As we mentioned yesterday, the 5pm Dining blog has not always, in fact, has not ever had much success in predicting food trends.

Happily, there are plenty of people out there whose crystal balls deliver rather more clarity than ours.

So we have cherry picked their predictions.

In particular, we have filched ideas from the National Restaurant Association, the ever readable Baum + Whiteman, Mintel and The Food People.

Meat is sidelined

A recurring theme is that we are all going to be eating more veg and less meat in the coming years. It’s not so much that vegetarianism is on the rise again as the idea that meat is increasingly being pushed to the side of the plate. It is becoming a side dish or a flavouring rather than the star of the show.

Just as nose to tail cooking became very fashionable during the recession, the emerging trend is for stem to root cooking with previously under-utilised parts of familiar plants appearing on our plates.

He is hardly new but Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipes and restaurants are a shining example of this meat-reducing trend.

Another recurring theme is that seaweed is about to have a moment with some commentators reckoning that seaweed is the new kale.

High in anti-oxidants, fibre and good fats, it is said to have several health benefits as well as being very sustainable.

Eat healthy

As always, concerns about health and food are closely intertwined and consumers are going to be more demanding about the healthiness of what they eat in 2016.

Fast food chains are already stripping out chemicals and additives from their menus. Increasingly, consumers want their food to be natural. You can argue forever what constitutes natural but restaurant chains are scrambling to ensure that their menus at least look as natural as possible.

Very closely linked to this is a move towards there being transparency and sustainable practices all the way through the food chain.

Recently, there were lots of news stories about the routine use of antibiotics in animal feed and the ways in which this is encouraging a rise in antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Obviously, this could have catastrophic consequences as infections which were once easily treatable become fatal again. Expect to hear many more similar stories.

Dining in and out

Another big news story will be the competition among various organisations as they fight to deliver our food.

Supermarket deliveries are commonplace in the UK and, since November, Amazon has been trialling their Pantry service which delivers staple groceries. Rumour has it that they will soon expand this service to include fresh ingredients – a development which should have the big four UK supermarkets very worried.

From there, it is a short leap to delivering either meal kits containing everything you need to make specific dishes or delivering hot meals from either restaurants or catering kitchens set up to supply the delivery market.

Over the last twenty years, this blogger can remember at least two restaurant delivery services which launched and then folded very quickly in the Central Belt.

They were ahead of their time. Deliveroo restaurant delivery service has been very visible around these parts in the last year.

The blog is in no position to guess whether or not Deliveroo will thrive or dive. However, we confidently predict that it won’t be long before they face stiff competition from the likes of GrubHub and uberEats.

Click back tomorrow for more future food predictions.