Food at events isn’t new, but brands are stepping up their game. From Hermès’ miniature New York skyline dinner to Loewe’s scent-inspired ice cream, food is becoming the centrepiece of brand experiences and activations. Here’s who’s doing it well, why it’s happening now, and how we’ve been putting food at the heart of the story for years.

Most brands have a deck full of messages: pillars, values, propositions which are delivered on a screen to a room that's half-checking emails (we've all been there) We’d rather put them on a plate. Think experiential catering, where the food tells the story instead of just feeding the room. Start with the story, not the menu For their 2026 Impact Forum, TripleLift came to us with four commercial pillars: creative, curation, audience and measurement. They were a solid jump-off

How we designed shareable food moments for Daredevil, Minions & Monsters and Dinecraft - three influencer activations built to travel on their own.

What's possible when a professional services brand decides to trust the power of experience over the comfort of convention.

But what is a story if you start with the finale? All great literature follows an arc. There's tension and resolution. Character development. Perhaps a little jeopardy. Subplots that weave in and out until the threads converge. So if you reveal the plot twist on page one, what's the incentive to keep reading? Yet many brand events do exactly this – leading with the punchline, launching with the climax, instead of letting audiences follow the threads and discover it themselves