Executives including Food Network’s Jane Latman discuss whether food programming is evolving to reflect the cost-of-living crisis and the continued growth of vegetarianism and veganism.

Food programming has never gone out of style and, if anything, has only soared in popularity in the past few years thanks to the Covid pandemic.

With lockdowns around the world prohibiting entire populations from leaving their homes during the dark days of 2020 and 2021, a new generation of home cooks was born – cooks who seemingly never tired of producing endless supplies of banana bread and sourdough starters.

But with the soaring cost of living and the rise of veganism, can food programming continue to tick along, or does it now need to reflect society at large? It’s likely that many viewers, struggling to pay their energy bills, can no longer face watching a multi-millionaire chef as they cook on a pristine beach on an exclusive Caribbean island.

However, when it comes down to the demand for shows based on budget cooking versus escapist content, Jane Latman, president of home and food content and streaming at Warner Bros Discovery, who heads up the Food Network as part of her remit, says audiences want “a little bit of both.”

“We often hear from our audience about the type of content they are interested in, and sometimes they are looking for tips, tricks, creative ways to stretch leftovers or maximise ingredients. But at other times, they may be interested in pure escapism, be that a travelogue or an insanely challenging competition that keeps them at the edge of their seats,” Latman explains.

Will Daws, joint MD of London-based Plum Pictures, the prodco behind shows such as Channel 4’s The Great Cookbook Challenge with Jamie Oliver, agrees there is equal demand for content based on low- and high-budget cooking, but adds that programming that sits somewhere in between “is getting a little bit squeezed.”

“Across the board with commissioning at the moment, we’re being told we should produce programming reflecting that people are being squeezed more than ever in this generation,” says Daws. “But escapist TV – and across all genres, not just food – will always have a place.”

In the past decade, there has been a real boom of celebrity-fronted food travelogues, pioneered by the late chef Anthony Bourdain. He famously fronted Parts Unknown, which was commissioned by US network CNN and is now distributed by Banijay Rights. In the show, the chef, writer and presenter, who died in 2018, travels to countries and cities all over the world to explore their cuisine and culture.

Other stars to have trodden Bourdain’s path since include Everybody Loves Raymond creator Philip Rosenthal in his Netflix series Somebody Feed Phil and chef Gordon Ramsay with his Parts Unknown-esque Nat Geo series Gordon Ramsay: Unchartered.

But do food shows filmed in far-flung locations still resonate with audiences when exotic holidays are unaffordable for most of the population or deemed environmentally irresponsible due to the sky-high carbon emissions of plane travel?

Sarah Bickley, head of sales at UK distributor Beyond Rights, says food travelogues can provide the perfect antidote to all the “doom and gloom in the news.”

However, the key to making the programmes accessible is to base the food segments on recipes that can be recreated at home. “It’s much less about fine dining in travelogues,” Bickley says. “One example of a show we distribute that follows this pattern is Pati’s Mexican Table. Not only does the show look at Mexican food and the country’s life and culture, but all the recipes can be made at home yourself.”

Alongside the likes of chefs Dave Myers and Si King travelling to countries across Asia in the BBC’s Hairy Bikers’ Asian Adventure, there has also been a shift towards travel shows filmed in the country where they were commissioned.

While environmental concerns may play a part in this, the rise in shows being shot locally can largely be attributed to the pandemic. Not only did Covid-19 make organising shoots impossible at times, with countries closing their borders, but it also spurred the staycation trend.

Best of Britain by the Sea, which is produced by Blink Films for Channel 4 in the UK and distributed by Beyond Rights, taps into this. In the show, chef Ainsley Harriott and food journalist Grace Dent explore foodie and popular tourist destinations around the British Isles, visiting locations including Norfolk and Devon.

As well as exploring local holiday destinations, the show caters to audiences on all budgets, Bickley says, adding that the duo are seen making meals for themselves at self-catering accommodation in addition to eating at fine-dining restaurants.

If the past five years are going to be remembered for popularising anything other than avocado on toast, it’s the wider acceptance of vegetarianism and veganism, which have been very much thrust into mainstream thinking.

Warner Bros Discovery’s Latman says she is “hyper aware” of commissioning vegetarian- and vegan-friendly programming. “Food has always been a great connector and a great way to take the pulse as far as what consumers are gravitating to or from, so as food-based trends, causes and issues have evolved, so has inclusion of these same topics within our content,” she adds.

David Nottage is the founder and MD of Devon-based producer Rock Oyster Media, which makes ITV’s Living on the Veg, the UK broadcaster’s first vegan cooking show. Fronted by cookery writers and bloggers Henry Firth and Ian Theasby, known as BOSH!, the show was developed following fears that vegan cooking was at risk of being “tokenised” on television.

“It felt like you were saying, ‘When should we do the vegan version of this dish?’ and it almost felt like an afterthought,” Nottage adds. “So we thought we should do something altogether bolder and make an entirely plant-based show. Rather than an alternative version of a meat dish, it was centre stage.”

Language in cookery shows can also inadvertently make vegan and vegetarian cooking seem ‘other,’ according to Nottage, who advocates removing the usage of the two words and referring to a dish as simply a dish. For that reason, in Ainsley’s Good Mood Food, also produced by Rock Oyster, Nottage says around 60% of the recipes featured are vegetarian and vegan, although there is nowhere within the programme or online that signposts it.

Similarly, Gusto Worldwide Media president and CEO Chris Knight produces a show called The Urban Vegetarian, in which the host, Desiree Nielsen, never uses the word ‘vegetarian.’ “We don’t want to wag a finger at the audience and lecture them on digestive bloat,” he says. “We’re not out to convert you to vegetarianism. We’re here to celebrate vegetables and fruit.”

Ultimately, Knight believes that when it comes to vegetarian and vegan content, it’s important to be mindful of “not preaching or teaching” and instead focusing on the core pillars of a good format: fun and entertainment.

With this in mind, it’s not surprising that more and more food shows, such as Is It Cake? on Netflix, are incorporating gameshow and other elements.

Among the best known and most successful formats is MasterChef, a cooking competition show that falls into this bracket. Distributed by Banijay Rights, the show has been adapted in 65 territories worldwide and broadcast in over 200.

Such is its appeal that Banijay Rights’ executive VP of sales and acquisitions in EMEA, Claire Jago, says the finished tape-versions of the show sell well in countries that have already adapted MasterChef locally.

For Gusto’s Knight, food formats need to become more “high concept” to stay fresh. An example of such a show is Gusto’s Dine Your Sign, which combines astrology with cooking. Additionally, the firm is looking at a show about healthy eating for teenagers that doesn’t mention body image or include diets – but does include zombies.

Plum’s Daws believes food programming does not necessarily need to be daring but could be more honest about the trials and tribulations involved in cooking. This line of thinking led to the production of James May: Oh Cook, in which the former Top Gear presenter attempts to cook a variety of different dishes over the course of several episodes.

Plum pressed ahead with the production of the programme despite not finding a buyer at the pitching stage, with the finished product eventually piquing the interest of Amazon’s Prime Video. “The show just evolved, and learning how to cook really became the making of it,” Daws explains. “And once we finished it, buyers were suddenly interested.”

Could the evolution of the genre be down to the proliferation of streamers, which have buyers with bigger budgets and different tastes? Banijay Rights’ Jago doesn’t believe the growing number of platforms is changing the genre, but she does say it is creating more work for producers and distributors. “Opportunities for food programming are now endless, with new broadcasters like streamers, whereas previously programming was dictated by a channel slot,” Jago notes.

Rock Oyster’s Nottage disagrees, saying he is “really conscious” that streamers’ appetites are different, with buyers at the likes of Netflix and Prime Video looking for “big, definitive” or “upscale” shows, like glossy docuseries Chef’s Table. “Netflix will buy Simply Raymond Blanc, but they wouldn’t commission it. But it’s also true in reverse, as I can’t see an ITV or a Channel 5 commissioning Is It Cake? – although they may wish they had,” he adds.

Executives including Food Network’s Jane Latman discuss whether food programming is evolving to reflect the cost-of-living crisis and the continued growth of vegetarianism and veganism.

Food programming has never gone out of style and, if anything, has only soared in popularity in the past few years thanks to the Covid pandemic.

With lockdowns around the world prohibiting entire populations from leaving their homes during the dark days of 2020 and 2021, a new generation of home cooks was born – cooks who seemingly never tired of producing endless supplies of banana bread and sourdough starters.

But with the soaring cost of living and the rise of veganism, can food programming continue to tick along, or does it now need to reflect society at large? It’s likely that many viewers, struggling to pay their energy bills, can no longer face watching a multi-millionaire chef as they cook on a pristine beach on an exclusive Caribbean island.
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