Listen to the full conversation:
Nancy Kruse: I’d love to get your take on the National Restaurant Association Show that just ended. I look forward to that orgy of ideas every year, and I would say the show really surpassed itself this year.
I liked the fact that the producers adopted some new colors and graphics. There was a sense of freshness, and the aisles were packed from the opening on Saturday morning. My sense was that people were coming back to the innovation and interest that we had before the recession. And there were a lot of product categories that seemed to me to be breaking out.
First of all, nuts have very much come into their own. There was a nut milk alternative called Milkadamia, which is made from macadamia nuts. There were macadamias, as well as cashews, in the nut hummus from Hail Merry Foods, and it was tasty. It came in very merchandisable varieties — Sriracha and Hatch green chile, for example. There were Turkish hazelnuts, and I didn’t realize until I stopped at the booth that about 75 percent of the world’s supply of hazelnuts come from Turkey.
In addition to nuts, we’ve gone kind of peanutty too. Hampton Farms, which is out of North Carolina, grows peanuts, but also provides a really nice machine so you can grind them into fresh peanut butter, and I understand that has been a real hit with the Whole Foods crowd. Also on the floor, Bell Plantation, which is a peanut processor in Georgia, did a wonderful job with something called PB2, which is powdered peanut butter that had a terrific depth of flavor, and you can use it in all kinds of applications both sweet and savory. But what about you? What did you see that was interesting?
Bret Thorn: Did you stop by the boiled peanut booth?
Kruse: No. I’m sorry that I missed them. That’s a real iconic snack here in the Southeast, and I’m based in Atlanta.
Thorn: I liked the presence of nuts, too, because nuts are really good for you. But then I got depressed as I saw so many ludicrous nutritional claims on a lot of the packaging on other products. I saw companies displaying what was basically soda, but they marketed them as being good for you because they didn’t have high fructose corn syrup. But they had plenty of sugar in them. I saw one manufacturer showing “natural sugars,” like sugar cane and agave and palm sugar, all of which are perfectly fine sugars, but pretending that they are anything other than sugar goes up my nose.
I also saw a lot of exhibitors declaring that they no longer have genetically modified organisms in their foods. There is a scientific consensus as broad as the one about global warming that GMO foods are perfectly fine for you. But there really are some serious nutritional issues in this country, and I think jumping all over GMOs instead is kind of a drag.
I didn’t mean to get off on that gloomy tangent. There were a lot of cool products at the show, and I saw more and more companies showing the stories behind their food, like those Turkish hazelnuts. Were there other places you saw that told their food story well?
Kruse: Before I move on to that, let me say that I quite agree with you. I was also overwhelmed by the quasi-nutritional turn that some suppliers have taken. It’s just the opening [salvo] on things like substitute sweeteners, for example, or GMOs. I suspect that you and I will be chatting about that and perhaps grinding our teeth about it well into the future.
But back to your question, I’m always delighted and a little surprised by the Wisconsin cheese makers who seemed sort of geographically confused, because they reliably produce first-class cheeses that taste as if they didn’t come from Wisconsin but from somewhere in the Old World. The Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board’s booth had all kinds of wonderful cheeses. There were a couple of fetas, briny and wonderful. There was a killer Camembert, absolutely scrumptious triple crèmes. There was delicious Havarti — you could have it with or without the caraway seeds — but from my point of view, the real pièce de résistance, and one of the best pieces of cheese at the show, was an award-winning American Grana from BelGioioso. Grana is the classic Italian cheese. In this case, they age it 18 months. It’s got that wonderful nuttiness, a lovely texture. Did you get the chance to stop by the Milk Marketing Board booth?
Thorn: I did, but I missed the Grana. I just ate some rich, sharp Cheddar cheeses. Then I went on a protein binge: I checked out all of the different kinds of charcuterie that were at the show. I also ended up eating a lot of upscale gyros. Instead of the usual ground meat loaf, which I happen to enjoy, there were stacks of whole-meat muscle, and there was also a vegetarian gyro, that if you had it with tzatziki and onions and so on was delicious.
More frozen pastries
I had a fair amount of seafood also. I know you saw the trout jerky that I certainly loved. I also had buri from a Japanese company that’s farm-raising it in the Sea of Japan. Buri is mature yellowtail — larger and richer than the younger hamachi. I saw some great fish nuggets, too. One was coated with potato flakes, and another had Sriracha, because everything is coated with Sriracha these days. I also saw some great whitefish burgers.
There seemed to be a lot going on at the NRA’s booth.
Kruse: There was indeed. Adjacent to the NRA booth they had a wonderful new audience participation vehicle called the ServSafe Ninja Warrior Challenge, which was a four-station obstacle course. It had a huge digital clock. It had stripe-shirted referees, who were waving flags. Folks were on the sidelines urging forward the competitors.
The objective of this was to test the contestants’ skills in food safety and responsible alcohol service. Everybody that completed the course received a medal and a free training course. The fastest warrior each day scored a $500 gift certificate, which was obviously a big hit.
It seems to me there has been a trend toward providing high-quality convenience foods, so operators can direct their attention to more artistically challenging jobs in the kitchen. Did you see much going on there?
Thorn: I saw little pucks of soup that could be thawed and served in single-serving portions. I also saw a lot more frozen pastries — ready-to-cook croissants, ready-to-reheat or thaw Italian pastries and German pretzels — that allow operators the flexibility to use them whenever they want.
There were also a bunch of gluten-free items, and a lot of them really tasted good, which I think is kind of a change. There were great cookies and muffins and some really delicious cakes, which was a little surprising. Did you see many surprises at the show?
Kruse: I did. First was an absolutely, spectacularly delicious foie gras bratwurst from Bella Bella Gourmet Foods, but I don’t think you’re going to be seeing it at tailgate parties any time soon.
Thorn: Or maybe you should go to a higher class of tailgate party.
Kruse: You’re a highflying New York editor. I can’t set my sights quite that high.
However, you had referenced earlier the trout jerky from Sunburst Farms, and I came across it and loved it. I thought the taste and texture were absolutely right on, and of course it’s combined with the health and protein-forward benefits of fish.
That whole jerky category has just taken off. It’s been in double-digit growth, and I just saw a report from the supermarket industry that says its one of the top five fastest-growing snack categories, driven by a number of factors like demand for better snacks, interest in protein and the introduction of new age turkey varieties that reflect a culinary sensibility.
Then I found, believe it or not, popped sorghum. The Kansas Department of Agriculture sponsored a booth that included sorghum, which is an ancient cereal grass. It has received a second wind in the last year or two. In fact, I wrote a piece on it last year talking about how sorghum syrup and sorghum molasses are turning up all over the place.
Thorn: Especially in the South, right?
Kruse: Yes, precisely, for biscuits, and it goes with cornbread. It also happens that sorghum is extremely nutritious and, perhaps more importantly at this point, it’s very drought resistant, so it might just be the right crop at the right time.
Was there anything that you found especially head-turning?
Thorn: I ended up spending a fair amount of time at the Bar Show.
Kruse: Of course you did.
Hemp-flavored vodka
Thorn: I went to the pavilion of my home state of Colorado, where two meaderies were represented. There was also a distiller who had managed to figure out how to make vodka out of hemp seeds.
Kruse: There were hemp folks on the main show floor as well, offering hemp as a food ingredient, but I somehow managed to miss the liquid form.
Thorn: The hemp seeds were tasty. They were crunchy and fibrous, but they also had hemp seeds that had most of the fiber removed in case you want hemp’s other nutritional benefits without the fiber. Of course the hemp doesn’t have any THC, so it’s legal everywhere.
There was hemp-flavored vodka from Chicago that didn’t have any cannabis in it at all, but was meant to taste that way, which I thought was kind of weird but interesting, and there were also some distillers from Iowa who were making whiskey only from grain within 25 miles of their distillery.
Kruse: That’s right in line with the local foods craze, which continues to roar on.
Thorn: Absolutely, and something that you don’t see that much of at the National Restaurant Show, because people come from all over. But if you run a distillery or brewery and you are using local ingredients, that can be a great way to display appreciation for local ingredients.
Nancy Kruse, president of the Kruse Company, is a menu trends analyst based in Atlanta and a regular contributor to Nation’s Restaurant News. E-mail her at [email protected].
Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected].
Follow him on Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
