Trending | Beer & Coffee Innovations

The food industry just seems to be getting more and more exciting. As 2014 comes to a close, here are some of the food and drink industry trends from around the web that are keeping us salivating.

1. looking at how Vista, California, became the capital of craft beer

2. the world's largest starbucks is making coffee brewing an immersive experience

3. a new indian pale ale enhances creativity and brain power

4. "airbnb for dinner" raises 1.25M in funding

5. espresso meets french press with this one-cup gourmet filter system

6. thrillist buckles down to give us the food trends that just won't seem to leave

Girl Scout Cookie Orders Have Gone Digital

The day has finally come- Girl Scout Cookies can now be ordered with the click of the button. It seems too good to be true, and it sort of is. You still have to know a girl scout and be sent an e-mail request to order your cookies. But we're one step closer to the day when we can order all the boxes of Samoas (now Caramel Delights) we want without having to track down and hand over our cash to an 8-year old girl.

The Digital Cookie Initiative is intended to both increase overall revenue and unite the many Girl Scout councils under a cohesive online brand. It's going to cost around $12 million dollars to implement in the next few years, but the initiative has other far reaching goals.

The online platform will serve to increase young girls' computer literacy and online marketing skills. Hopefully this will help close the gender gap in the tech world and spark interest in the industry at an early age. The Scouts' CEO Anna Maria Chávez says:

"This is not just a technology solution... It’s a new business model for our movement."

So don't feel guilty when you stockpile your cabinets this next cookie season. Girl Scout cookies are good for the soul, are improving young girls' futures, and are leveling the playing field in the evolving tech industry.

The Language of Food & Its Predictive Social Media Power

Foodie culture is infiltrating cities throughout the nation. People are jumping on board the “food truck”, looking to explore the realm of food art and culinary innovation, and they’re taking their experiences to social media.

The strategically placed snapshots of pumpkin spice lattes and acai bowls that fill our feeds do more than just rack up “likes” and make our mouths drool, they give us insights into our society’s culture, habits, beliefs, and health status. A group of researchers from the University of Arizona collected over 3 million food related posts from Twitter to understand how food language can predict regional and national tendencies.

The team analyzed key words and hashtags, and found that usage of certain terms is highly powerful in explaining and even forecasting population characteristics. Terms such as food porn, after work, snack, and drinks are more often used by overweight populations, while posts and hashtags with the words happy, beer, open, and date, represent societies less prone to obesity.

Ideologies can also be guessed by analyzing food language- vegan, yum, brunch, and bacon tend to come from Democrats, while lunch, airport, after work, and delicious tend to be used by Republicans. Food language is commonly associated with geographic location as well. The Midwest sees posts with promotional words like free and off, the Northeast likes using brunch and words about group dining, the South loves their chicken and baked foods, and the West is home to foodporn and Mexican food.

As for the future of food language, the researchers want to be able to predict individual behaviors and potential health risks using social media data. On a commercial scale, such food language analysis may also improve businesses targeted marketing efforts and help put food brands in front of interested and hungry consumers.