PORTLAND, Maine -- Get a couple hundred foodservice professional together, and three things happen: eating, a robust idea exchange, and more eating.
Such was the agenda at the annual conference of the International Foodservice Editorial Council (IFEC), held last week in Portland, Maine. The event brings together foodservice editors and publicists to discuss industry trends and issues and allow us editors to begin generating great story ideas for the year to come.
Much of that will take shape in the pages of CSP Kitchen and on CSPnet next year, but some ideas were too cool to keep in my notebook until the time came for a full-fledged story.
Eating Through the Trends
What follows are eight rapid-fire flavor and menu ideas that are at the forefront of food trends. How might they translate to your menus in the months or even years to come?
- The new kale is … . Kalettes are a hybrid between Brussels sprouts and kale, bringing the flavor and nutritional profiles of both trendy vegetables into one. Ocean Mist Farms is one grower bringing the product to market, though others have it available under the name kale sprouts.
- A new kind of snack bar. Consider capitalizing on the popularity of snacking and customization with a snack bar. Think of a salad bar with but with snack items including hummus, cut vegetables, hardboiled eggs and meat and cheese cubes. Outfit it with some compartmentalized bento-style to-go boxes, give it a per-ounce price point, and watch the snackers line up.
- A toppings bar—for breakfast. Convenience stores are already known for their condiment bars at the roller grill, coffee counter and increasingly the frozen-yogurt station—why not extend that experience to the breakfast day-part with a toppings bar for waffles or pancakes? Fill it up with cut fruits, nuts, yogurt and more, and consider ways to make the entire things portable (perhaps paper cones?).
- Making teas personalized. Another way to capitalize on the ability to customize at the convenience store: encouraging the use of flavored syrups for coffee drinks in dispensed hot and iced teas. A basic unsweetened iced tea could quickly turn into a refreshing vanilla-peach concoction with a few pumps at the condiment bar.
- Carbing up the parfait. If you’re offering yogurt parfaits in your grab-and-go case, consider adding whole grains such as steel-cut oats or quinoa to the mix for an extra boost of nutrition and satiety. The texture may be a bit different, but it soon won’t be so foreign: Chobani has rolled out a line combining its Greek yogurt with ancient grains and steel cut oats.
- The next sriracha is … . The verdict is out on what might dethrone sriracha as the spicy condiment du jour, but I’m placing my bets on gochujang, a fermented red chili paste from Korea. It was everywhere at IFEC, and will make an appearance in the December issue of CSP, too.
- Nurturing a seaweed boom. Portland is home to the first seaweed farmer in the United States, and he’s working hard to get the word out on the highly nutritious, incredibly sustainable plant (which actually acts in part like an animal—sorry vegans) to the U.S. foodservice market. Maine pizza chain The Flatbread Co. tops every salad it sells with some Maine sea kelp, and many colleges are offering kelp as an add-in for smoothies. It’s available frozen for easy application.
- Meat-free alternatives. IFEC was also ripe with ways to offer meat-free—or meat-light—meals that are still full of flavor, including tacos using walnuts instead of meat and burgers with a mixture of both ground meat and mushrooms.
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