Every year, thousands of food brands head to New York to show off their wares and entice buyers from grocery stores to stock their products. It's a trade show titled the Fancy Foods Show (the summer session ended July 2), and it's one of the best places to catch trends before they hit grocery store shelves. New products make their debuts there, and months later, they appear on the shelves of your local Whole Foods Market.
Here are the flavors and products that are going to be big over the next year:
Ayurvedic foods: Ayurveda is the Indian practice of holistic medicine in which certain foods and herbs are eaten together to balance a person's health and to benefit digestion, immunity and more. While many Indian foods are Ayurvedic, specialty brands are now expressly branding their products with the term.
A company named Dancing Elephant is producing packaged cups of kitchari, an Indian stew that boasts healing spices, in three flavors. Atina Foods makes traditional Indian herbal jams, pickles and pastes, from "home recipes evolved from Indian Ayurvedic healing traditions." Davidson's Organics has introduced a line of Ayurvedic teas. And Bohana, a snack food company, makes bags of air-popped water lily seeds, "one of the most popular seeds in Ayurveda." They're similar to popcorn or puffed rice.
Canned fish salads: "Canned fish salad" is not a very sexy phrase, but hear me out. This is not your water-packed StarKist: It's a high-quality fish with vegetables, herbs and spices, and if you pair a tin of it with a crusty roll, you'll have a perfectly good meal. Sardines have been getting trendier, and the brand Season is on the bandwagon, offering a sardine salad kit in three flavors. The kits come with a spoon and crackers.
Spicy drinking vinegars: Maybe you haven't yet realized that drinking vinegar is A Thing or even why drinking vinegar is A Thing. It's OK, I'm here for you. Drinking a small daily quantity of straight-up apple cider vinegar became trendy in the past three years. Plain apple cider vinegar is, for most people, unpleasant to drink -- throat burn! -- so many versions of the drink sweeten it with maple syrup or juice to make it more palatable.
But this year, several companies are taking a cue from a traditional folk recipe and leaning into the burn: Fire Brew, based in Portland, Ore., has a line of "health tonics." Fire Cider has an extra-spicy take on the drink. Red Root & Co. calls its version Fire Tonic. A little goes a long way.
Flavored ghees: Ghee, or clarified butter, is another staple of Indian cooking, but it has been having a moment of late -- thanks, in part, to its purported health benefits, and also because the fat is promoted for adherents of the paleo and ketogenic diets. Plain ghee is versatile, but at this year's show, special flavored ghees were popping up.
Quinoa situations: It's not just in salads. It's in your breakfast, your chocolate, your macaroni and cheese. You cannot escape quinoa. Do not resist. Have it for breakfast with Melanie's Medleys, a line of ready-to-eat morning grain bowls, or try Prime Planet's instant quinoa cereal. The brand Tiny Hero, too, has three flavors of quinoa and oat breakfast bowls and is also putting quinoa in macaroni and cheese, er, excuse me, "maq and cheese." Unreal is selling crispy quinoa-filled versions of M&Ms and Reese's peanut butter cups.
Moringa goes mainstream: Mankind's quest to discover new superfoods continues apace. next up: moringa, an ancient plant that has long been used in Asia and Africa for its reputed health benefits. According to Healthline, it is rich in nutrients and antioxidants, and it may reduce inflammation. So it's no surprise that it's popping up in products. Kuli Kuli sells powdered moringa smoothie mix, energy shots and moringa superfood bars, with a half-cup of greens in each bar. If you would rather crunch your moringa like cheese puffs, Vegan Rob's makes snackable puffed moringa bites.
Cauliflower gets convenient: Cooking with this trendy brassica has never been easier, thanks to new convenience products that go beyond your basic cauliflower rice. Caulipower has a cauliflower-based baking mix, in regular and paleo-friendly. Glean also makes cauliflower flour. Kitchen & Love sells cauliflower cups intended to be a quick convenience meal in three globally inspired flavors. From the Ground Up has cauliflower-based replacements for all of your favorite junk food, such as pretzel sticks and Cheez-Its. And there's cauliflower in chocolate ice cream -- yes, ice cream -- by Peekaboo. Don't worry, it tastes like chocolate ice cream.
Kombucha + booze: Kombucha is great, but wouldn't it be even better if it could get you tipsy? now, it can. The fermented tea drink has a tiny amount of alcohol in it, but some companies are increasing the alcohol by volume (ABV). Wild Tonic's Jun Kombucha is fermented until it reaches 5.6 percent ABV, making it slightly boozier than many beers.
Cucumber ... in what?: You'll be drinking a lot of cucumber soon, especially in sparkling beverages: Belvoir Fruit Farms has a cucumber-and-mint lemonade, and Found has a cucumber mint sparkling water. natalie's Orchid Island Juice Co. is selling a cucumber jalapeno juice, and House of Broughton has a cucumber syrup. Bauman's Best Botanicals has a cucumber-and-spice shrub, Health-Ade Kombucha has a new jalapeno-kiwi-cucumber kombucha, and Dry has cans of cucumber soda. Try ZuMora cucumber mint agua fresca, or GoLive probiotic water in cucumber melon. Pretend you are in a spa. That's where people drink cucumber.
Water weirdness: You're still drinking coconut water? What is this, 2015? Birch water is so last year. Don't even talk to me about aloe water. We obviously need new waters, so let's dive right in: There's Bee's Water, a honey-sweetened water that is "full of natural energy." Then there's Sap on Tap, a maple water whose motto goes for the jugular: "Out with coconut water. In with maple tree water." One of its waters comes with yerba mate, for a natural caffeine boost.
But wait, here comes the mic drop of waters: organic water.
A company named Asarasi makes sparkling water that is harvested as a byproduct from maple sap, and because it is filtered through the tree, it has achieved USDA organic certification, something that regular water does not have (water is an inorganic compound). It tastes like sparkling water.
Last: an Israeli company called O. Vine is making wine grape water. It's a sparkling water that gets its slight wine flavor from grape skins. I regret to inform you that it has no alcohol in it. I will continue drinking my own version of grape water: It's called wine.
Weekend on 07/19/2018