2011 FOOD TRENDS: The farmer celebrities; No more Honest Kombucha; Black’s vindaloo cure; ‘never ending’ lawsuits

The 2011 American Salumi Calendar

Nibbles is a compendium of food, dining and beverage information and trends from the U.S. and the world edited by John Lehndorff (www.JohnLehndorff.com)

Reported by: http://www.fesmag.com/index.php/news/foodservice-news/item/5118-technomic-identifies-11-leading-restaurant-trends-for-2011:

As the foodservice industry begins to emerge from its economic malaise brought on by the recession, big changes are on the way for restaurants, according to Technomic, which offers the following 11 trends to watch in the year to come.

1. Action in adult beverages. “Mad Men”-style retro cocktails, high-cachet gin and bourbon, craft beers and punch (including sangria). Look for cocktails with herbal and floral ingredients; “skinny” cocktails; even more adult beverages in fast-casual eateries. .

2. Beyond bricks-and-mortar. Food trucks, facilitated by social media that notify foodies of their whereabouts, are proliferating. “Land-based” restaurants are using food trucks as brand extensions and catering aids; food-truck districts are starting to appear as are temporary or seasonal pop-up eateries.

3. Farmers as celebrities. Restaurants feature celebrity suppliers by offering special menus, inviting them to comment on blogs, even hosting visits. More often, farmers and artisans will be saluted in highly detailed menu descriptions.

4. Social media and technology: We’ll see constant changes in applications for marketing and operations in 2011. Kiosk ordering, wine lists on iPads, tableside payment systems—which technologies will revolutionize operations? Couponing websites and location-based social media will grow, while the apps fad will continue to evolve.

5. Korean and beyond. The Korean taco—an only-in-America synthesis of Korean-style fillings and a Mexican format—signals the rise of Korean barbecue and Korean food in general.

6. Frugality fatigue. Penny-pinching was a novelty when the recession began; now it’s gotten old. The middle class will gravitate to reasonably priced but high-experience-value, thrill-a-minute concepts with memorable menus. Gastropubs will proliferate.

7. How low can you go? Consumers will continue to demand price deals, everywhere they eat. As food input prices heat up next year, sustaining the bottom line will continue to be a crucial issue for operators.

8. Carefully calibrated brand action. We’ll see more fast-casual brand extensions by full-service restaurants; more ultra-niche eateries with narrowly focused menus; What new units we’ll see will be smaller, sustainably built, with more efficient layouts, often in nontraditional locations.

9. Back to our roots. The durable hunger for comfort food develops an appetite for homestyle Southern fare, from grits to seafood; retro Italian, including meatballs; gourmet donuts and popsicles for dessert; family-style service formats and family-size portions.

10. New competition from c-stores. Retailers have been encroaching on restaurant turf for some time, but now the hottest action is among convenience-store operators upgrading their foodservice, where margins are 40-60 percent instead of the 5 percent typical for gas.

11. Healthful vs. indulgent: Look for more items and detailed descriptions on “healthy” menus—including gluten-free fare as well as more “under x calories” items. Limited-time offers (including seasonal fare) will trend up, not only because they attract attention, but also because they don’t require posting nutrition data that consumers would rather not know. “Eating a little better” will translate into menu modifications such as slightly-lower-sodium, slightly-more-glamorous sea salt; “eating better some of the time” will lead to more innovations like “Meatless Mondays.”

http://www.teatrends.com:
Honest Tea is pulling out of the kombucha business, according to a report in Beverage Business Insights. According to the report, the company felt that the regulatory environment for the kombucha category was still too unstable for further Honest Tea involvement. Kombucha as a category is still being scrutinized by the U.S. Trade and Taxation Bureau following evidence this summer that unpasteurized kombuchas can ferment beyond legal limits for products sold as non-alcoholic beverages. As a result of that scrutiny, kombucha producers across the country were forced to pull their products out of Whole Foods stores while they searched for ways to produce products that would stay below the required 0.5 percent alcohol content required under federal law. Honest Tea, which sourced its Honest Kombucha products from Colorado-based High Country Kombucha, had announced it was reintroducing TTB-compliant products in August. High Country Kombucha would not comment on the news of Honest Tea’s withdrawal. The company is still waiting to hear from Honest Tea before making a statement, according to High Country President Shane Dickman.

Reported by www.johnmariani.com/current-issue/
The Darden Restaurants chain has sued T.G.I. Friday’s for advertising “never ending shrimp” specials, because Darden claims its Olive Garden “never ending pasta bowl” and Red Lobster’s “endless shrimp” are trademarks. Earlier Darden won a settlement from IHOP for serving “never ending pancakes” and “never ending popcorn shrimp.”

Actor Jack Black quoted in Parade Magazine:
“I’ve discovered that I really like spicy food. Part of it is the challenge aspect: Can I defeat the dreaded habanero pepper? But I also like the idea that it goes in my body and kills rogue bacteria. When I’m coming down with a cold, I blast it with a super-spicy lamb vindaloo.”

Complaints, tirades, comments, critiques? lehndorffj@aol.com

John Lehndorff is co-author with Kim Long of the American Salumi Calendar 2011, the first calendar devoted to cured meat artisans in the U.S. Lehndorff is a former caterer, nationally distributed newspaper food columnist and restaurant critic, author of a restaurant guide book, and one of America’s foremost pie experts.
The 2011 American Salumi Calendar: www.americansalumi.com

2010 Food Trends: Kombucha addicts suffer; “burger jaw” cases increase

Reported by www.dailycamera.com:
When Emily Renwick took a recent trip to Ideal Market in north Boulder (CO) to satisfy her fermented tea craving, the 27-year-old self-proclaimed “kombucha tea addict” instead was greeted with an empty shelf.
After frantically searching grocery stores throughout Boulder, a store clerk at Whole Foods informed her that kombucha had been pulled from the shelves. Suppliers of kombucha voluntarily recalled their products from grocery stores in mid-June over concerns that the drinks’ alcohol content was slightly higher than labeled. Renwick wrote in an e-mail to the Daily Camera. “In a country with cigarettes, trans fats, veal, and fois gras, we aren’t permitted to drink a seemingly healthy fermented mushroom drink.” Kemper Isely, president of Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage, noted announcements from High Country Kombucha and GT/Millennium indicating expectations to have their products back on the shelves. Ed Rothbauer, president of Eagle-based High Country Kombucha, which supplies kombucha to the Boulder market, said he expects to have his company’s products back on the market soon.

Reported at http://www.aolhealth.com/:
Professor Hsu Ming-lung of the School of Dentistry at National Yang-Ming University told the China Post that his patients have developed sore jaws after consuming giant burgers. Problems have arisen when fans bite into the 8-centimeter (just over 3-inch) high burgers, HSU said. Apparently, the human mouth is designed to eat food that is no more than 4 centimeters (one-and-a-half inches) high.

How to make liquid nitrogen slushies for 2,000 people, reported at chef Ian Kleinman’s blog: http://food102.blogspot.com/
“I have always loved math but sometimes the numbers are overwhelming. It starts with a simple recipe: 3 oz of fruit syrup strawberry or mango, 3 oz of apple juice and 4 ounces of water. Add 6 ounces of liquid nitrogen and top with .2 oz sweetened condensed milk. Serve in a corn-based recycled cup with a jumbo straw. Now multiply by 2000. That would be roughly 25 gallons each of fruit puree, 50 gallons of apple juice and about 65 gallons of water. Each 220 liter tank of nitrogen has 58 gallons but the nitrogen is always evaporating. If my tanks are delivered today, how much will be left for the event? 94 gallons times the evaporation rate in the dewar times the number of hours, to be on the safe side I will order 3 tanks. Straws and cups are easy, just need to think about the environmental impact. 4 gallons of sweetened condensed milk. Now how many people do I need?”

Reported by Theatlantic.com:
When a group of Italian economists recently divided the number of calories consumed per day by the amount of time spent preparing food, they found that Americans consumed 42 percent more calories per minute of food-prep time than Europeans. Portion sizes have increased at restaurants and at home: Brian Wansink of Cornell University and Collin Payne of New Mexico State University reviewed all seven editions of The Joy of Cooking and found that, since 1936, the calorie counts for one serving of 17 out of the 18 recipes that have been continuously published—including macaroni and cheese, beef stroganoff, and apple pie—have increased by 63 percent.

Reported by AP:
“The fascinating question to me is: Can we take our skills — our core competencies, as we call them in business — and apply them very directly to solving some of the problems [in society?]” – Ronald Shaich, Panera’s chairman.

Nibbles Food Trend Blog is now featured at: http://blogs.wherethelocalseat.com/Foodies/Denver-Food-and-Dining-Blogs.aspx
Nibbles Dining Column: http://yellowscene.com/2010/06/10/nibbles-nibbling-is-3-d/
Comments: Lehndorffj@aol.com
www.JohnLehndorff.com

NIBBLES: Boy food, girl food? Banana ice cream with bacon peanut brittle; Kombucha fallout

Reported by Riddhi Shah at www.salon.com:
So what is it with certain foods (and drinks) getting the boys vs. girls treatment? There may be a few male stars — like Joaquin Phoenix and Tobey Maguire — who are vegetarians, and women may be joining the ranks of bloody-aproned butchers, but in the American consciousness, real men still don’t eat quiche and women stick with chocolate, tofu and yogurt. This could easily be the handiwork of the evil geniuses on Madison Avenue, but might these clichés also arise from some long-buried grain of truth? Are genetic differences responsible for our gendered eating? How many of our eating patterns come from gender socialization, and how many are hereditary? And why is it that food rarely seems to be categorized this way outside the U.S.?

Reported by www.bevnet.com:
Recent developments in the kombucha category provided a hot topic for discussion at the Fancy Foods Show. Aside from countless theories on what will happen to the category and brands in it (they range from the category being over to the category bouncing back to twice its size), several brands mentioned that they’ve received “upgraded shelf space” as a result of GTs and other kombucha brands being pulled from the most prominent spots in Whole Foods’ grab-and-go coolers. As for the companies that did exhibit, here are the highlights: Honest Tea – Noticeably absent was their kombucha line, which, like other purveyors of raw kombucha, has been removed from the shelves. Seth Goldman anticipates the product returning to the market in July, but did not get more specific. Also, the company launched a new 0 calorie Passion Fruit Green Tea with Maqui Berry that is sweetened with stevia.

(For more on the U.S. kombucha market: The Kombucha Report: http://www.teareport.com/

Reported by www.nydailynews.com:
The pitchman for the “pizza diet” ended his 1,300-mile bike trip in Times Square fueling his cheesy ride with mozzarella, tomato sauce and crust. Florida pizzeria owner Matt McClellan made the month-long trek from his home state eating a slice of pizza every three hours. McClellan rode through a giant pizza party hosted by Sbarro and Pizza Packets. McClellan, 34, claims his diet, which consists of just pizza, can help anyone lose weight as long as they pile fruits, vegetables and lean meats on their slices.

Reported by www.nytimes.com:
On the menu at Humphry Slocombe ice cream shop in San Francisco:
Jesus Juice (red wine and Coke) sorbet, Boccalone Prosciutto ice cream, Salted Licorice, Huckleberry Crème Fraîche, Peanut Butter Curry, Coconut Candy Cap Mushroom Caramel sorbet and Elvis (the Fat Years) featuring banana ice cream with bacon peanut brittle.

Reported by ABC NEWS:
According to ice-cream company Carvel, Dina Lohan has been abusing an Ice Cream Black Card that was issued to Lindsay and younger sister Ali. “While the card was issued in Lindsay and Ali’s names only, their extended family has repeatedly used the card without either present,” Ashley Swann, Carvel’s public relations manager, said in a statement posted on the company’s website. “At first, we graciously honored their requests while explaining that the Black Card was not a carte blanche for unlimited Carvel ice cream for the extended Lohan family and friends. We finally had to cut off the card and take it back.”

Complaints, tirades, comments, critiques? lehndorffj@aol.com

Kombucha conundrum; say ‘No!’ to kitchen tours; Big Brother couponing;

Reported by www.slashfood.com:
“The distribution of an alcohol beverage product that is not labeled as such misleads consumers and could cause potentially serious consequences,” reported the Treasury Department last Wednesday in announcing its intention to give the kombucha trade more scrutiny. Kombucha — a fermented tea drink that Tina Fey once affectionately described as tasting like “a wine cooler left in a hot car” — has skyrocketed in popularity in the past few years. …But, being a fermented beverage, kombucha also packs a small alcoholic kick. Earlier this month, Whole Foods voluntarily pulled several popular brands of kombucha from its shelves, stating concerns that alcohol levels might be higher than indicated on the labels.

(For the only kombucha industry reportincuding Chromodex testing of brand-name kombuchas: The Kombucha Report: http://www.teareport.com/)

Reported by MediaPost’s Marketing Daily
“Getting people to eat healthier requires more than just posting calories or adding healthy options to the menu. The food also has to taste good.” – Eric Giandelone, Mintel’s director of foodservice research.

Reported by www.guardian.co.uk:
“Chef’s tables in the kitchen? What in the name of all that’s holy is that about? It’s a particular feature of the Gordon Ramsay stable of restaurants. … Who can possibly enjoy this? Sitting in the middle of frantic, sweaty activity while calmly stuffing your face? I seriously can’t imagine anything worse. You’re regarding the chefs as some kind of serf-ish floorshow, all artificially on their best, non-profane behaviour. While they must surely look on you as nothing more than an overprivileged chimps’ teaparty. … I don’t even like it when chefs come out to gladhand customers at the end of the meal…. And if you’re a chef with your name above the door, shouldn’t you be, well, cooking my dinner?”

Reported by www.washingtonpost.com:
Target in March became the first to roll out scannable mobile bar code coupons at its 1,750 stores nationwide. Each month, it offers five coupons on such essentials as cereal. Target’s terms and conditions notes that it can collect “your cell phone number, your carrier’s name and the date, time and content of your messages.” Within a month or so, coupon lovers will be able to walk into a national fast-food chain and shake their mobile phones near a cash register to beam over discounts through a system created by CopiaMobile. Some companies are using data to categorize each customer into one of 67 groups including “Park Bench Senior,” “Young Digerati” and “Heartlander.” “We can already tell if you are near or inside a store and can give you particular offers,” said Robert Drescher, chief executive of Cellfire, a San Jose-based mobile coupon company that works mostly with grocery store chains such as Safeway and Kroeger’s.

Nibbles Food Trend Blog is now featured at: http://blogs.wherethelocalseat.com/Foodies/Denver-Food-and-Dining-Blogs.aspx
Nibbles Dining Column: http://yellowscene.com/2010/06/10/nibbles-nibbling-is-3-d/
Complaints, tirades, comments, critiques? lehndorffj@aol.com

2010 FOOD TRENDS: leek scapes, kombucha, Subway’s whole-grain ruse

Top Searches Today: lohan kombucha, reverse spherification, john lehndorff blog, smoked lard, “food trends ” “gluten free”

Fresh this week at the Boulder (CO) County Farmers Market this week: Locally grown strawberries, cherries, zucchini, beets (golden, red, and Chioggia), garlic and leek scapes, broccoli, sugar snap peas, asparagus, kohlrabi, cabbage, carrots, various greens (spinach, lamb’s quarters, butter and leaf lettuce, cress, collard greens), spring onions, fresh herbs, turnips, radishes, and greenhouse tomatoes and cucumbers.

Reported by www.bizjournals.com:
The store where Boulder’s former Alfalfa’s Market natural-grocery chain began will once again carry the Alfalfa’s name. The Federal Trade Commission on Friday approved the acquisition of the Whole Foods Market store at 1651 Broadway in Boulder by A-M Holdings LLC, which will operate it as Alfalfa’s. The sale is part of a long-pending 32-store divestiture by Whole Foods

Reported by QSR Magazine:
“If you become designated an allergy-friendly restaurant, hopefully insurance companies are going to say, ‘Hey, they’ve actually reduced their liability. They’re not going to risk cross-contamination and getting someone sick, or worse, killing someone. Let’s lower their insurance.” – Ming Tsai, chef and restaurateur,

Reported by http://gawker.com:
When you’re in Whole Foods tomorrow to pick up your organic free-range sustainable humanely slaughtered coconut chicken skewers, you might see some people staring forlornly at an empty shelf. Why? The kombucha‘s gone! Oh, overpriced fermented tea. Where’d you go? Today Whole Foods, a key driver of the stuff’s mass consumption, has pulled all kombucha from their shelves because testing revealed that the it might be slightly more alcoholic than permissible by law. (.05 percent.) Some extremely skinny people are extremely upset right now. But what is kombucha? Put down your Diet Coke. Here’s what you need to know. Objectively, kombucha tastes (and smells) really bad. It’s sort of sour, sort of sharp, like cough syrup that’s been in the medicine cabinet too long, or a lacrosse player’s inner thigh. But nobody drinks kombucha because of the taste!

(For more on the kombucha industry: The Kombucha Report: http://www.teareport.com/)

Reported by www.slashfood.com:
When it comes to fast food, Subway is supposed to be the healthy choice – a six-inch sub loaded with veggies and lean meats that are a better bet when it comes to calories and fat, However, the “healthy” 9-grain bread is a nutritional wasteland packed with high-fructose corn syrup. David Zinczenko, author of the “Eat This, Not That” series, exposes the truth in his series The Truth About Your Food. Eight of those nine grains are listed under “contains 2% or less.” The number one ingredient is white flour. But what about the brown color of the bread? It’s not from grains: Zinczenko reveals that it actually comes courtesy of ammonium sulfate, a common plant fertilizer. It helps the bread achieve that golden hue. Whether it’s good for the human body is up for debate.

Nibbles Food Trend Blog is now featured at: http://blogs.wherethelocalseat.com/Foodies/Denver-Food-and-Dining-Blogs.aspx
About this blog from the www.DenverPost.com:
“Lehndorff’s food for thought: Former Rocky Mountain News food writer John Lehndorff is keeping close track of local and national trends on his blog, Nibbles (johnlehndorff.wordpress.com). He scours the trades and trend reports so you don’t have to. Find out what we’re eating, and what the rest of the country is eating, all through Lehndorff’s winning perspective.”

Radio Nibbles: 8:25 a.m. Thursdays, KGNU – 885 FM, 1390 AM http://www.kgnu.org/

Eat In Eat Out: Food trend forecast 2010: http://americanforecaster.com/

Nibbles Dining Column: http://yellowscene.com/2010/06/10/nibbles-nibbling-is-3-d/
John’s marinade recipes: http://yellowscene.com/2010/06/10/if-you-cant-take-the-heat…grill/

BEVERAGE TRENDS: Lohan’s kombucha habit; 28 billion tea liters; 104 drinks in one nozzle

Reported by the New York Times:

Along with her SCRAM bracelet, Lindsay Lohan has recently been seen with another new accoutrement, bottles of an unfamiliar organic drink. So what is the fizzy liquid? It’s kombucha, an ancient drink made from fermented tea. Among its purported health benefits (not yet evaluated by the FDA) are that it speeds up metabolism, cleanses toxins, reduces cholesterol, fights wrinkles, and the nonalcoholic drink is also said to be useful in kicking addictions. Well, mostly nonalcoholic: The label on GT’s Kombucha – the brand favored by Lohan — includes a warning that “due to the fermentation, this product may contain a trace amount of alcohol (less than 0.5%).” Madonna, Kirsten Dunst, and Halle Berry have all been spotted chugging the pungent, vinegar-like potion. Gwyneth Paltrow prefers the raw, organic kind over those mixed with fruit juice.
(For more on kombucha market, consult The Kombucha Report: http://www.teareport.com.)

Reported by nutraingredients.com:
28,991,600,000: The approximate number of liters of tea drinks consumed worldwide annually, according to Canadian/Dohler Market Research

Reported by the Chicago Tribune:
Visitors queued up to check out a high-tech, touch-sensitive Coca-Cola soda fountain that dispenses 104 different drinks through one nozzle. The Freestyle fountain, on display at the National Restaurant Association’s annual show in Chicago, is being tested in Atlanta and California and expected to formally debut in Chicago in August.

Reported by Johnmariani.com:
According to the Wine Market Council, 53 percent of winedrinkers in the U.S. are women. Also, as of 2009, women are now dead even—50 to 50 percent—with men as so-called “core drinkers,” those who drink wine at least once a week.
Nevertheless, when a man and woman sit down to dinner at a restaurant, it’s almost inevitable that the guy grabs or is handed the winelist and chooses the bottle. A survey done by Women & Wine reported that “A majority of [women] stated that when a man is seated with them in the restaurant, the man is usually presented with the wine list. Even more remarkable, 61% of women surveyed noted that even when they had ordered the wine, half the time the waiter presented the bottle to the male at the table.”
Despite Virginia Philip’s renown—the American Sommelier Association declared her the Best Sommelier in the U.S.A. in 2002– she finds that her fellow male Master Sommeliers “literally pounce on the list. I allow them to make their selections. I may order a glass of something else just to get what I really want or to put my two cents in. If I want to see that list, I have to ask for it. Strange right?”

Reported by Nutraingredients.com:
New research from the Institute of Vine and Wine Sciences (ISVV) suggests white wines stored in plastic packaging remain fresh for only six months. Glass is still the dominant force in wine packaging but new formats such as the bag-in-box and PET bottles are gaining in popularity.

Visit: www.johnlehndorff.com
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Radio Nibbles: 8:25 a.m. Thursdays, KGNU – 885 FM, 1390 AM, http://www.kgnu.org/

FOOD TRENDS: Colorado, kombucha and pupusas

This column originally appeared in the February issue of Yellow Scene magazine in Colorado

By JOHN LEHNDORFF

As a lifelong food geek, I jumped at the opportunity in 2009 to work on Eat In Eat Out, a new report focused on U.S. food and beverage trends. Here are some predictions and how they are manifesting in the Colorado market:

- Affordable remains the mantra. Discounts abound at supermarkets as well as better private label brands. Health food prices will get chopped with newcomer Sprouts joining the crowded fray. Expect continued deals (and smaller portions) from independent eateries fighting to outlive the recession as well as a bevy of Colorado-born fast casuals (think Quizno’s, Chipotle, Noodles & Company).

- Local rules for green, food safety and financial reasons. This should be a good year for artisanal cheese makers (Windsor Dairy), pork producers (Long Farms), bread bakers (Breadworks), chocolatiers (Robin Chocolates), and distillers (Leopold Bros.). Bistro menus will prominently detail ingredients’ points of origin.

- Gardening at home continues to boom using local seed (and home canning), chefs tilling their own gardens and farms (Black Cat, Colterra), and more farmers’ markets and stands. Cooking classes will fill as kitchen neophytes realize they don’t know how to cook.   

Other hot trends include:
Street food: Look for more mobile fare from the traditional taco and pupusa wagons to the chef-driven, Twitter-linked Green Gringo truck.

Kombucha: The Denver metro area is the rising epicenter for this tart fermented tea beverage. Kombucha fills store shelves locally, is on tap at Whole Foods and will be bottled soon by Boulder’s Celestial Seasonings.

Plus: anything gluten-free; upscale burger joints; lardo and salumi; and Sechuan buttons.

- Eat In Eat Out: Food trend forecast 2010: http://americanforecaster.com/

2010 MENU: LARDO, SECHUAN BUTTONS AND BLACK GARLIC

In late 2009 I teamed up with Kim Long of Denver’s American Forecaster to research the new culinary trends that we saw developing. The result is Eat In Eat Out, a new business-to-business white paper in magazine form. In the past, such business forecasts have tended to look at restaurants, supermarkets and beverages as separate industries. Fundamental changes in the way that Americans get their fare impelled us to look at what we eat as an interwoven whole.

Among the predictions in Eat In Eat Out:

- Consumers will find plenty of affordable options for food in 2010 as the effects of the recession linger. Supermarkets — from Walmart to Krogers — will continue to push discounts and restaurants — from McDonalds to upscale steak houses — will expand their use of bargain menus. Private labels will continue their resurgence.

- Local sourcing of food will move out of a specialized niche as national food stores and eateries rapidly expand their use of food supplies created locally or regionally including: artisanal cheeses and salumi, heirloom produce, specialty breads, and natural and organic meats. The number of community gardens, small truck farms, farmers’ markets, farm stands and chef-owned gardens will expand. 

- The fastest growth area for new cuisine in 2010 will be street food. Twin factors are behind this trend: economic necessity (chefs driven out of the market for conventional restaurants by high overhead) and foodies (consumers questing for unique culinary adventures without a high price tag). Ethnic cuisines from Central America and Asia are ideally suited to benefit from the street food boom as it spreads from big cities to the suburbs.

 - Eat In Eat Out also points to fast growth for kombucha (a traditional fermented tea backed by major new investments in RTD products), black garlic, lardo, home cooking, upscale burgers, and made-in-America artisanal distilleries.

For more information on Eat In Eat Out, visit www.americanforecaster.com or JohnLehndorff.com.