As a growing number of states relax regulations around both medical and recreational cannabis use, employers are increasingly forced to rethink standard drug-use policies.

Under federal law, cannabis is still considered a controlled substance, and many employers prohibit drug use for workers on the job. But what if a worker tests positive for drug use during off hours in a state where recreational cannabis is legal?

The courts in various jurisdictions have varied in their approach. A federal district court in Connecticut ruled it illegal for an employer to rescind a job offer because of off-duty marijuana use.  But in Oregon, courts have found firings for marijuana use can be legal because of the federal ban.

Attorney Alicia Sienne Voltmer with law firm Greenberg Traurig LLP, said, “Watch this issue, because I think it’s just going to get worse. Unless the federal government steps in, which I don’t think it will, it’s just going to create this patchwork of states with different laws.”

As a follow-up to 2019’s mocktail bar trend, 2020 will be all about the low-proof cocktail. Drinking has become more about the social aspect and taste, rather than booze content. Even if restaurants still offer regular cocktails, many newer and trendier eateries will have separate menus with different price ranges and alcohol content levels. 

For example, at Acorn in Denver, the booze-free menu has drinks like house-made ginger beer, the low-proof cocktail menu has libations like a sherry, St. Germain, blood orange liqueur and pineapple. More traditional cocktails like the restaurant’s version of a Manhattan are still available on the Acorn’s High Booze menu.    

We predict that “softer liquors” will become more popular on restaurant menus, and that liqueurs, sherries and port will become ingredients of choice for the bartender who wants to create low-ABV libations that are just as creative as the harder stuff. 

The war on single-use plastic began to take shape in state capitals across the country with plastic bag, polystyrene and plastic straw bans. Expect more regulation in 2020, particularly in coastal states.

There will be varying regulatory approaches but the overall goal will be to reduce the reliance on single-use plastics, shift to more recycling and composting, as well as encouraging the use of reusable foodware, in place of disposables.

In California, for example, proposed legislation likely to come up next year would require disposable foodservice packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2030, reducing the amount of disposable waste by 80% (compared with 2020 levels). Under that bill, packaging producers would pay 1 cent per component of plastic packaging as a Plastic Pollution Reduction fee. That funding would support infrastructure changes to prevent disposable packaging from ending up in landfills or the ocean.

Barring any unnecessary scientific breakthroughs, there will always only be two wings on each chicken, but chicken wings, coated in spicy Buffalo sauce or otherwise, are now an enduring part of American culture and will likely continue to be in the coming year.

This could be a problem given the innate limitation in the product’s availability, but it’s really not the wings themselves that hold the attraction; it’s their highly flavored, unpretentious, sharable quality.

That’s illustrated by the fact that Millennials, and many other consumers, tend to prefer “boneless wings” made from chicken breast to the real thing.

Other poultry producers have moved to get in on the action. Last year Jenny-O offered fried and sauced turkey “drummies” at a party during the National Restaurant Show, and this year at the MUFSO conference in Denver Maple Leaf Farms had duck wings on display. 

Buffalo-style pork shanks — the hind shanks braised, fried and trimmed to kind of resemble wings — have moved on and off of bar menus for the past several years.

Really, anything that can be shaped in pieces the size of a bite or two, fried, sauced and shared with friends can play the role that chicken wings do, so you can expect to see more Buffalo cauliflower on menus, and Buffalo plant-based protein, and probably Buffalo forms of other trending vegetables, such as broccoli and carrots. You can also expect them to be coated in barbecue sauce, hot honey, garlic-Parmesan sauce, Sriracha, gochujang and other popular flavors. 

Millennials and other younger customers have ushered in an era of poke bowls, grain bowls and other wholesome options. But there remains a problem on the healthy lunch frontier: portion size.

While ingredients have gotten healthier, portion sizes have not gone down. For example, at the farm-centric fast-casual chain Dig (formerly known as Dig Inn) a roasted chicken market bowl with brown rice and two vegetable sides will cost you an average of 1,070 calories (or more than half of the daily recommended allowance). 

But as food costs go up, we predict that portion sizes — from traditional quick-service to fast-casual eateries — will start to shrink. It’s both a waste issue and waist issue, as restaurants are beginning to offer half-portion sizes for lunch in particular, so that food waste will be minimized. 

Restaurateurs are getting angry. Operators are wising up to the problems associated with third-party delivery and increasingly government officials have had their backs. 

“There’s a concern that it could be a system where restaurant owners are trapped in an unstable, unsuitable business model that not only doesn’t add to their bottom line but could eat away at their profits and their ability to keep their doors open,” said New York City Council Member Mark Gjonaj, during an oversight hearing this past summer.

The city council’s Small Business Committee is conducting a comprehensive legislative inquiry into the impact third-party delivery platforms are having on the restaurant sector. Investors and analysts who watch the segment are also wising up to the realities of third-party delivery.

In a recent come-to-Jesus letter to shareholders, Grubhub outlined many of the problems these companies have — mainly it’s hard to make a profit in delivery, and there’s a lot of similar companies vying for customers. 

“A common fallacy in this business is that an avalanche of volume, food or otherwise, will drive logistics costs down materially. Bottom line is that you need to pay someone enough money to drive to the restaurant, pick up food and drive it to a diner,” Grubhub CEO Matt Maloney wrote. 

Add to that the fact that “online diners are becoming more promiscuous,” he said.

So, the delivery business is a lot of work at low margins. But so is the restaurant business. If there’s any industry that can tough it out and figure out how to make it work, it’s ours. 

Until now, the vegan meat substitutes that have come to be called plant-based proteins have mostly been used as one-for-one swaps with meat — usually hamburger, but sometimes sausage and occasionally chicken. In 2020, they’ll be incorporated more broadly into restaurants’ repertoire.

Expect to see more tacos, sausage, meatless balls, plant-based loaf, chili and so-on incorporated into menus as chefs become more accustomed to using these products as normal items in their walk-ins.

Also, expect more uses of plant-based egg substitutes, like the frittata that casual-dining chain Le Pain Quotidien introduced in September that’s made with mung bean-based Just Egg.

Expect seafood substitutes, from tomato-based tuna alternatives to seaweed-based shrimp cognates, to become more widespread. 

There also will be a revolution in cheese replacements, whether it’s modified coconut oil and tapioca or similar blends that continue to improve, or nut milk that scientists have figured out how to curdle and ferment just like real cheese (that’s not new, but the products keep getting better).

You’ll also be seeing more nut-free milk substitutes made from sesame and pumpkin seeds — both available now — that cater to people with allergies. 

Dairy-free creamers engineered specifically for coffee also will continue to improve.

It’s easier than ever to create a virtual restaurant, and operators are starting to realize these “establishments” offer a way to test out new menu items and attract new clientele. 

While operators could go it on their own, third-party delivery leaders such as Grubhub, Uber Eats and DoorDash are using their data to suggest concepts and then shepherding operators through the process. 

“This is where we add value — finding where customers are asking for the food [and creating] a marriage between diners’ demand and location,” said Padma Rao, vice president of special projects at Grubhub, discussing the company virtual restaurant partnership with restaurant group Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises and Bon Appetit magazine. 

The growing landscape of ghost kitchens offering commissary space with a delivery-friendly infrastructure will also support this trend. Pasadena, Calif.-based Kitchen United is perhaps the best known in this segment. And with its recent $40 million Series B funding round, we’ll be seeing Kitchen United opening locations across the country in 2020.

As consumers continue to move away from carbonated soft drinks and toward beverages with perceived health benefits, you can expect them to move more toward modified waters.

Nielsen-scanned data valued the American “value-added water” category at $1.7 billion for the year ended Oct. 5, 2019, an annual increase of around 9% from a year earlier. Nielsen put the number of American households that bought some kind of value-added water in the past year at 47 million, which is an increase of nearly 9%.

Most of that is in ready-to-drink beverages, such as the nearly ubiquitous Vitamin Water or the relatively new Chlorophyll Water, which is enhanced with vitamins A, B12, C and D as well as the green substance that plants use for photosynthesis.

Alkaline water, which has a higher pH than normal water and is accompanied by many largely unsubstantiated health claims, has become so popular that ice-and-water machine manufacturer Hoshizaki recently introduced a machine that dispenses not just hot and cold water, but also sparkling and alkaline water.

You can expect to see more of all of these waters, plus water with added antioxidants, immunity boosters, digestion aids, protein and caffeine — all traits that research firm Mintel said consumers were interested in having in their water.