Considering "Seven Food Themes, Seven-Year Predictions" ~ 3. Seniors

Members of Dentsu Inc.'s 'Food Lifestyle Lab' explored the future of Japan's food scene. For example, what might the food landscape look like in 2025, seven years from now? We identified seven themes. These are near-future projections envisioned by Food Lifestyle Lab members with expertise in their respective fields.

"Eating with Others" is the Key to Healthy Longevity and Revitalizing the Senior Market

As Japan enters a super-aged society, more seniors will face mobility challenges or live alone. Currently, about 20-30% of those aged 70 and over eat all their meals alone at least once a week. This trend toward solitary eating among seniors is expected to accelerate.

Eating alone impacts health, including mental well-being. Cooking for one is often seen as a hassle, and with no one watching, people may neglect proper meals. This leads to nutritional imbalances.

Above all, eating alone isn't enjoyable, and there's no shared appreciation of the food's taste. This is likely to increase the desire among seniors to "eat together." Against this backdrop, services aimed at reducing solitary eating are expected to flourish as we approach 2025. Examples include dispatching someone who matches the criteria of "someone who wants to eat together" or creating shared dining spaces. Beyond human companions, options like eating with pets or using robots designed for shared meals are also conceivable.

Illustration: Mio Oshima (Dentsu Inc. "Food Lifestyle Lab")

Even if they can't be in the same place, services like delivering meals made by children via drone and eating together over a monitor could be promising. Countermeasures against eating alone should see high demand in the senior market and are also key to healthy longevity. Simultaneously, the development of disease-preventive foods and nursing care meals will advance. Food is vital as long as we live. Enhancing senior nutrition will likely become indispensable in the future.

 

Because food is the very source of human life, it interacts with every aspect of living, reflecting shifts in social structures and cultural trends. Dentsu Inc.'s 'Food Lifestyle Lab' is a project aiming to improve society through food by providing solutions related to this very food. Composed of members with diverse expertise and insights across the company, it leverages its network extending beyond the company to engage in roundtable-style innovation creation. Currently, the internal team consists of about 20 members. The project's origins date back to the early 1980s, and since then, it has continuously accumulated and updated various insights.