Godrej Vikhroli Cucina unveiled the ninth edition of the World Gourmand Award-winning Godrej Food Trends Report 2026 at Tasting India: Culinary Conversations in New Delhi. This year’s theme, Stories, reflects how food is increasingly experienced beyond taste through provenance, cultural memory, and human connection.
Top trends from GFTR 2026 include the rise of chatpata piquant flavours, female farmers taking centre stage, mithai going Indo-modern, protein turning namkeen, and home cooking evolving intelligently. In Pune, legacy food brands and new-age local players are building strong narratives around regional snacks like bhakarwadi and chivda, blending nostalgia with modern formats. This reflects the trend of protein turning namkeen and familiar snacks getting functional upgrades, as well as storytelling rooted in everyday Maharashtrian food culture that connects strongly with younger, urban consumers.
Food writer, Rukshana A Kapadia, shared her thoughts on snacking, “These products have become indispensable thanks to their accessibility, affordability, taste, convenience, and perceived gratification. Constant innovation in flavours, packaging, and marketing keeps this category fresh, exciting, and relevant, but comes with trade-offs. The emotional connection with these foods makes them difficult to replace entirely, but growing awareness of the detrimental effects of ultra-processed foods, presents an opportunity for innovation for snack manufacturers.”