Fancy Food Show 2022
New York Fancy Food Show 2022 : Top 10 Emerging Food Trends
The Brand Nursery has been back to The Fancy Food Show on the lookout for those emerging new trends that will shape the way that food develops over the next few years.
Here are our Top Ten:
1. Say Cheese
We’ve never seen as much cheese at the Show as there was this year and in amongst the block cheeses were a few new innovations that seek to broaden cheese consumption occasions.
Folio’s Cheese Wraps are 100% all natural baked sheets of cheese that are made from Parmesan, Cheddar or Jarlsberg and can be used as a lower carb version of a standard wrap.
Ellsworth Co-Operative Creameries has created Cheddar Curd Crunchers – a snack made from freeze-dried cheese curds that’s a bit like a popcorn.
The Big Moo has created a baked cheese range that is designed to be grilled and eaten hot, and has the most distinctive branding that we came across in this sector.
2. Refresh & Revive
It appears that the world is looking for soft drinks that don’t just refresh, but that can also revive.
New York based Recoup has a range of fresh juices containing ginger to alleviate muscle soreness post work-out, help reduce nausea, aid digestion and boost immunity.
Sunwink from California has a range of sparkling tonics containing natural ingredients that help to detoxify, build immunity and aid body recovery.
British brand Love Struck has developed frozen smoothie ingredients for the creation of uplifting drinks that are both delicious and nutritious – our favourite was Blueberry Thrill that is packed with anti-oxidants to help heart health.
3. Drinks for Grown Ups
Another approach to drinks was the growing trend towards sophisticated adult soft drinks – both non-alcoholic spirits and adult-flavoured sodas.
Ghia is a “spirit-free aperitif adapted for modern times”; it feels grown up and has a slightly challenging dry, herbal flavour that we quickly grew to love.
Free Spirits from California is a range of non-alcoholic expressions of the world’s best loved spirits, all attractively packaged in bottles that look and feel just like their alcoholic cousins.
And Uncle Waithley’s make a small-batch ginger beer tonic with a pinch of turmeric and a good hit of scotch bonnet pepper that produces a distinctly adult kick.
4. Whole-Hearted Sustainability
Sustainability is clearly moving up the corporate agenda, and we found more evidence that some grocery businesses are putting sustainability right at the heart of their company ethos.
Big Picture Foods have a range of olives that are naturally fermented, living foods They also seek to empower farmers and to regenerate the ecosystems they harvest from.
JejuDoda from Korea proclaim that they produce “Clean food. Honest food”, while Caboo make a range of sustainable paper products such as kitchen rolls “for wise folks” from bamboo, and plant a tree for every pound of paper they sell.
5. Upcycled
One specific aspect of sustainability that was very evident at the Show was the number of new products that are using upcycled ingredients.
WaJu has created a series of “feel good fizz” sodas that are made from an overlooked water source that has been regularly discarded—fruit. Fruit is about 90% water, so there is a real societal benefit in upcycling this water, and the drink tastes good too, gently echoing its fruit source.
Hidden Gems is a beverage company that has developed Reveal, a range of Avocado Seed Brew soft drinks that use the discarded parts of an avocado as a core ingredient.
6. Keep it Peel
Another unlikely source ingredient for new products is fruit peel – we saw a number of exhibitors that had turned what is often thrown away into a tasty snack.
Rind has a range of dried fruit snacks that make a real virtue of “keeping the peel”. They describe peel as “nature’s original packaging”, with more vitamins, fibre and antioxidants in the rind than any other part of the fruit.
Pure Bites’ Fruit-A-Peel range takes a similar approach with their ‘All natural’ range of tangy, sweet and sour peel-based snacks.
Japanese business Kankitso Labo has developed a range of candied citrus rinds that can be used as an ingredient, topping or as a garnish.
7. Spicy & Fruity
We came across several products that are seeking to fuse spicy and fruity flavours to create a harmonious balance.
The Jam Stand has created a range of jams that have savoury ingredients – most notably their Raspberry Jalapeno product that has a real spicy hit to it.
Tannenbaum’s Botanical Hot Sauce starts from the opposite perspective – a hot sauce range that is balanced with the addition of fruit notes. They still have a proper kick!
Lamula from Mexico had a range of marmalades that were spiced with ingredients such as jalapeno peppers, and Millers were showing their range of Banana Pepper sauces.
8. Mushroom Magic
It seems that every year there is a new vegetable that pops up as the base for savoury snacks – this year it’s mushrooms.
There were several examples of mushroom jerky, but it was the mushroom crisps that really caught our eye. Popadelics from Fun Gal Snacks had a range of funkily packaged popped Mushroom Chips.
Mush Garden’s Shiitake mushroom snacks are similarly crunchy, and include a Wasabi variant that has a real kick to it.
9. Look after yourself
Pro-active health has been a growing trend for the past decade or more, but we noticed some newer approaches and the emergence of collagen as a key ingredient this year.
QualiNova from Brazil has developed a range of collagen shot drinks under the Collageno brand, while Raise The Bar from Australia is using collagen as an active ingredient within their nutrition snack bars.
Taking a different tack, Mighty Gum from Seattle has added immunity-boosting ingredients to chewing gum, enabling the simple act of chewing to have a beneficial effect on its user.
10. Instantly Interesting
Finally, when you’re in a crowded sector how do you stand out amongst a sea of competitors?
The answer for several was to make their packaging design instantly interesting.
Good Hair Day Pasta uses clever cut-out windows and a beautifully understated design approach that elevates their brand above other dried pastas.
In the equally busy olive oil category, Bio Orto has an equally understated elegance that is beautiful and eye-catching.
By way of contrast Whipnotic from New York uses funky bright colours for their range of whipped creams, and Le Chocolat De Francais has typically bold, bright cartoon designs across their range of chocolate bars.
All stood out, captured our attention, and drew us in.
And Some Stand-Out New Things…
As ever, there were also some other individual innovations;
Solato has developed an ice-cream maker that resembles a Nespresso machine – its capsule technology eliminates the need for frozen supply chain logistics.
Current Foods have created the best plant-based fish alternative we’ve found to date – a tuna tartare product that perfectly echoes the ‘real’ thing.
Milton’s Cauliflower Crust pizza has used cauliflower instead of flour for its pizza base to create a light, crispy pizza that tasted delicious, and it’s gluten-free too.