Following the trend of green onion milk tea, young people are confused about what they eat or is it the shop's trick?

Scallion milk tea is considered a mysterious and "unique" drink, but since the end of March, this drink has been sold at a store in District 10, Ho Chi Minh City for 49,000 VND/cup, and many young people have lined up to buy it to experience it.

When preparing this strange milk tea, the shop will separate the milk tea, cheese jelly, water chestnuts, tapioca pearls... and chopped raw green onions. The drinker will mix the green onions into the milk tea with the toppings of their choice.

Before green onion milk tea, early last year, Vietnamese youth were also fascinated with mangosteen chicken salad, salted coffee, soursop tea, coin cakes, hand-pounded lemon tea, grilled milk tea... However, although these dishes were rated quite well and had a certain number of customers, they only flared up for a while and then quickly faded away, and some dishes were even no longer mentioned.

However, the strong influence of "trendy" cuisine has brought opportunities to restaurants.

The 2023 F&B Market Report by iPOS, recently released at the end of March, said that when researching 4,000 diners and 3,000 restaurants and eateries nationwide over the past year, the results were quite surprising when 65.3% of the research group confirmed that they were keeping up with the trend by choosing their favorite food/drinks according to the trend.

Notably, the survey shows that at least 2 out of 3 young Vietnamese people follow the street food trend. This shows the strong influence of culinary trends on the daily needs of young people.

The report also pointed out that the top trending food in 2023 is salt coffee, with 34.8% of people choosing it. This drink has actually existed before, but only became popular when it was reviewed on social networks.

Following the salted coffee is soursop tea, with 19.5% of people liking it. Mangosteen chicken salad also has 10.7% of respondents saying they like this dish. Strong oolong tea, hand-pounded lemon tea, and Yunnan roasted milk tea are respectively loved by 11.4%, 7.5%, and 6.3%.

The most regrettable trending dish is the coin cake, which is only liked by 9.8% of diners. However, when it became popular, many people invested a lot of money in renting premises and buying tools to sell this dish, but the dish "died" quickly, causing the restaurant to lose money because they had not yet recovered their capital.

According to Mr. Vu Thanh Tung - General Director of iPOS, stemming from the trend factor, "easy to come and easy to go", businesses also quickly change according to habits, suitable for the diverse needs, love of experience and care about the image of young people. However, because after a short time, the trending dish will be replaced by another dish, so if investing for a long time, it will be difficult to recover capital.

Sharing with the press, Mr. Do Duy Thanh, Director of FnB Director Consulting Company, said that the culinary market has two groups of trends. Medium and long-term trends are implemented by large brands and chains and leave a strong impression in the industry. This trend is of course sustainable, carefully calculating customer needs and large and small brands will learn and promote positive changes.

Typically, Highland launched Phindi at the end of 2020 and became a favorite drink of office workers. Or Katinat with its rainbow glass, the very popular young coconut avocado dish... Of course, these creations are based on traditional ingredients and flavors, and do not create a new business model.

The short-term trend is food and beverage that is born due to the resonance of the viral effect of social networks, the discovery trend of young customers and the support of food suppliers.

The common point of this trend is often low-cost investment models, taking advantage of the market to skim based on sudden demand. And the result is always clear: blooming quickly, fading quickly, serving the group of customers with high exploration needs, experience shows.