FOODBYTES DECEMBER 2016 | ISSUE 36 | YOUR FREE DATASSENTIAL TREND REPORT 2017 FOOD TRENDS FB Is the food industry having an existential crisis? In fact, for many companies redefining the very concept of food is an opportunity. These companies are calling every assumption into question and rethinking the very foundations of the industry. They’re breaking food down into individual molecules and building it back up again to create something brand new. In the process, they’re giving us a glimpse of how differently we may define food in the future. The changing definition of food is just one of the trends we’ll be watching in 2017 and beyond. This month’s FoodBytes covers 14 different trends that will impact the industry – 5 macro-level trends WHAT IS that are making waves in every segment, both at restaurants and at retail, and 9 micro-level trends that will affect particular ingredients FOOD? and segments. We look at how molecular gastronomy is trickling down to the masses, with core concepts and technologies in use at QSRs, fast casuals, and even home kitchens. We discover how advancements How will these trends impact in robotics and artificial intelligence will make delivery services your business or product line? even more of a force to be reckoned with. Restaurants aren’t going to lose those dining occasions without a fight, however, and we Contact Datassential for a see how operators are using “eatertainment” and other types of presentation that dives deeper technology to entice consumers to dine out or stop into their local supermarket. Finally we see how the definition of healthy food into these trends with even more continues to evolve and seek out the next generation of functional examples and more data, all superfoods. designed to help make your At the micro level, we look at why fat is back, how Southern concepts and brand more mashups are combining cuisines together to create new concepts, personal and relevant to today’s and how operators and consumers are embracing taboo foods. We consumer. Contact Dave Jenkins dive into the social media-worthy foods that are taking over Instagram and Snapchat, the distinctive flavors and textures of at 847-903-5744 or Japanese desserts, and the next-level vegetables that are adding [email protected] unique qualities to the menu. We also meet the local fishmonger, to put the presentation on your reduce food waste, and break down the barriers to beverage purchasing with new formats. team’s calendar. We’ve also expanded one of our most popular features – our list of the flavors and ingredients that should be on your radar. This year we feature everything from dukkah to umeboshi to gose. Let’s get started… DATASSENTIAL’S FOODBYTES: 2017 TRENDS TO WATCH 2 FB MACRO 1 MOLECULAR FOR THE MASSES REACHING A MASS AUDIENCE WITH author J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, are dropping below MOLECULAR GASTRONOMY $100.00 now, and companies like Sansaire, Anova Culinary, and ChefSteps’s Joule are racing to get In recent years, many of the restaurants that the appliances into home kitchens. Anova now has spearheaded the molecular gastronomy displays in stores like Best Buy and Target to movement have closed (elBulli, wd~50), will close educate consumers on the product, specifically (noma, which fused molecular gastronomy with placed near the slow cookers to provide an easy New Nordic foraging), or have reconcepted reference point. These appliances and techniques (Alinea), prompting both chefs and writers to ask, are particularly popular with the “lifehacking” “Is molecular gastronomy dead?” Are the days of movement, which is constantly seeking better, spherified olive oil, liquid nitrogen “berries,” often contrary, ways of cooking, organizing, and edible balloons over? working, etc. In fact, the best may be yet to come as elements from the molecular gastronomy movement make EARLY ADOPTER their way to the average consumer. Like any French chemist-chef Hervé This has been called fashionable movement, some elements fall by the the “patron saint of molecular gastronomy.” Now, What will be the next big wayside while those with broader implications go with what he calls “note-by-note cooking,” or trend in at-home food on to become a part of the wider culture. NbN, he’s aiming to take his focus on pure technology? “The combi- molecular compounds to the masses. “This Now much of the equipment that powered oven!” author and envisions grocery stores of the future selling molecular gastronomy is dropping in price, making molecular gastronomy peachy hexyl acetate and cucumberish trans,cis- it within reach for a wider range of operators, expert Nathan Myhrvold 2,6-nonadien-1-ol; no crazier than a bottle of including QSRs and fast casuals, as well as home told PopSugar. “I really vanilla extract or oil of oregano found in most consumers. There are now a number of operators hope that’s the next big homes,” notes the New York Times. While bottles that make customizable, rapidly-cooled ice cream thing after sous vide.” of compounds can be found in the kitchens of the with liquid nitrogen, while New York’s HI B3AR The combo oven/steamer world’s temples of molecular gastronomy, there’s makes on-trend Thai rolled ice cream using the is a staple in restaurants, no reason they can’t be used by home cooks; anti-griddle. but up until now it has they’re “very simple and very cheap,” This says. been too expensive for Nathan Myhrvold, who is behind the molecular home cooks. That’s gastronomy bible “Modernist Cuisine,” has been WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS changing. Cuisinart has a adapting molecular gastronomy techniques for the Proponents and stakeholders in the next countertop model average person and extolling the virtues of blow generation of mass molecular gastronomy will (above), the Tovala home torches and pressure cookers for the home continue to educate a wider variety of chefs and smart oven is currently in kitchen. “I just had the best carrot soup of my life, home cooks on how to adapt the techniques. In beta testing, and a with the recipe taken from ‘Modernist Cuisine at particular, they’ll make the case that molecular number of appliance Home’,” one reviewer of Myhrvold’s home version gastronomy shows off ingredients at their best in manufacturers are adding wrote on Amazon. “[The recipe] uses order to win over skeptics who think that foams steam functions to home caramelization techniques well known to pros, but and gels have no place in the current “clean ovens. heretofore unknown to me.” eating” movement. Sous vide cookers, a favorite of Serious Eats Managing Culinary Director and “Food Lab” DATASSENTIAL’S FOODBYTES: 2017 TRENDS TO WATCH 3 FB MACRO 2 WHAT IS FOOD? CONSUMERS & STARTUPS RETHINK THE sold.” New York’s Ocean Hugger Foods has DEFINITION OF FOOD created Tomato Sushi, a natural, eco-friendly alternative to raw tuna. The tomatoes used in the Would you consider a multivitamin pill to be food? sushi, which are high in the glutamic acids Most consumers would say it’s not. But if it’s not, responsible for much of the savory flavor in meaty what is Soylent? The company calls its products foods, are cooked sous vide with ingredients like “Food, intelligently designed,” yet founder Rob tamari and rice vinegar. And Copenhagen’s To Øl Rinehart specifically created them because “food Brewery worked with technology company GEA was such a large burden,” he said in “The End of Group to develop a sublimation process for its Food” in The New Yorker. He even introduced the beer, which transforms it into a powdered product original Soylent in his blog post, “How I Stopped that the consumer mixes with water. Eating Food.” EARLY ADOPTER Today a number of companies are questioning the In 2013, Mark Post, a professor at the University of very definition of food, fundamentally changing Google is partnering with Maastricht in the Netherlands, introduced the our thinking of what qualifies. Many are taking the Chopt Creative Salad Co. world’s first cell-cultured hamburger to the world. “break it down to build it up again” approach to a to rethink plant-based Last year New Harvest, a research institute range of products, but applying it to ethical or menu items at concepts focused on cellular agriculture, invested in Post’s values-based issues like sustainability, health, and like Relish, “part lab to “do more research on a completely animal- animal welfare. incubator, part free system for growing cultured meat.” Now Post laboratory” that The trend may be most apparent in the number of and New Harvest are getting some competition as experiments with science-based meat-free alternatives hitting the new companies get into the cultured meat game. envelope-pushing market, from Beyond Meat (tagline: “The Future “In just a few years, we expect to be selling preparations like of Protein”), which Tyson purchased a 5% stake in protein-packed pork, beef, and chicken that tastes fermented, freeze-dried, this year, to Impossible Foods’ lab-grown, identical to conventionally-raised meat but that is and powdered “bleeding” Impossible Burger, which is just cleaner, safer, and all-around better than meat vegetables. It’s not just starting to reach restaurants across the country. from animals grown on farms,” Uma Valeti, co- startups looking to create These companies are using an understanding of founder and CEO of Memphis Meats told the the next generation of food at its molecular level to create alternatives Washington Post. meat-free foods. The that have the same texture, taste, structure, and or “meat case” at The cooking abilities as the foods they are trying to WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS Herbivorous Butcher in mimic.