ages as the brand was launched in 1964. So, they have cheeky nostalgic throwbacks for the older audience and plenty of fresh fun for the newbies. Let’s look.

What They Get Right

· They are sassy with trending topics like Tide Pods. This pinned tweet from 2018 was a nod to the #TidePodChallenge.

And their responses are also funny. The brand’s personality is very strong and like @Wendys on Twitter, they like to provide some light burns from time to time.

And other brands love to join in the fun…

· They add humour to trending days like Valentine’s Day. With funny images and short pointed captions, the brand’s humour earns them plenty of comments and shares. Keeping a calendar of relevant trending food holidays is a great idea for food brands, even if your product isn’t traditionally “Valentines Day” material!

· They utilise user curated content on their IG feed too. We love this one and especially their caption.

· And their clever way of drawing attention to good reviews.

· They nailed social media with their short funny situational captions. Not everything has to be promotional, and posts that are funny are more likely to be shared.

· They also have a hilarious YouTube playlist featuring video series entitles “How to eat Pop Tarts Bites” and “Pop Tart crisps vs puppy”.

· Pop Tarts aren’t going to run posts or videos about how wholesome and home grown their products are, because they’re not. But what they are is fun, feel good and colourful. This video got over 26 million views!

Some special food marketing mentions go to:

· Ben & Jerry’s – for their tireless campaigning for equality and fair treatment for farmers. They use social media effectively to rally support.

- Yorkshire Tea on Twitter for their funny posts and responses – Sue, you’re shouting at tea!

· Siete Foods on IG for their food photography which is so vibrant and exciting.

· Coors Light – Their social media marketing campaign, #CouldUseABeer promised a six-pack to anyone who tweeted at them using the campaign hashtag.

Did you enjoy reading Food Brands To Watch On Social Media – The 2021 Edit? Who would you add? Stay tuned for more social media marketing lists from our team. For expert content and social media marketing, contact the Moondust team today.