Homogeneity is Out
As the color of our population
changes, so does the color of our food.
When food processors figured
out how to strip imperfections from foods like wheat, rice, and potatoes: Wonder
bread, Parboiled rice, and McDonalds French Fries were born. These days, white
food is losing market share as quickly as white faces are becoming the minority
in the USA.
If you look around the grocery store these days, you’ll see a trend away from white, homogeneous, uniform, perfect, “factory” food. Consumers are not just tolerant of random product variations; they are actually seeking them out. Witness a few examples:
Lays potato chips dominate the market. However, the smaller players are driving more natural products. Kettle’s Yukon Gold chips are full of color and have much more flavor than their graded, trimmed, and bleached russet counterparts.
It’s no wonder the french fry industry has recently experienced negative numbers: the bulk of the industry’s product is lily white, uniform in length, and bland in flavor: opposite of what restaurant customers want these days (but old habits die hard!). McDonalds is the industry standard, but why haven’t suppliers tackled the other end of the spectrum? Where is the super-premium frozen french fry that doesn’t look like it came from a factory?
When Wonder Bread was introduced, it was the greatest thing since, well, sliced bread. Today I would guess that children eat the majority of it. Adults are demanding more interesting flavors and grains in their multigrain and whole grain breads. Interstate Bakeries, the parent company, was grossly late to the multigrain party. They are now in bankruptcy.
The beer category has been trending away from white, toward darker, heartier beers for years. There’s nothing quite as refreshing as an ice-cold Budweiser from a longneck bottle, but it is “plain vanilla.” Darker, more flavorful beers like Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada, Anchor Steam, and a thousand other microbrews have picked off the colorful end of the category.
The use of grey fleur de sel, red Hawaiian sea salt, and other unpurified salts are a visible trend at the white tablecloth restaurant level. This is where food trends tend to start and trickle (or should I say sprinkle?) down to the mainstream. And salt—as perhaps the most basic ingredient, seasoning, and nutrient in all of our diets--- is an appropriate indicator that many OTHER everyday foodstuffs are long overdue for a colorful makeover.
If you look around the grocery store these days, you’ll see a trend away from white, homogeneous, uniform, perfect, “factory” food. Consumers are not just tolerant of random product variations; they are actually seeking them out. Witness a few examples:
Lays potato chips dominate the market. However, the smaller players are driving more natural products. Kettle’s Yukon Gold chips are full of color and have much more flavor than their graded, trimmed, and bleached russet counterparts.
It’s no wonder the french fry industry has recently experienced negative numbers: the bulk of the industry’s product is lily white, uniform in length, and bland in flavor: opposite of what restaurant customers want these days (but old habits die hard!). McDonalds is the industry standard, but why haven’t suppliers tackled the other end of the spectrum? Where is the super-premium frozen french fry that doesn’t look like it came from a factory?
When Wonder Bread was introduced, it was the greatest thing since, well, sliced bread. Today I would guess that children eat the majority of it. Adults are demanding more interesting flavors and grains in their multigrain and whole grain breads. Interstate Bakeries, the parent company, was grossly late to the multigrain party. They are now in bankruptcy.
The beer category has been trending away from white, toward darker, heartier beers for years. There’s nothing quite as refreshing as an ice-cold Budweiser from a longneck bottle, but it is “plain vanilla.” Darker, more flavorful beers like Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada, Anchor Steam, and a thousand other microbrews have picked off the colorful end of the category.
The use of grey fleur de sel, red Hawaiian sea salt, and other unpurified salts are a visible trend at the white tablecloth restaurant level. This is where food trends tend to start and trickle (or should I say sprinkle?) down to the mainstream. And salt—as perhaps the most basic ingredient, seasoning, and nutrient in all of our diets--- is an appropriate indicator that many OTHER everyday foodstuffs are long overdue for a colorful makeover.
Colorful, flavorful
salts: an indicator?
Posted: Mon - March 21, 2005 at 09:27 PM
Quick Links
Calendar
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
Categories
Archives
XML/RSS Feed
Statistics
Total entries in this blog:
Total entries in this category:
Published On: May 12, 2005 05:37 PM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: May 12, 2005 05:37 PM