Top Food Trends Spotted at the Winter Fancy Food Show

The top food trends for 2013 have been picked by a panel of trendspotters at the 38th Winter Fancy Food Show, which ended yesterday in San Francisco.

The show is the largest marketplace for specialty foods and beverages on the West Coast, with 80,000 products on display including cheeses, snacks, olive oils, vinegars, chocolate, and natural and organic products from the U.S. and 35 countries and regions. The foods and beverages on display provided a glimpse at some of the flavor and ingredient trends coming in 2013.

Savory and spicy flavors in unexpected places seem to be the themes at the Winter Show. Teas and jams are highlighting vegetables and confections are getting a spice makeover. And some classic flavors such as banana and peanut butter have regained popularity, especially when paired with chocolate.

The top trends spotted are:

• Botanical Beverages. Herbs and spices are emerging in teas and beverages including Numi Organics’ Broccoli Cilantro Tea, Wild Poppy Juice Co.’s Blood Orange Chili Juice and The Republic of Tea’s Moringa SuperHerb Tea.
• Oil Nouveau. Oil is coming from some unusual places and flavored with unique flavor combinations such as Arette Foods’ Organic Tea Seed Oil with Sundried Tomatoes & Chili Pepper; Culinary Imports’ Stöger Cherry Seed, Chile Seed and Tomato Seed Oils; and La Tourangelle Artisan Oils featuring Organic Coconut Oil.
• Blue Cheese Redux. Blue cheese was not only popular in the cheese pavilion – blue cheese flavors abounded in chocolates, in powder form and in goat cheese. For example, Bissinger’s Handcrafted Chocolatier’s Point Reyes Blue Cheese Wine Grapes, Rogue Creamery’s Blue Heaven Blue Cheese Powder, and Mt. Sterling Co-op Creamery’s Smoked Sterling Bleu Goat Cheese.
• So Many Seeds. Seeds and grains abounded at the show with sprouted seeds in snacks, quinoa debuting in chocolate and chia seeds in cereal. Some examples include Enjoy Life Natural Brands’ Crunchy Flax Chia Cereal, K.L. Keller Imports’ Dukkah, and Lundberg Family Farms: Hemp-a-Licious Organic Rice Cakes.
• Top Banana and PB. Banana and peanut butter appeared in many new products from the sweet to the savory, including Vosges Haut-Chocolat’s Wild Ophelia Peanut Butter & Banana Milk Chocolate Bar, PB Crave’s CoCo Bananas Peanut Butter, and GoodPop’s Frozen Banana Cinnamon Pops.

Other trends spotted include fruit-infused vinegars, chips with a healthy glow such as fuji apple chips, peppery sweets such as cayenne shortbread, agave used as a sweetener in place of sugar, and herb flavors appearing in everything from soda and coffee to sugar mixes that garnish cocktails. Licorice is another flavor appearing in multiple products, as is chocolate mixed in with savory products such as cheese and salty snacks, and as tea flavoring. Powdered products also made a splash at the show such as peanut butter or coconut water powders, which are often a lower-calorie version of the original when mixed with a liquid. Healthy savory and sweet snacks with global flavors such as Indian, Brazilian, Asian and North African spices were also abundant at the show.

The Winter Fancy Food trendspotters were Maureen Clancy, Matters of Taste; Narsai David, CBS San Francisco; Nancy Wall Hopkins, Better Homes and Gardens; Sara Moulton, “Sara’s Weeknight Meals,” Good Morning America; Kara Nielsen, CCD Innovation; Denise Purcell, Specialty Food Media; Stephanie Spencer, Sunset Magazine; Stephanie Stiavetti, NPR, Susie Timm, Girl Meets Fork; and Joanne Weir, “Joanne Weir’s Cooking Confidence,” PBS.