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Highsnobiety's 2026 Status Economy report shows that food and drink have become key markers of taste and cultural credibility. Mark Bellamy, strategy director at NewGen, explains what this shift means for food and beverage brands and how to make the most of it.

Something has changed in the way people show who they are. For decades, the clearest signs of taste and cultural credibility were things you wore, trainer drops, luxury handbags or limited-edition collabs. Today, the most powerful status signals are increasingly things you eat and drink. Highsnobiety's report has found that food and drink have taken the space once held by designer fashion.

Erewhon smoothies. Pet Nat wines. Ceremonial-grade matcha. These aren't just groceries, they have become identity statements. They communicate cultural knowledge, personal values and social belonging in a single purchase. Whether a challenger or established brand, this is one of the biggest brand-building opportunities in a generation for the F&B industry.

Knowledge over wealth: The new social flex

What makes this shift interesting from a brand strategy point of view is what the currency is. Status signalling through food is not about price. It is about knowledge: being early, discerning and showing that you know what is culturally relevant before it goes mainstream.

Historically, signalling taste meant having financial access to the right event, postcode or label on your back. Today, a consumer who tracks down a small-batch pickle brand or who knows which east London café serves the best matcha before it hits every high-street menu is showing exactly that kind of cultural know-how. The product may cost less than £5, but what it signals is worth far more.

Wider economic pressures are pushing this further. With younger consumers spending less on big-ticket items, food and drink have become the accessible space where taste gets performed. The lipstick effect applies here. So, when larger status purchases feel out of reach, small, carefully chosen ones carry more weight.

What’s behind the shift?

Food and drink are entering culture through the same mechanics that drove sneaker culture – factors like scarcity, community, early adoption and creator amplification. In this instance, the creator economy is the engine powering all of it.

When a trusted creator, one that a community has chosen to follow, is seen buying or consuming a product, it triggers an impulse that brands need to be ready to act on. However, that window is short because the consumer sees it, wants it, and either finds it or moves on. Culturally successful brands understand that social media and retail are their two most regular touchpoints with consumers and are working to join them up.

That’s not easy in practice as retail traditionally plans six months ahead, while social moves in real time. But the gap can be closed. Targeted distribution in creator hotspots, limited-edition stock tied to social moments and using retail spaces as content settings all help. Shooting creator content inside a supermarket does something a studio cannot. It proves the product is there, builds genuine impulse, and drives footfall at the same time.

Building a world, not just a product

For F&B brands working under HFSS restrictions, this cultural shift opens up a useful strategic option. If direct product messaging is limited, the answer is not to go quiet. Rather, it is to build a world around the product that communicates taste, personality and identity without making a single claim about sugar content or calories.

For example, a protein product from Pret says "I am a busy, organised person with a lot going on." The format of the product communicates a lifestyle. The brand's job is to build the world around that lifestyle, not to talk about how many grams of protein it contains.

Where should established brands start?

Challenger brands have found it easier to enter this cultural space because they often start with a tight, focused community. But established brands have something challengers do not: an existing fan base that is already consuming the product within specific moments and routines.

The starting point for any established F&B brand trying to build cultural relevance is simply listening. Read the comment sections and explore platforms not through the lens of what you want to say, but through what your most committed consumers are already doing with your product. The insight that builds cultural currency is almost always sitting in plain sight.

From there, build a broad creator network across adjacent categories like fashion, beauty and lifestyle rather than defaulting to food-focused content. Commit to those relationships over years, not weeks. And stop leading with product messaging when what your audience actually wants is to feel that your brand understands their taste.

Playing the long game

Successful brands in this space have one thing in common. They are playing the long game. They are not chasing individual viral moments – though those do happen. They are steadily building cultural relevance across multiple touchpoints, categories and communities at the same time and letting that relevance grow over time.

The food and drink category has rarely had more cultural potential than it does right now. The way people signal status, taste and identity has shifted towards what they eat and drink in ways that simply were not true five years ago. For brands willing to look beyond the product and invest in the culture around it, the opportunity is real and it is there to be taken.