Imagine a convention center the size of about 10 football fields filled with endless rows of specialty food products. One stall sells Wagyu beef jerky, another wants to introduce you to gochujang cheese. There are cauliflower bites, pickle dip, plant-based shrimp, plenty of non-alcoholic drinks, and Snickers coffee. The Japan Foreign Trade Organization has several rows of products from around the country and a chef preparing teriyaki chicken during a live cooking demonstration. This is the Winter Fancy Food show.
The annual trade show took place last week in Las Vegas. It is organized by the Specialty Food Assn., a nonprofit trade organization founded in 1952, whose members include artisans, importers, suppliers, retailers and distributors in the world of specialty foods. Thousands of people roam the convention center during the three-day extravaganza, but none are as knowledgeable or popular as Cathy Strange, Whole Foods Market's food culture ambassador.
I asked Strange to help me identify some new trends and products that consumers can expect in 2024.
At the Winter Fancy Food Show, hundreds of lines of produce filled the Las Vegas Convention Center in early January.
(Specialty Foods Association)
Wearing a vest with a pin that said “the best things in life are cheese,” he led me through endless rows of snacks, desserts, and dairy products. It was like walking with the mayor of a small town. Every few stalls, people waved and shouted with greetings and a warm smile. Everyone wanted her to come.
“I have to take you to get some butter,” he said as he walked purposefully down a hallway. “It is the best butter in the world. Oh, and buckwheat. I think it was row 2300?
In his nearly 34 years at Whole Foods Market, Strange has overseen the selection of all specialty foods, including cheese, olives, artisanal chocolate and adult beverages. In her new role as a food culture ambassador, she focuses on educating the stores' various market teams and is one of more than 50 members of Whole Foods Market's trend council that includes pickers, buyers and various experts. culinary.
“We got together and identified what we're seeing not only as flavor trends but also as product trends and also as a step forward,” he said. “The trends aren't even coming now, but maybe in a few years.”
One of the trends he anticipates has to do with alcohol and cheese. “I'm seeing a lot of products similar to Prosecco and other alcohols in terms of washed rinds,” he said.
Jasper Hill Farm Withersbrook Blue Cheese
Jasper Hill Farm Withersbrook blue cheese is aged in caves for two months in ice wine.
(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)
He directed me to the Jasper Hill Farm booth to try a raw-milk Vermont blue cheese dipped in ice cider, a product made with juice from frozen apples.
The cheese is a variant of the farm's Bayley Hazen blue cheese. Strange, who has also been an international cheese judge for decades, notes that this particular cheese has won numerous accolades.
Mateo Kehler, who co-founded the farm 20 years ago, explained that the cheese is aged in caves for two months and then placed in a bag with about 3 ounces of Eden ice cider. The packages are turned every two weeks to ensure the cheese is well coated.
The first thing you notice is a surprising fruity aroma. The cheese is soft, without that harsh astringency that sometimes occurs in other blues. All that residual sugar in the cider combines wonderfully with the cheese, giving it a pleasant acidity and a noticeable but fleeting fermented apple flavor.
“People are often intimidated by blue,” Kehler said. “We consider these blue cheeses to be the gateway to the blues.”
Withersbrook's new cider-dipped blue cheese will be priced between $32 and $36 per pound and is expected to be available at Whole Foods and other retailers in May.
Maine's Best Crunchy Buckwheat Crackers
Buckwheat is great. These Maine Crisp Buckwheat Crackers would go well with that blue cheese.
(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)
“I think we're going to see more and more buckwheat,” Strange said as we approached a table full of crackers. “When I was in a Michelin restaurant in Norway they had buckwheat with foie gras and it had like three different textures. “It’s just killing it in restaurants.”
The Maine Crisp company makes five varieties of potato chips and three flavors of crackers, all using buckwheat, the seed harvested from the flowering plant. It is not a grain and is naturally gluten-free.
Fig and Thyme Crisps are light and crunchy and generously garnished with dried fruits and nuts. I wish I had a box 10 minutes earlier when I tried the Withersbrook Blue. There's also an olive and za'taar crisp, as well as a cranberry and almond crisp and a new line of crackers. You can find select flavors online and in stores throughout Southern California.
Funky Mello Vanilla Marshmallow Cream
Containers of Funky Mello marshmallow creme made with aquafaba at the Winter Fancy Food Show in Las Vegas.
(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)
Next, Strange directed me to the Funky Mello booth in the Diversity Pavilion, an area of the fair meant to celebrate diversity, equity and inclusion in the world of specialty foods. The Texas-based company produces a plant-based marshmallow spread made with a chickpea byproduct called aquafaba.
Husband and wife Delisa and Zach Harper are behind the brand, which makes flavored marshmallow spreads as well as Dippsterz, small pretzels packaged with marshmallow spreads for dipping.
The Harpers suggest using the cream in coffee, as a topping for pancakes or waffles, and as a dip for fruit. I was just as happy eating it straight out of my wooden sampler spoon. The texture is more reminiscent of marshmallow fluff than cream, and is packed with toasted sugar notes that evoke memories of marshmallows roasting over a campfire.
The full line of creamers and Dippsterz are now available for purchase online and the vanilla and cookie flavored creamers will launch at Los Angeles area Whole Foods markets in March. According to the website's store locator, you can find the products at three stores in California, including 7 Vegan Market in Garden Grove.
In addition to my walk through the fair with Strange, I spent three days searching for new and innovative foods that I can't wait to see at my local market.
The art of broth drinking broth
Art of Broth CEO Sophie Helfend holds one of their plant-based broth tea bags.
(Patrick Sasso – sassofoto.com)
The Art of Broth is a brand that makes tasty plant-based broths and packages them in individual tea bags. You soak the bags in hot water and a few minutes later you have a steaming cup of soup.
“We developed an innovative four-hour cooking process at a low, precise temperature,” said Sophie Helfend, the company's 23-year-old CEO. “We dehydrate the broth to ensure there is no water activity, allowing for a two-year shelf life.”
Although plant-based, Thai lemongrass, chicken, beef and vegetable broths have the same rich mouthfeel and deep, developed flavors of a bone broth or slow-cooked vegetable broth, thanks to the use of culinary yeast.
Helfend said the plan is to leverage airlines, nursing homes, hotels and universities and make this “a global brand.” Drinking lemongrass broth at 30,000 feet seems like a great idea.
Prime Roots x Three Little Pigs vegan foie gras
Vegan foie gras at the Winter Fancy Food Show in Las Vegas.
(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)
I was skeptical when someone told me there was a plant-based foie gras at the fair. I had read about Nestlé testing a vegan foie gras called Voie Gras in Spain and Switzerland last year, and about a few other attempts. But how could anyone replicate the ultra-rich and delicate flavor of duck liver?
Prime Roots x Three Little Pigs' koji-foie gras comes pretty close. The plant-based deli meats company partnered with the decades-old charcuterie brand to create a line of koji-based foie gras and pâté.
Koji (the mold used in the base of soy sauce, miso, sake and mirin), along with coconut oil, pea protein and a host of other ingredients, give the product the same essence as a good pate. It has the same meaty flavor with a smooth texture but with a grainy touch.
It's the only fake meat that could change my mind about the entire genre. Although I mostly like it as a tasty non-denominational spread for any bread or cracker. If you dropped the foie gras in the name and called it a vegetable spread, I'd like it anyway.
Foie gras and pâté can be purchased online.
Chocolate Super Mario Charapaki
Super Mario Charapaki Chocolate Cookies seen at the Winter Fancy Food Show in Las Vegas. The cookies will be available at Japanese markets in Los Angeles in the spring.
(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times)
It is a cookie dipped in chocolate. It's also a game. The cookies feature Super Mario characters that you try to free without deciphering them. If you win, you can eat your Super Mario cookie in one piece and rejoice. If you lose, you can still eat a cookie.
The chocolate chip cookies will be available this spring at Japanese markets in the Los Angeles area.
