Branding has gone foodie: Why culinary culture is marketing’s latest obsession
Recently, JW Anderson unveiled a surprising addition to its lineup: alongside sculptural bags and directional knitwear, shoppers can now buy honey and coffee-flavoured tea. It’s a small step, but a telling one. As luxury fashion wrestles with an aspirational consumer who’s pulling back on big buys, food is emerging as a new kind of gateway. It's a way to invite customers into the brand’s universe through something as simple (yet symbolically potent) as a jar of honey. This isn’t just another branded café moment. This is food as merch: a daily, sensory, shareable indulgence that tells the world who you are and what you consume.
Fashion is hungry: Why brands are doing food
Fashion has always been about taste, but lately, it’s quite literally about what’s on your plate. JW Anderson’s honey and tea drop is just the latest example of luxury labels stepping into the culinary arena. Earlier this summer, Jacquemus launched a campaign featuring bright yellow bananas for the launch of the L.A. boutique, blurring the line between collection imagery and lifestyle aspiration.
YSL’s recent summer party inspired campaign showed guests enjoying sandwiches and sweat treats admits branded accessories. Prada continues to expand its Prada Caffè from Harrods to Singapore, inviting shoppers into a pastel-tiled world where your espresso and tiramisu are served with a side of status. Gucci’s Osteria in Beverly Hills and Florence has turned dinner reservations into the new it-accessory.
Why is fashion so hungry? Food is a powerful sensory shortcut to brand storytelling. And it’s accessible: you might not buy a €2,000 handbag, but you’ll buy a €20 honey jar stamped with JW Anderson’s logo. It’s social: that latte, lemon, or monogrammed chocolate is instantly postable, building cultural capital for both the consumer and the brand. It’s a way to infuse everyday rituals with their aesthetic, making the brand universe not just wearable, but tasteable.
Beauty brands go edible, too
Food-inspired marketing is gaining ground also in beauty. Rhode’s lip products are a prime example. When launching its tinted peptide lip line, the brand compared each shade to a sweet treat from “raspberry jelly” to "spiced orange". With whipped textures and pastel gloss, the visuals were as satisfying as the formulas themselves, made to be shared, saved, and screenshotted.
Topicals takes a similar approach. Its cult-favorite "Like Butter" moisturizer uses butter both literally and metaphorically, marketing it as “for skin so smooth, it’s like butter.” These food references make the product feel instantly relatable and craveable. As beauty and wellness continue to converge, expect more brands to follow.
The other way round: When food brands do fashion
It’s not just fashion brands entering food, this trend also works in the other direction: Food brands are tapping into fashion for cultural relevance: Erewhon, the cult LA grocery store known for its $25 smoothies, has tees, sweaters and hats, turning grocery runs into wearable status symbols. Blue Bottle Coffee has tapped into the same strategy, partnering with Japanese streetwear brand HUMAN MADE on minimalist capsule collections.
Restaurant merch is also having a moment. Café de Flore, the legendary Parisian haunt, just teamed up with Highsnobiety for a second time to release a limited edition High Snobiety x Converse sneaker alongside T-shirts, cementing its café tables as not just a tourist destination, but a lifestyle brand. In New York, London and Barcelona, restaurants and bakeries like L’Appartement 4F release branded products like bags, slippers and T-shirts, worn by locals and tourists alike as a badge of insider cultural capital.
For these food brands, fashion is more than merch. It’s a way to own aesthetics and signal cultural relevance beyond what’s on the menu. It extends the brand into daily life, worn proudly on your chest or carried as a tote bag, embedding their logo into street style and social feeds. Food brands are selling taste as an identity. From grocery stores to historic cafés, merch drops transform customers into brand ambassadors, making culinary culture not just consumable, but wearable.
Why food, why now?
Why is food suddenly at the centre of branding strategies? The answer lies in a perfect cultural, economic, and psychological storm. Post-pandemic, consumers are craving sensory and communal experiences more than ever. Food delivers on both. A meal is tactile, shareable, and rooted in real life, and a welcome shift from endless digital scrolling.
At the same time, big-ticket aspirational purchases are declining. Consumers, especially younger ones, are pulling back on luxury handbags but still want daily indulgences that feel luxurious. Enter the €25 Erewhon smoothie, the £30 designer tea, or the exclusive restaurant reservation. These small luxuries cratch the itch for status without breaking the bank.
Social media has also fuelled this shift. Food is instant lifestyle content. A matcha latte, a perfectly plated brunch, or a jar of designer honey isn’t just consumed , it’s photographed, shared, and used to build personal brand narratives. Now we flaunt what we eat, where we eat, and who’s making it. Food is no longer just fuel, it’s a daily marker of identity, aesthetics, and status. Consumers are craving ways to express taste and individuality daily, not just seasonally.
Ultimately, food sits at the intersection of self-expression, wellness, and status. It tells the world who you are, what you value, and how you live, all in a single post or bite.
What it means for brands
For food brands, the rise of culinary culture as a status symbol offers a chance to move beyond the kitchen. Capsule merch, branded apparel, and design collaborations can extend their reach into daily life, turning customers into walking ambassadors of taste and aesthetics. Social media amplifies this effect: a branded tee or tote is not just worn, it’s posted, tagged, and shared, multiplying its cultural footprint.
For fashion and luxury brands, food has become a new kind of gateway merch. It’s accessible, sensory, and experiential and a way to invite people into the brand universe without asking them to invest thousands. A sweet treat or a branded café latte becomes instant digital content, building brand affinity and cultural relevance faster than a new logo tee ever could.
For everyone else, food culture highlights the growing power of sensory branding in a digital world. Whether you’re in tech, hospitality, or retail, what people taste, smell, and share daily becomes part of their online identity. In an age where experiences are currency and social feeds are personal magazines, integrating sensory touchpoints like food into brand strategies can anchor them more meaningfully in consumers’ lives.
Food isn’t just what we eat. It’s become a tool for storytelling, self-expression, and community, both offline and on the grid. And brands, across industries, are taking note.
