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GLOBAL FOOD TRENDS
Daventry 20-10-2004
Health
Sensory
Connectivity/Homing
Three mega trends with cross overs. And as datamonitor states: a product is always more
successful when it covers more than one trend.
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Health
Health is our top priority. We are willing to take more responsibility to achieve our well-being
and that results in a new discipline.
Desperately needed in the fight against obesity.
The issues in health
The new diet
Functional foods
Raw Food
Food on the go
Children’s food
Cooking trends
No longer calorie counting, no longer starvation. The new diet is a change of eating habits.
The buzz word is carbs. Low carb or nearly no carb as in the Dr Atkins diet will be replaced
by slow carb.
A new term slow carb. New diets are based around slow digesting carbohydrates. The lesser
refined our food is, the longer it takes to digest, the longer our hunger feelings stay away.
Whole grain bread is better than a wholemeal and wholemeal is better than white flour. An
orange is better than orange juice and unstrained juice is better than strained.
Successful slow carb diets around the world
Dr. Agaston South beach diet in America, he is rapidly taking over from Atkins
Naturlig Slank by the Norwegian Dr. Lindbergh. Very successful with his range of slow carb
foods.
The Montignac diet in France, which allows you to eat foie gras and drink champagne
The GI-factor diet in Australia. Australia is the only country where the slow carb diet is
accepted by the nutrition authorities.
Slow carb diets are based on the blood sugar level. Foods that take a long time to digest e.g.
fat, meat, pulses etc, generate a relatively low peak in the blood sugar level, the satisfaction is
better and the hunger feel stays away longer. The peak of foods that digest very quickly,
sugar, white flour, is much higher so the hunger feeling is back quickly.
Lage Klompweg 20. 1383 PL Weesp. tel: 0294-253776. email: [email protected]
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The peak a food or ingredient reaches is indicated in the glycaemic index… The GI-factor.
The higher the GI of a food is, the quicker it gets in the blood. The quicker you are hungry
again.
Beer, containing maltose, has the highest index, vegetables, with an exception of root
vegetables are low and fat, meat and fish, products with hardly any carbs have no to a very
low GI.
In the slow carb diets the focus is on vegetables, grains and pulses, meat, fish and low fat
yoghurts and cheese.
On the long term slow carb changes:
The food on our plate: More vegetables, less pasta and potatoes and more wholegrain
bread.
Our taste preferences. Less sweet, sugar is addictive
And the texture of our food. The last for the simple reason that unrefined ingredients
need more chewing.
Slow carb is a creative food trend and closely related with organic. Popular among food
writers and chefs. Look in magazines like Olive, Elle Food or the French Saveur for good
examples of recipes.
Or taste the dishes at for instance the River Café in London, the Cotswolds House in Chipping
Camden, restaurant de Kas in Amsterdam or Pierre Gagnaire in Paris.
An example of this trend is the Good Start Bread of Unilever, aimed at young children’s. The
bread looks white, but contains all the fibres and nutrional values of wholemeal bread. It’s
nominated for health food award.
Functional foods
Protein is the supplement of the moment. This trend comes from Japan, the biggest market for
functional foods in the world. Protein is fuel, a building block and regulates our body. Look
out for peptide a new, European milk protein. It is has a lot of advantages over soy protein.
It’s more digestible and less bitter than soy protein and can be used in dairy, yoghurt, bars
cereals.
Worldwide the baby boomer the most likely candidate for functional foods. Their age makes
them more cautious. The carrier has to have a traditional healthy image. E.g. dairy, low fat
yoghurt, fruit juices, cereals. The new milk protein with its proclaimed ant-ageing effect has a
lot of potential for this group.
Lage Klompweg 20. 1383 PL Weesp. tel: 0294-253776. email: [email protected]
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Raw Food
Raw food is the opposite trend. Yes, raw food, raw vegetables, fish and also meat. Food as
pure as you can eat. The best for your body you can do, as the follower’s state. Since the
publication of the raw food cookbook by America’s celebrity chef Charlie Trotter this niche
has an influence on top restaurants around the world. Interesting ideas when salads and other
cold food are your business.
More accessible is feel good food. Food as natural health or mood booster. You will find the
dedicated followers among high educated baby boomers. The same ones who favour organic
foods.
Food on the go
More than ever is the consumer aware that eating on the go is replacing the traditional meal.
This food must have the highest nutritional value possible. Less fat, less (unrefined)
carbohydrates and more vegetables. Not so much new, as different... You know the
Mediterranean food pyramid, but have you ever heard of the Asian food pyramid? With Food
on the go as the first global food trend, eastern style dishes are as much liked as western style.
And remember food on the go is only accepted when it is spoonable, forkable or
chopstickable. The best food on the go is found in Australia.
Children’s food
The children growing older younger trend, should be expected in food. It is a strange
phenomenon that both parents and the industry think that children only like fun food. The
moment children start to read and write they enter a new life stage. We take them more
serious than before and we give them their first responsibilities. Why isn’t food one of them?
In Amsterdam it works … At certain schools, children are only allowed to eat fruits,
vegetables or a sandwich during breaks. It makes them aware of good and bad foods. Like this
eight year old girl told me. Her drink is Spa Apple. Mineral water with apple juice, No added
sugar. She even told me that a can of coke a day will result in an extra kilo of weight in a
year.
It’s new. I think an effective answer to the much feared child obesity.
This book. How to teach your children to eat good food is a good information source.
A side step: The new hype in America will be the anti-soft drink attitude. It is said that the
corn syrup in the drinks is even worse than sugar. The impact on the industry will be huge.
Lage Klompweg 20. 1383 PL Weesp. tel: 0294-253776. email: [email protected]
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Health related cooking techniques
Marinades
A healthy, creative, very convenient way of adding flavour to food.
Dressings
The new sauce is fluid and transparent. Stocks, reductions, vinegars and oils are the healthy
replacements for cream, flour and butter in sauces.
Steaming, grilling and roasting, slow roasting for meat are the healthy cooking options. They
require no or little fat and add a lot of flavour.
Lage Klompweg 20. 1383 PL Weesp. tel: 0294-253776. email: [email protected]
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SENSORY
Food has changed from a necessity for living to a way of expressing ourselves. Food has to
please all our senses. Taste is the most important of them. It gives us satisfaction, even an
orgasmic experience. People who loose their taste are as much handicapped as blind or deaf
people. The futuristic idea of living on pills is light years away.
New taste
Taste boosting techniques
Modern art food
Authenticity
New Taste
The flavours we prefer are a reflection of the time we live in.
Adventure and safety at the same time. The new taste is round, is soft and has a filming
structure. Flavours that soothe us. Comfort flavours.
Stews, regional dishes, family recipes. From all cultures. Every cuisine has its comfort food.
Think of couscous, noodles, pasta, curries.
Sweet & spicy
Taste the warm comfortable combination of cinnamon with honey. Sweeteners with layered
flavours: honey, maple syrup, molasses.
And sweet spices: cinnamon, cardamom, Chinese five spices ... Chillies. Bold flavours; in
savoury dishes as well as sweet. Look out for very interesting ice creams, like caramel-chilli
and pumpkin curry.
New favourites spices of American chefs; sumac and grains of paradise, with acid aromas and
piment d’espelette, an aromatic crossing between a bell and a chilli.
Taste boosting techniques
Barbecuing, smoking, curing and pickling are taste boosting cooking techniques. Often used
in combination with marinates. Barbecue is booming. Indoor barbecue restaurants in America.
Outdoor winter barbecues in Europe. ‘Indirect grilling’, slow barbecuing in a closed Weber
barbecue, is the latest barbecue fad for the home cook.
Lage Klompweg 20. 1383 PL Weesp. tel: 0294-253776. email: [email protected]
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Smoking, curing and pickling are introduced by the cuisines of the new EU countries. The
Eastern Europe cuisines will bring new creativity in the kitchens of Western Europe and even
America. Comfort food with bold, soothing flavours, created with simple ingredients.
Adventure and safety. Scandinavia reinvents its traditional cooking. Simple ingredients with
adventurous spices. With the best examples in Sweden. The catalyst … the University of
Culinary Arts in Orebro. Watch out for the new generation of travelling Swedish chefs.
Home style food – Jamie Oliver style food. That is worldwide the biggest trend.
Modern art cooking
There is a counter trend- small but very influential in top restaurants.
I call it Modern art food or shock food. Food for the experienced eater and top skilled chef.
The inventor is Ferran Adria of the El Bulli restaurant in Spain. All his dishes are shocks.
Bold contrasting flavours and textures, not always pleasing. It’s the experience that counts.
Some examples; powdered ice cream of ducks liver, dried fishbone with spun sugar, warm
vegetable jellies. Ferran Adria is voted in the times A-list of the 100 most influential people
in the world. His modern art food has made Spain the number one inspiration and destination
for young ambitious chefs. He has followers on all continents. The best example in the UK:
Heston Blumenthal owner of the fat duck in Bray.
Authenticity
A growing group of consumers has had enough of bland tasting mass produced foods. Better
taste, greater variety and freshness. Authentic tastes. The extra-ordinairy in the ordinairy.
Fruits, vegetables, meat, mushrooms, but of the best quality possible.
The new delicatessen is fresh food. Dutch growers respond to this demand with new varieties
and the branding of their fruit & vegetables. So consumers can recognize quality. Next year
hype strawberries.
Authenticity is back to basics. The Dutch growers go back to the wild varieties to find
answers and solutions for better resistance and better taste. Food producers have to do the
same; going back to the core values of a product. A dramatic change in food technology.
Basic cooking is the new wave in cookbooks
Lage Klompweg 20. 1383 PL Weesp. tel: 0294-253776. email: [email protected]
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CONNECTIVITY
Real connections involve care. Care for family, friends, for your colleagues, for your
neighbourhood. Food is no offensive and therefore very helpful in building connections.
Slow Food
Fooding
Home Entertaining
Slow Food
What started in Italy as a protest against fast food is now a very influential movement in
connectivity. The aim of Slow Food is to protect the pleasure of the table against the
homogenisation of fast food and life. 80,000 members in 100 different countries help
promoting gastronomic culture, and taste education. The biggest influence however has Slow
Food on the conservation of agricultural biodiversity and the protection of traditional foods at
the risk of extinction. Slow Food members connect locally via workshops and support for
local producers and internationally via the salon del Gusto. This bi-annual food fair is this
weekend in Turin. The best show case I know for what is happening in the world of class
food.
Fooding
In Paris well educated young cosmopolites are connected by radio Nova Planet. For their
music and for art, culture and leisure. ‘Fooding’, food and feeling is what they are looking for
at the places where they eat. Character, harmony, a relaxed surrounding. Good food, respect
for dishes and ingredients.
It is relaxed food, the opposite of the French classical restaurant. Fooding is about tradional
and trendy food, classical restaurant as will as the hip ones (branché in French). The best
Fooding addresses are found in the guide with the same name. Don’t worry; every review
ends with an English summary. Fooding could bring Paris back on the culinary map.
Home Entertaining
The dining table as the centre stage for connectivity. The popularity of the dinner party grows
rapidly in the Northern countries of Europe. It’s becoming the number one of leisure activities
for the Saturday evening.
The new dinner party asks involvement of all the diners. Physically in sharing the work in the
kitchen and the foods at the table and mentally in taking part in the discussions.
Lage Klompweg 20. 1383 PL Weesp. tel: 0294-253776. email: [email protected]
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The new dinner party is seen as a project. The time you spend in organising is as much quality
time as dinner party itself.
Interesting difference: the baby boomers want to show their cooking skills and the younger
generations their social skills.
Baby boomers are seeking for products that help them to prepare real food. The younger
generations are interested in solutions and ideas to prepare food that they can share at the
table.
This trend has the biggest booster you can think of. Jamie Oliver’s new book ‘Dinners’ will
become the inspirational bible for home entertaining. Worldwide!
Lage Klompweg 20. 1383 PL Weesp. tel: 0294-253776. email: [email protected]
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