Considering "7 Themes, 7-Year Prophecies" ~ 6. Dining Out

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

"Entertainmentization" and "AI-ization," and Chefs Become Innovators

By 2025, dining out will be increasingly "entertainment-driven" and "AI-driven." Entertainment-driven dining is already underway. Dining out falls into two categories: special-occasion dining and quick, everyday meals. Entertainment-driven dining pertains to the special occasions.

Thanks to social media, today's dining experience is not just about taste; it's also about the "experience" that makes you want to take photos or videos and share them. The popularity of gourmet events symbolizes this trend – people want to share the "experience" of enjoying food under the open sky with a beer in hand. This entertainment aspect will only accelerate further.

Next is AI integration. In the future, more restaurants will use AI to analyze social media big data, instantly outputting trending menu items with zero delay.

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

Furthermore, I believe the cooking operations at mass-market chain restaurants will be automated using robots. This trend should become particularly pronounced due to the industry's critical labor shortage.

That said, human work won't disappear entirely. Inventing entirely new dishes and cooking methods remains the human role. Chefs will pioneer new frontiers as "innovators," and AI will then systematize and automate these methods to serve the food. I foresee this becoming the future workflow.

 

Food, being the very source of human life, interacts with every facet 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 trace back to the early 1980s, and since then, it has continuously accumulated and updated various insights.