• The Rapporto Coop on Italian consumer habits reveals an intention to eat more healthily.
• Those surveyed say they want to increase their purchases of plant-based food and reduce those of processed red meats, sweets and alcohol.
• The desire is to enjoy slower moments, from cooking to walks in nature.

For 2025, Italians are expressing a desire to follow healthier diets by increasing their consumption of fruit, vegetables and water and reducing that of red meat, sweets, fizzy drinks and alcohol. This is one of the findings of the Rapporto Coop 2024, which forecasts consumer habits and lifestyles for the year just begun.

Healthier and plant-based diets: the trend for 2025 according to the Rapporto Coop

Among all those surveyed, 31 per cent say they will buy more vegetables, 28 per cent more fruit, 23 per cent more fish, while 33 per cent say they will reduce their purchases of cured meats, 29 per cent of sweets, another 29 per cent of red meat, 24 per cent of alcohol and, equally, 24 per cent of fizzy drinks.

For Italians, it is important that food is both good for you and familiar: what will be purchased in 2025 will be healthy (66 per cent), simple (53 per cent), traditional (51 per cent), essential (31 per cent), inexpensive (29 per cent), sustainable (28 per cent). 72 per cent of those surveyed will shift their purchasing habits towards plant-based food and products of plant origin (compared to 56 per cent last year), 78 per cent towards protein-rich foods, and 91 per cent towards products free from additives and preservatives.

More home-cooked meals and lengthy preparations

In 2025, home-cooked meals will increase while eating out will decrease, with pizzerias and restaurants becoming the preserve of the better-off.

When it comes to home cooking, 22 per cent say they will cut back on ready meals, while 77 per cent say they want to favour recipes that require lengthy preparation. As for eating out, 16 per cent of Italians will visit traditional restaurants for the first time, or more often than before, while 19 per cent will stop going to, or go less frequently to, fast food outlets.

A year for embracing slow time, but turned inward

These trends are part of a broader slow approach to 2025: in addition to spending more time on cooking and healthy eating, Italians want to allow themselves more excursions in nature and reading books, more sport and physical activity, greater digital simplification, more travel on foot and by bicycle — and, conversely, less time at restaurants, on social networks, watching TV, visiting shopping centres and using delivery services.

In particular, women, those aged 55–65 and less well-off individuals are expressing pessimism about 2025, while in general, Italians — worried about ongoing conflicts and climate change and aware that their actions will have little bearing on major global events — appear to be turning inward and retreating into their private lives. Spending time with family is at the heart of the wishes for the year just begun, with peace and harmony as the goals to pursue, without forgetting personal success and self-fulfilment, even at the cost of setting aside values such as generosity and altruism.