Across the broad landscape of American food and beverage culture, we see the breakdown in formal rituals of eating. The pace of food trends will accelerate under normal economic conditions, since the retardant effect of meal ritual/tradition is weakening — there are fewer barriers to individual change. The American dinner is the perfect example of the erosion of of food ritual. We are witnessing the entire pace of technology and social life swing to ‘just in time,’ ‘last-minute’ dinner planning that has caused labor-intensive meal production to be deprioritized.

Resources:
 Hartman Food & Beverage Occasions Database
Hartman Trend iD