Right when you think you’ve seen it all, Specialty Food’s bi-annual Fancy Food Show serves as a platform for innovative food and beverage brands to shine. The Symrise team attended the 2019 Summer Fancy Food Show at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in NYC to report on the biggest flavors, ingredients and products that challenge the food and beverage industry as we know it.
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This year’s show featured over 2,500 exhibitors – making it the place to see and taste the future of food! We came, we saw, we ate and drank, and narrowed it down to the top 9 new and exciting trends that you need to know:
1. Diet Name Dropping
2. Collagen is in… Collagen Calls Out
3. Allergy-Friendly Foods
4. Functional Balls & Bites
5. Sp(ice) Cream
6. Drinking Apple Cider Vinegar
7. Water Lily Pops!
8. Trendy Tonics & Mixer Madness
9. Coconut As A Base
Health-focused food and drink continues to rein king with an emphasis on diet and allergy-friendly claims. From keto-friendly ice cream to allergy-free vegan cookie dough bites, all diets were well represented at the Summer Fancy Food Show.
Beyond diet and allergy mindfulness, functionality fit within the wide spanning umbrella of health-focused food and beverage. Minimal ingredient balls and bites served as condensed snacks packed with protein and superfoods targeted at the workout warriors or on-the-go snackers. Collagen functioned as a top hitting protein additive across beverage, savory and sweet categories whereas popped water lily seeds functioned as a snackable superfood and popcorn replacement.
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Coconut continues to find its way to the Fancy Food Show and this year it transitioned from the flavor of focus to the main base for food and beverage products. The show featured brands like Dang Food’s coconut based Keto bar that comes in fun flavors like ‘Lemon Matcha’ to The Chaat Company’s ‘Savory Coconut Chutney.’
An abundance of drinking apple cider vinegars (ACV), tonics and mixers were at this year’s show to quench our thirst. Brands took the ‘ACV health shot’ trend to a larger scale by applying the wellness properties of ACV in ready to drink beverages.
Tonics and mixers used for cocktails and mocktails alike, cast out to a wide range of consumers (drinkers/non-drinkers). Many of the drinks that we saw are low-calorie, hopping on the healthy bandwagon to avoid being a fancier carbonated soft drink. Navy Hill had a small line of botanical flavored tonics, including Juniper, that would be a great base for a gin and tonic but also a refreshing thirst quencher.
In the realm of indulgence, things got spicy with ice cream. Vendors introduced the use of spices and global flavors with products like Kulfi Pistachio Cardamom from Adirondack Creamery, Saffron Honey Lemon from Art Cream, and Ginger Root from Malai.
For a deeper look into these trends and our top picks from the Summer Fancy Food Show, click through the SlideShare below!
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