By Daniel Okafor

FoodNavigator.com published its 2025 "What's hot and what's not" food and beverage trends package this week — the annual January read operators lean on to recalibrate next year's menus, pricing and supply contracts.

The hot/not format has become one of the industry's most-cited trend structures, sorting ingredients, beverages and menu formats into two camps: those worth piloting and those that already burned the early adopters. For chain buyers, franchisees and independent operators, January is when such reports do their real work — Q1 menu resets get drafted, LTO calendars get locked and the year's protein contracts head into final negotiation.

That timing matters. A trend roundup published in early January lands when COGS forecasts for the year are still being written, not after they've been signed. Operators weighing FoodNavigator's 2025 picks will be deciding which items go on spring LTOs and which wait until Q3.

The economics frame is what separates a trend report operators actually use from one they skim and forget. Through 2024, food and labor costs ran high: beef, cocoa and coffee all posted sharp swings, and QSR labor sat near 30% of operating expense for most of the year. Trend coverage that doesn't connect to COGS, labor percentage and check average isn't useful to a chain operator with a Tuesday menu meeting.

This is the lens the trade title built its 2025 package around. The hot list leans into trends operators can actually price, source and execute without blowing out kitchen capacity. The not list covers the items that drove social engagement in 2024 but didn't move check averages — the fads independents tried, lost margin on and dropped before Q4.

What does the timing change for operators reading it?

For chains, the package is a Q1 planning tool. Concept teams at the publicly traded names — Chipotle, Cava, Restaurant Brands International, Shake Shack — typically pull two or three trends from these roundups in January and test them through spring before deciding on a systemwide rollout by Q4.

For independents and small groups, the value is sharper: a curated filter. Operators running a 40-item menu with one chef don't have the bandwidth to test six trends at once. They pick the one or two that fit their concept and supplier relationships, then run them as LTOs.

For suppliers, brokers and distributors, the package sets the conversation for the selling season ahead. Trend reports drive category-manager presentations, broker pitches and the spring shows at IFMA and FMI.

The hot/not split is the actual product. Operators don't need another listicle of ingredients. They need someone to do the sorting, separating check-builders from check-drainers and durable bets from last year's peaks. FoodNavigator has built the 2025 package around that framing.

The piece lands as the industry heads into a year shaped by still-uncertain ingredient costs and continued labor pressure. Operators who treat the report as a planning document — not a prediction — will be the ones whose spring menus outperform the concept test cycle.