The GCC's food trends: Cooking our way into 2021.

We've all got a little foodie in us, somewhere. Whether you're a vegan, have a sweet tooth or a chicken connoisseur, your favourite food could just lighten up your day. The GCC is a region that has always been known for its wide range of absolutely mouth-watering cuisine; whether you were opting for a traditional mandi dish for lunch or a simple margarita pizza for dinner, everyone's wants can be easily sorted. The region has always been heavily influenced by both western and local foods. Today, we take a look at some of our GCC food data on Sila to discuss the latest on the food conversation and most importantly a focus on some baking vs cooking insights.

The Cooking Conversation

Firstly, we looked at the food conversation amongst our pool of Instagram content creators. Surprisingly, there is a drop in the conversation when comparing creator activity in 2020 to 2019. Overall, the Ramadan period remains the highest activity period of the year. However, since then, the conversation has seen a decrease of 30% in the following month. On average, the period between June and November had seen just over 8,000 food posts, with an average of 16m engagements and just over 130m views. In comparison, May saw over 11,000 posts, 279m video views and almost 30m engagements. When comparing the results between 2019 and 2020, we can see that 2020 actually saw a decrease overall. A month over month view shows that, although May, June and July of 2020 performed better, the rest of the months were on the lower side. This can be contributed to two main factors:

• Creators posting more on alternative platforms; namely, TikTok.
• Brands investing less on content creators with the ongoing pandemic recession.

[caption id="attachment_213182" align="alignnone"] The Cooking Conversation[/caption]

Our prediction

With life returning back to normal in the GCC, we expect an increase in marketing investment from F&B brands on food content creators in the upcoming period. In addition, we expect to see content creators becoming more active with the beginning of the New Year. New trends will emerge as a result of this; while we expect TikTok to continue booming.

Cooking vs Baking

Its not surprise, there have not been as many celebrations this year. But, does that mean we are going to eat less cake? Hmm, probably not. The cooking vs baking conversation has been one that we have been interested in for a while. While we had previously reported on modern vs traditional recipes, we thought it would be interesting, with the year closing on an end, to look at an overall picture. [caption id="attachment_213183" align="alignnone"] Baking vs Cooking content[/caption] Content creators in the GCC have actually been posting more cooking than baking content; however, we have actually baked more in 2020 when compared to the previous year. This is no coincidence as when comparing the previous 11 months, we see that in 6 of them there was more baking content being posted. [caption id="attachment_213184" align="alignnone"] Baking content 2019 vs 2020[/caption] On the other hand, when comparing cooking content posted in 2020 to the previous year, we notice that 2020 saw less cooking posts. This comes as no surprise with the overall decrease in the food conversation this year. [caption id="attachment_213185" align="alignnone"] Cooking content 2019 vs 2020[/caption]

Our prediction

We expect that with the increase in the overall food conversation to see both baking and cooking to both increase. This increase in the number of posts being created by content creators, would result in an increase in both engagements and video views.

About the data

DA has built a custom data warehouse service called Sila, powered by data science we turn that raw social data into actionable insights. We have mined 32,000,000 posts, 16,125,448,591 video views, 4,152,699,615 comments, thus far.

To find out more, please click here and use the contact form to get in touch.