Specialty Food Magazine is the leading publication for retailers, manufacturers and foodservice professionals in the specialty food trade. It provides news, trends and business-building insights that help readers keep their businesses competitive.
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/725016
& A look at the events, issues, and innovations shaping specialty food, plus industry news, trends, and more. trends happenings Take That Fat Electricity may be the newest trick for removing up to 20 percent of fat from chocolate. Researchers at Philadelphia's Temple University made the discovery by accident, finding that by running liquid chocolate through an electric field both viscosity and fat were reduced in the final product. AMAZON JOINS THE LABEL GAME Private-label foods have increasingly been taking more market share from branded foods, with U.S. sales reaching $118.4 billion in 2015, up $2.2 billion from 2014, according to the Private Label Manufacturers Association. Online retail giant Amazon has joined the party, seeking higher-margin sales, and more control over marketing, development, and packaging with its new private-label brands, Happy Belly and Mama Bear. These lines are available exclusively to Amazon Prime customers, giving fee-paying members access to high-quality baby food and ground coffee. Other branded products are in the works, like nuts, trail mixes, spices, tea, and household items. They may pull ahead of competitors by providing quick home delivery—and assurance that the brands are made with the highest-quality ingredients. 22.8 million Americans are flexitarian—primarily eating a vegetarian diet, but enjoying meat occasionally— according to The Washington Post, dwarfing the 7.3 million who are solely vegetarian. Vegan Burger to Rival Beef They've done the unthinkable: After four years of R&D and $182 million in funding, the found- ers of Impossible Foods have created a vegan burger they claim holds its own next to a beef pattie. By uncovering the molecule heme, which gives meat its flavor, they were able to use plant-based ingredients, like coconut and honeydew melon, to create an animal-free choice that tastes just like meat. These juicy "meatless" burgers will be available to con- sumers in the next few years and are already on the menu at David Chang's Momufuku Nishi. Meat substitute launches showed a 24 percent average annual growth globally between 2011 and 2015, according to Innova Market Insights. By bypassing the use of meat, these products use 95 percent less land; 74 percent less water; and cause 87 percent less greenhouse gas emissions. That's a burger you can feel good about. PHOTO: IMPOSSIBLE FOODS 14 ❘ SPECIALTY FOOD MAGAZINE specialtyfood.com