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/873281
trends & happenings —the dollar amount that the Paleo-related foods market could grow to, according to IRI. $4,000,000,000 THE FUTURE OF FOOD The Specialty Food Association debuted its LevelUP attraction, which prognosticated the future of food and commerce, featured the latest industry research, and show- cased global food innovations, at the Summer Fancy Food Show in June. Following are three insights gleaned from the LevelUP experience: 1. Plant-based ingredients will drive innovation. Food incubators and uni- versities displayed and sampled a range of nutritious and sustainable plant-based products including jerky made from local kelp and mushroom scraps; a mixer made from foraged tips of spruce trees; high-protein and high-fiber cheese made from soy milk pulp, and other innovations. The Future Market, a futurist food lab on display at LevelUp, envisioned that sustainability will inspire food products of the future such as fish sticks made from invasive species of fish whose removal will help oceans and rivers, and packaged soups made of produce skins and animal trims that would otherwise be discarded. 2. Food waste and recovery efforts will grow. Several of LevelUP's Excite Talk speakers focused on food waste and recovery efforts at foodservice and retail. Among them was Bertha Jimenez of Rise which is working to turn spent grain from microbreweries into flour. "Every time a six-pack is produced, one pound of spent grain is thrown into a landfill," she said during her Excite Talk presentation. Instead of the landfill option, local Brooklyn microbreweries pay Rise to take this waste byproduct away to transform into a premium, nutritiously rich flour that is a third of the price of other premium flours. Currently, the flour is being used for shortbread, pizza, and more. 3. Grocery shopping will be digital and customizable. A Future Market display at LevelUP brought attendees inside a grocery store in 2042. "You'll notice there is no inventory in the aisles and the shopping experience is largely digital," said Mike Lee, founder of The Future Market and Studio Industries, a food innovation lab. Shoppers will view products customized to their preferences, similar to how they receive Netflix recommendations today.—Julie Gallagher Coconut Cashew Crunch Is Product of the Year Anastasia Confections' Coconut Cashew Crunch was named winner of the Specialty Food Association's inau- gural sofi Product of the Year award at the Summer Fancy Food Show. The product also took the Gold Award in the Sweet Snacks category. "We're so honored! But we were so honored to be the recipient of the Sweet Snacks category—the first time the category was offered in the sofis. To win the entire thing is beyond my wildest dreams," said Phil DeWester, vice president of marketing for the par- ent company, Las Olas Confections and Snacks. The sofi Product of the Year award is given to the highest scoring sofi winner. "Our Product of the Year is drawn from an extraordinary field of competi- tive products representing 39 catego- ries," said Phil Kafarakis, president of the SFA. Coconut Cashew Crunch is a tropi- cal twist on classic brittle. It's handmade in copper kettles with fresh shredded coconut, cashews, butter, and brown sugar with a dark chocolate drizzle. Anastasia is working on product extensions with different nuts and fla- vorings and is looking to expand this into a line of coconut-based products. "Coconut is so on trend and Anastasia was one of the original coconut con- fection companies out of Florida so we come by it honestly," DeWester said. —Mark Hamstra by 2020 18 ❘ SPECIALTY FOOD MAGAZINE specialtyfood.com