The smash-burger boom
The burger didn't go away — it got an upgrade. Smash burgers exploded +121%, pizza stations +74%, burgers overall +49%. This is the gourmet-ification of comfort food: same cravings, premium execution.
The 60-second version
- 🍔 Smash burgers are the breakout star (+121%) — the thin, crispy-edged, American-diner burger took over.
- 🍕 Pizza stations +74%, mini pizzas +40% — comfort food turned into a party format, not just a takeaway.
- 🔥 Premium tweaks win: hot honey chicken +38%, build-your-own burger +26%, sliders +21%.
- 🧱 The giants barely moved: pizza +8%, fried chicken +6% — the base is huge, the growth is in the gourmet edge.
There's a quiet rule in food trends: when times are hard, people don't abandon comfort food — they trade up within it. You skip the restaurant, but you want the burger to be really good. That instinct is written all over the data, and it has a name now: the smash burger.
The breakout
The smash burger ate everything
Few food terms in the entire dataset grew like the smash burger. It's a textbook viral-then-permanent arc: a specific technique (smashing a ball of mince onto a hot flat-top for crispy, lacy edges) that jumped from niche to national in a couple of years.
Monthly search interest in "smash burgers".
The takeaway: A near-vertical climb — from niche to mainstream in under four years.
The smash burger is the perfect modern food trend: easy to demonstrate on video, achievable at home, and a clear "upgrade" on something everyone already loves. That's a recipe for fast, durable growth.
Four-year change across burger, pizza and chicken categories.
The takeaway: Smash burgers (+121%) and pizza stations (+74%) lead a broad premiumisation wave.
Read the winners as "comfort food, but better": gourmet techniques (smash, wood-fired), party formats (stations, mini, BYO) and premium flavour hooks (hot honey). The cravings are old; the execution is new.
The big three
Burgers, pizza and chicken: the holy trinity
Underneath the trendy upgrades sit three of the largest food categories in the country. Their sheer scale is the point — these are the foods South Africa reaches for by default, day in and day out.
Monthly demand for burgers, pizza and fried chicken.
The takeaway: All three remain enormous; burgers show the most visible upward momentum.
The giants don't need to grow fast to matter — they're the bedrock. But burgers' steeper climb signals where the cultural energy (and the premiumisation) is concentrated.
Average monthly search volume across burgers, pizza and chicken families.
The takeaway: Three massive pillars, each with a fast-growing gourmet sub-category attached.
The structure is consistent across all three: a huge, stable core (pizza, fried chicken, burgers) with a premium insurgent (wood-fired, hot honey, smash) growing on top.
| Gourmet edge (fast growth) | 4-yr change | Stable core (huge base) | 4-yr change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smash burgers | +121% | Pizza | +8% |
| Pizza stations | +74% | Fried chicken | +6% |
| Mini pizzas | +40% | Burgers (overall) | +49% |
| Hot honey chicken | +38% | Chicken wings | +15% |
The verdict
Trading up, not out
The smash-burger boom is the most appetising proof of a theme running through this whole project: under pressure, South Africans don't give up joy — they get more precise about it. The fine-dining splurge becomes the perfect burger. The restaurant becomes the station at the party. The comfort never left. It just got a crispy, lacy, gloriously gourmet edge.
Recessions don't kill the burger. They just make people insist it be a really, really good one.
- Source. Aggregated South African search demand for burger, pizza & chicken keywords, monthly, June 2022 – May 2026.
- Growth. First 12 months vs the most recent 12.
- Caveat. Search interest captures intent and recipe-seeking, not units sold; "smash burger" benefits from strong recipe-video demand.
References & further reading
Figures are PartyTrends' own analysis of the search-demand dataset described above. Sources below corroborate the wider context.
- Bon Appétit, Why smash burgers took over — the technique\'s rise. bonappetit.com
- Statistics South Africa, Census 2022 — population & income context. statssa.gov.za
- PartyTrends, Recession-Proof Fun — the "trade up within comfort" thesis. partytrends.co.za/blog
- PartyTrends, The Braai Report — smash burgers meet the coals. partytrends.co.za/blog
- PartyTrends, Food Stats — live comfort-food demand tracker. partytrends.co.za/stats