Threats from the Future: The Future of Nestle Food Recently Nestlé Germany released a new food trendreport, titled „Wie is(s)t…

futurescope:

Threats from the Future: The Future of Nestle Food

Recently Nestlé Germany released a new food trendreport, titled „Wie is(s)t Deutschland 2030?“ (roughly translated to “Eating habits in Germany 2030”).

I admit, they haven’t done everything wrong. The process is technically all right. They’ve developed with a small group of undefined experts 5 scenarios which were evaluated by more than one thousand people. So far standard procedure. Can’t complain.

But let’s face it: You get what you ask from Nestlé. A confused website, ordinary corporate futurism-chatter, standard flat-pack projections based on well-known emerging technologies, a lot of unrelated stock-images from Getty and a massive amount of buzz including hot air. Nothing more. Truly the instant soup among trend reports, stored on the hallway for all the redundant futchs with flavor enhancers and artificial ingredients.

In terms of content, the scenarios are average. Just trivial descriptions of possible options. In summary:

  1. Resource-efficient food in a value oriented society
  2. Food for self-optimization in a perfomance-oriented society
  3. Reflected pleasure in a responsible society
  4. Communal meal as an experience in a destructurized society
  5. Simple food satiation in a virtual environment

So why the fuss? Have a look at the illustrations, because I’m not sure what happened here. They all look like moodboards for modern sterile-societies in dystopian YA novels or like fast sketches for a new black mirror episode. Of course, they are simple. But drones with a sixpack of beer in urban environments (imagine 8kg flying 10 feet above your head) for the sake of convenience? Autonomous service shopping carts as representatives of reflected consumption in a responsible society? Dinner with friends at work with number crunching holo-statistics?

So, either the designer has landed a magnificent coup here (teased Nestlé) or the briefing was just a piece of crap (bullshit in, bullshit out) or Nestlé tries to sell trojan horses (buy more packaged food from canteens or delivery services, it’s good for ya, because it’s the future).

What ever it is: What the hell Nestlé Germany? At least talk to your colleagues in America. They are honest enough to brag that they have 100 scientists working on a food replicator.

[Nestlé Future of Food (german)] [picture credit CC BY-NC 2.0 Nestle]