The first edition of Baking Europe was published when Instagram was three years old and TikTok had yet to exist. The internet has revolutionised every industry, so it’s no surprise that the way we talk about food on social media has come a long way since then.
What started with restaurant reviews and sharing recipes has quickly risen to encompass every imaginable aspect of food and across every social platform. Every day, millions of people are keenly discussing ingredients, recipes and tips, while others are sharing sensory experiences. Of course, we have the food influencers who have built significant communities (e.g. Uncle Roger has ~10.5 million followers on TikTok).
Engagement and interest in food on social media is big. Really big. The platforms themselves attract a staggering proportion of the world’s population: Instagram, for example, has more than 2 billion active monthly users. Within this, the conversation about food is extraordinary. As we can see in Table 1, there is huge interest in food across social media.
Table 1: Popular food communities, by search volume and platform*
*Search volume (global) shows how many people search that keyword per month (average figures based on the past 12 months). It helps to understand how popular the keyword is.
Note: This article focuses on visual social media (such as YouTube, Instagram and TikTok). There is also great interest in food across other social media like forums, blogs, Facebook and X (the social network formerly known as Twitter).
What Makes Social Work?
Social media has become so powerful, so quickly, because it connects people. In the world of food, this means that the way in which people become informed and make decisions has changed. Cooking shows on TV must now compete with YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, and celebrity chefs and critics now have to compete with food influencers for consumers’ attention.
Behind all this is a simple dynamic. We all have food needs, e.g. the eternal question - what to cook for dinner tonight? To help answer questions, people turn to social media, looking for inspiration, and there they find content that appeals to them. The most skillful content creators can quickly build extensive audiences. Content builds community, and community creates opportunities for brands to market their products.
Exploring the social conversation about food can also help organisations understand, track and anticipate trends in consumer shopping and food habits. Recent studies have shown that Instagram users in the UK find new information about products on the platform. On Instagram, more than one in three UK shoppers who are weekly users typically find new food or recipe ideas they want to try on this platform.
Introducing the Influencers
Influential content creators can be professional chefs and bakers, or simply everyday people sharing recipes. When content strikes a chord with its audience, it can quickly go viral. A good example is Poppy O’Toole, the Michelin-trained chef behind the 15-hour potato recipe that went viral in 2020 (she also brought us the 12 days of Christmas potatoes).
She uploaded a teaser to TikTok and invited her 4M followers to check out the full recipe on Instagram. This post is still gaining traction on social media, blogs and news outlets. It is the behind-the-scenes intimate look into the creative process that people love. This started part of what is now the #PotatoTikTok community – a place for potato lovers to come together to learn, share and meet other like-minded people.
Unpacking Food Communities on Social
What brings people together on social media? People group together by following the content creators that appeal to them. There’s an enormous range of these communities across social media. Here are just a few:
1. Recipes Without Borders
Social media has fewer geographic constraints, letting people connect across the world.
Recipes can often go globally viral, e.g. cloud bread and sushi bake.
#Cloudbread (3.6bn views on TikTok) is a softly baked meringue that went viral during the COVID-19 pandemic. With just a few simple ingredients (egg whites, sugar and cornstarch), it became a source of entertainment for many during lockdown, even gaining popularity in countries with vastly different bread cultures. Most videos show the moment of breaking it open, revealing its fluffy texture and bright colours, such as baby blue and pink.
#Sushibake (266m views on TikTok) is essentially a “deconstructed California roll, layered and baked in a casserole” (as defined by "I Am a Food Blog") which has grown in popularity over the last few years. It was popularised by TikTok creator Lizzy Wong (@lizzymwong). At the last count, it has been viewed over 20m times. The recipe’s simplicity and Wong’s relaxed attitude may account for sushi bake’s popularity.
Table 2: Monthly searches for ASMR food related terms
*Search volume (global) shows how many people search that keyword per month (average figures based on the past 12 months). It helps to understand how popular the keyword is.
Note: this article focuses on visual social media (such as YouTube, Instagram and TikTok). There is also great interest in food across other social media like forums, blogs, Facebook and X (the social network formerly known as Twitter).
2. The Rise of Immersive, Sensory Experiences
People eat with their eyes, ears and their imagination. Despite not being able to taste on social, a sensory trend has emerged that seeks to capture the essence of food through visual and auditory experiences.
On Instagram, the visual aspects of baking reign supreme, with people sharing what they deem ‘Instagrammable’. Colours, shapes and textures, images with sizzling, crunching and chopping sounds immerse people in the eating experience. It’s a form of ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) - a pleasurable tingling sensation triggered by sensory experiences. #ASMRFood has been viewed over 32bn times on TikTok.
3. The Rise of Healthy Food and Veganism/Vegetarianism
Eating healthily and ethically is also a popular topic across social media. (see Table 3).
#Healthyfood is a diverse community of content creators that are either amateur, skilled bakers, cooks or authors. It is associated with a plant-based lifestyle, and presentation usually plays an important role.
#Guthealth is also trending. Social media is full of tutorials on what to eat for a healthy gut. Within this category, how to ferment food at home to boost the immune system is a big sub-community (#Fermentation has ~500m views).
#Vegan and #Plantbased are used by communities that care about making their dietary and lifestyle choices attractive, ethical, easy and enjoyable.
#Glutenfree shows such an impressive variety of recipes. It also shows how sub-communities have sprung up to cater to specific interests, e.g. #Glutenfreebrownies
or #Glutenfreedesserts. These communities are not limited to coeliac sufferers, as avoiding gluten is associated with a healthy diet and lifestyle. The main narrative is that
healthy or free from food can be delicious and beautiful.
Table 3: Social engagement with health food content
Hashtag | Instagram Posts | TikTok Views |
117M posts | 12.2B views | |
47.4M posts | 1B views | |
5.7M posts | 596M views | |
1.6M posts | 92.5M views | |
5M posts | 5B views | |
127M posts | 36.6B views | |
41.3M posts | 8B views | |
41.5M posts | 4.9B views |
4. Food is Still About Comfort and Pleasure
Despite the rise in healthy food and sustainable eating, comfort food still rules the internet (see table 4).
#Foodporn is a great example. A community of food enthusiasts whose primary motivation isn’t sophistication or even sustainability and health (as evidenced by the frequent appearance of fatty food and red meat). It’s about pleasure, simplicity, strong flavours and above all: comfort.
Table 4: Social engagement with #FoodPorn content
Hashtag | TikTok | |
300 M posts | 32.8B views |
5. Let’s Eat Cake!
Cake is popular across many social platforms. Videos showcase the process of cake-making, often without providing explicit instructions. These videos are often accompanied by background music, creating a relaxing ambiance.
Tutorials are also popular: a video uploaded in 2014 and showing the making of a Disney cake is still one of the most viewed cooking videos on
YouTube (228m views). Here, again, there are lots of sub-communities
relating to different aspects of baking, e.g. #cakedecorating, #weddingcake, #cakelife, #cakeit.
6. A Force for Change
Social media also empowers individuals and organisations to advocate change. One example from the early days of social is Greenpeace’s YouTube campaign against KitKat’s use of palm oil, and the trend continues unabated.
Social media facilitates the widespread dissemination of information that influences consumer choices. For example, monthly searches for #aspartame increased by 83% on Instagram and 95% on YouTube in the past year. The most significant surge occurred in June,
following news from the World Health Organization (WHO) that aspartame may be detrimental to health. A similar spike in search volume (+85%) has been observed on Amazon, where numerous search results highlight aspartame-free products.
Table 5: Social engagement with cake related content
Hashtag | YouTube Searches | Instagram Posts | TikTok Views |
7.3M | 126.4M | 57.1M | |
1.8M | 36.1M | 5.3B | |
7.3M | 33.7M | 8.6B | |
812K | 26.8M | 20.6B | |
2.2M | 232K | 1.3B |
Search volume (global) shows how many people search that keyword per month (average figures based on the past 12 months). It helps to understand how popular the keyword is.
A final few crumbs
Baking Europe has grown alongside the rise of social media. From its roots, social media has quickly become a vital ingredient in every aspect of what we eat. It’s a powerful connector, bringing together those looking for inspiration and those looking to inspire. It’s brought together large communities of interest catering to every aspect of food culture. The larger communities often link to sub-communities which cater to more niche interests or specific needs. These represent concentrations of consumer interest around specific topics which can help brands learn what’s important to them.
For organisations in the food sector, social media offers the chance to understand people’s changing relationship with food and how their choices are being shaped and influenced.
It’s a chance to observe what drives demand today and what will be shaping food trends for the next 10 years to come.
Written by and originally published in Baking Europe Autumn 2023
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