FOODBYTES JANUARY 2018 | ISSUE 49 | YOUR FREE DATASSENTIAL TREND REPORT IDEAS FB 100 IDEAS Wouldn’t it be great if we all had the budgets and time to take a truly comprehensive immersion tour around the world? We’d cover every city and operator until we truly understood the trend landscape. We would come up with thousands of ideas, filling up our product pipelines for the next 100 years. A SMALL SAMPLE Until that day arrives, Datassential’s TrendSpotting series is here to fill in the gap, covering hundreds of operators and thousands of OF WHAT’S flavors, ingredients, trends, dishes, and menu examples in the 70 issues we release each year. Last year alone, Dine Around took you COMING IN 2018: on immersion tours of cities like Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Vacation Towns Columbus, OH, with special issues covering concepts in ski towns Louisville and college towns. In we looked at everything Creative Concepts Toronto from eatertainment venues to retail categories like frozen foods, not CPG Packaging to mention our most jam-packed issue ever – Creative Concepts: Technology & Robotics. In International Concepts and World Food Halls 2.0 Bites we explored and tested dishes, ingredients, and concepts New Fine Dining from Nigeria, Israel, Belgium, Nepal, Jamaica, and beyond. And in Cannabis TIPS and On the Menu we covered over 150 trends from across the Bubble Tea Menu Adoption Cycle, from skyr and fish sauce to Andouille Coffee Rubs sausage and cotton candy. Gochagaru And while we may not have room in this issue of FoodBytes for 100 Oat Milk years’ worth of products and dishes, we can at least bring you 100 Cast Iron Skillets different ideas. We scoured all 70 issues of TrendSpotting released Collagen last year to bring you 100 thought-starters, menu inspirations, Egypt pieces of survey data, industry lessons, and flavor and ingredient New Zealand examples. Get out a pad of paper – this issue is sure to spark some Global Bar Chains ideas that you can put into action in the year ahead. Persian Cuisine And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Do you want to dive into the South Korean Cuisine issues themselves? Do you want to have access to the entire back Central Asian Cuisine catalog, encompassing thousands of articles, all searchable in our SNAP! database? If you want to start TrendSpotting, contact Datassential Business Development Manager Susan Cohen at 312-219-6428 or [email protected] and we’ll get your team started so you don’t miss a single issue released in 2018. DATASSENTIAL’S FOODBYTES: 2018 IDEAS ISSUE 2 FB BREAKFAST SNACKS Amp up your morning dishes with Crunchy baked snacks are a winner with consumers – 1 some inspiration from A.M. 4 80% of consumers told us they want baked snacks, the cocktails. In On the Menu: top-scoring snacking trend, and many of them specifically Bloody Marys we featured dishes requested more crunchy options when we asked them to like the Mussels in Bloody Mary create their ultimate snack. “It’s hard to find health foods Broth from Philadelphia’s that are crunchy,” said one. “Nuts and seeds add crisp Whetstone Tavern and the Fried and crunch,” said another, “which it has to have for me to Egg Sandwich with bloody mary purchase” (Creative Concepts: Retail Snacks). aioli at San Diego’s Wich Addiction. How would you Operators were going in some adventurous directions translate morning cocktails like 5 mimosas and screwdrivers to with jerky last year. Atlanta’s Biltong Bar specializes in breakfast dishes like pancakes and the South African jerky made from beef, ostrich, and elk, scones? while Starbucks’ Seattle Roastery featured a Pepper Nitro Latte with a Jerky Twist (On the Menu: Non-traditional Jerky). Putting an egg on a pizza or 2 burger is an easy way to turn it into a breakfast or brunch option, Over 60% of consumers are interested in loaded fries but also consider mashing up 6 (On the Menu: Loaded Fries), but think beyond the entire egg-based dishes with traditional cheese or chili options and cross-utilize items customer favorites. The Pizza already on the menu. Slapfish, the California-based Huevos Rancheros at Westies seafood fast casual, tops its Chowder Fries with New Gastropub in Columbus, OH, tops England clam chowder and bacon. Both the fries and a flatbread with traditional huevos chowder are already on the menu – by combining them rancheros ingredients (On the they create a premium option that fits the brand identity Menu: Huevos Rancheros). From (Creative Concepts: Seafood Operators). frittatas to shakshuka, how can you leverage these egg-based Food has cachet, which is why coffee shops are showing dishes in other formats? 7 up in sneaker stores and hospitals are opening up food halls. Think beyond traditional restaurants when it comes to opportunities – 61% of consumers told us they Consumers are looking for want to enjoy free snacks while shopping at department 3 functional foods these days, but and discount stores (Creative Concepts: Retail the functions they desire may Restaurants). differ depending on the occasion or daypart. Breakfast foods, for instance, often feature functions like “wakes you up” or OF CONSUMERS WANT “keeps you full throughout the day.” Coffee Blenders’ line of cold 61% FREE SNACKS brew coffee singles includes AT RETAIL STORES function-specific ingredients such as ginseng for cognition, while Sweet Earth’s plant-based options help you to “Get Focused!” and “defog your morning brain” (Creative Concepts: Retail Breakfast Foods). DATASSENTIAL’S FOODBYTES: 2018 IDEAS ISSUE 3 FB We’ve said it over and over again – foods 8 on sticks score well with consumers. Take inspiration from the concepts where on-the-go food is a must-have – amusement parks. Our issue of Creative Concepts: Amusement Parks featured a wide range of options on sticks, including fried cheesecake, s’mores, mini baguettes, and mini cinnamon rolls, plus an entire stick-focused stand at Knott’s Berry Farm called Strictly-on-a-Stick. Meanwhile, sekuwa, or grilled meats on sticks common in Nepalese cuisine, scored in the 86th percentile with consumers (World Bites: Nepalese Cuisine). Premium versions of classic comfort 9 foods are the best of both worlds. Whitney’s Bar & Grille, in Oak Lawn, IL, upgrades corn dogs with its Kobe Mini Corn Dogs fried in duck fat and served with whole grain mustard aioli and sriracha chili sauce (On the Menu: Corn Dogs). What other state fair favorites could you upgrade? Funnel cakes? Lemon shake-ups? Caramel apples? DATASSENTIAL’S FOODBYTES: 2018 IDEAS ISSUE 4 FB HEALTHY & PLANT FORWARD When it comes to produce, imperfection is in. Uglies 10 Potato Chips proudly call out that their chips are made from rejected potatoes (Creative Concepts: Retail Snacks), No Name Naturally Imperfect bags of fruit are showing up in the frozen food aisle (Creative Concepts: Frozen Foods), while Imperfect Produce is delivering “ugly produce” directly to consumers in markets across the country (TIPS: Next-level CSAs). The key? These companies call out that these options save their customers money – Uglies says it right on the front of the bag – and consumers repeatedly tell us that saving money and lower costs can get them over the purchasing hurdle. The Update a classic with on-trend healthy ingredients. To successfully reach meat-eaters 11 All Kail, Caesar Salad at Choices Café in Miami swaps 13 who are looking to add more plant- romaine for kale and tops the whole thing with sprouted based foods to their diet, you’ll have grain croutons (On the Menu: Sprouted Grains). to make sure your veggie-forward options look at least as appealing as the steaks and burgers. Over- Can you take one trending preparation and apply it to the-top crudité platters, like the 12 another dish? In March we covered elote, or Mexican- board at Chicago’s Clever Rabbit style street corn (On the Menu: Elote), which was being (above), rival charcuterie boards in adapted for elote-style cauliflower and brussels sprouts, color and variety (TIPS: Crudité). while Chicago’s Café Selmarie offers up a Beet Caprese Salad (On the Menu: Caprese). INSTAGRAM- WORTHY Adapt, adapt, adapt. When social media-driven 14 trends like unicorn toast and charcoal ice cream started to trend, operators quickly adapted them in new dishes and products, from unicorn lattes to charcoal pizza crusts. Freakshakes have inspired everything from stacks of pancakes topped with whole popsicles to red velvet hot chocolate topped with rainbow whipped cream, edible glitter, and rainbow marshmallows (On the Menu: Hot Chocolate). Surely one of the most Instagram-worthy 15 dishes we covered in the last year was the Let Them Eat Cake dessert at Miami’s Barton G’s, topping a bust of Marie Antoinette with a massive cotton candy wig (On the Menu: Cotton Candy). It turns heads, so to speak, when it comes out of the kitchen. DATASSENTIAL’S FOODBYTES: 2018 IDEAS ISSUE 5 FB Color is a key consideration for any dish or 16 product in today’s social media-centric environment, but consider where the clean ingredients that give today’s foods their striking hues fall on Datassential’s Menu Adoption Cycle. You can leverage the “jet black food” trend by using activated charcoal, black garlic, black sesame, or ultra- dark black cocoa powder, and each ingredient will have a different target demographic and positioning. Or consider black rice, a naturally-black option that over 40% of consumers said they are likely to try at restaurants or retail (TIPS: Black Rice). For a burst of red, purple, or pink, try anything from Inception-level Jamaican sorrel (World Bites: Jamaican Cuisine) to Proliferation- level beets (On the Menu: Beets).