Tech-savvy, avant-garde Millennials who continue to be the focus of restaurant marketers are said to be looking for food and drinks that harken back to an imagined simpler time.
However, that age group, born roughly between 1980 and 2000, doesn’t actually have firsthand knowledge of any such era, if such a simpler time ever existed. Trend experts at MUFSO said that apparent contradiction provides an opportunity for operators, who can create their own definitions that will lead the rising generation of simultaneously skittish and adventurous foodies into their restaurants.
Millennials have reasons to be skittish, commodities expert John Barone, president of Market Vision, pointed out. While the national unemployment rate recently dropped below 6 percent, for Millennials it remains over 13 percent, he said.
Hence their reason for seeking food and drinks that, to them at least, seem grounded in tradition, according to menu expert and Kruse Company president Nancy Kruse, who also spoke at MUFSO.
Tradition doesn’t mean a rejection of technology, however. Kruse praised Chili’s enthusiastic introduction of tabletop tablets to their restaurants, and also the fact that the high-tech move was counterbalanced by the introduction of guacamole prepared tableside, giving servers the opportunity to interact with customers, and customers the sense of authenticity they crave.
At the Food & Spirits Festival, where sponsors displayed their wares, Sara Lee demonstrated a new smartphone app that pairs its sausage with different beers.
Sara Lee chose to pair them with beer styles rather than specific brands since restaurants favored using local, craft beers.
Among the retro trends evoking bygone eras that were identified at MUFSO were classic cocktails, whether from the Prohibition era or from the 1950s and ’60s, which were pointed to by food and beverage research firm Food IQ.
Kruse noted restaurant design elements including Edison light bulbs and tables made from reclaimed barn doors. The latter doesn’t necessarily point to a specific time in the past, but she said they imbued restaurants with a feeling of authenticity.
“Authenticity” was a common theme among food-focused panelists at MUFSO, who at the same time warned against taking that notion too much to heart.
When Kruse was asked if she could give precise definitions for words like “authentic” and “natural,” she simply said, “No.”
Observing that, since there are no government-mandated or widely accepted definitions of those notions, “brands can grab the opportunity and create the reality,” she said.
Dick Lynch, chief global brand officer for Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, said that the ongoing success of his chain is in part due to rebranding efforts that accentuated the Atlanta-based restaurant’s Louisiana heritage.
In a separate panel, Popeyes vice president of culinary innovation, Amy Alarcon, explained the origins of the chain’s current limited-time offer, Beer Can Chicken, were inspired by a common backyard barbecue tradition in the South — in which a can of beer, often spiked with assorted seasonings, is inserted into the chicken’s body cavity while it cooks — even though Popeyes’ version doesn’t contain any beer.
Glen Helton, co-owner and president of VooDoo BBQ & Grill, based in New Orleans, explained in a panel titled “What’s Your Menu’s Story?” that, for his restaurant, he created a cuisine that didn’t actually exist — New Orleans-style barbecue. That included menu items such as jambalaya with smoked sausage, nachos topped with barbecue sauce and smoked chicken wings.
As the chain expanded beyond Louisiana, he found that customers had their own sense of what New Orleans barbecue might be, and in response to their feedback added dishes such as red beans and rice and beignets to the menu.
“Authenticity is a personal definition,” Doug Austin, senior vice president of growth and innovation for Food IQ, said in a presentation on beverage trends.
He warned against being too authentic, in fact. He explained that if you gave your guests an actual beverage from a trendy country like Thailand or Korea and they didn’t like it, they would be disappointed that they weren’t cool enough to appreciate the drink, and they might resent you for it. He said beverage directors were better off giving them drinks with on-trend flavors such as sweet-spicy combinations like chipotle-pineapple or jalapeño honey, and using authenticity cues such as freshly squeezed juices or housemade or craft sodas.
Kruse cited the growing use of barrels — to age both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, to dispense cocktails and wines, and as design elements — as another authenticity cue.
Tropical fruit, Asian flavors are trendy
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Other broad themes that have been highlighted by food and beverage trend watchers for the past few years also were discussed at MUFSO. Those included customers’ desire for variety, customizability and traceability.
• Tropical fruit: Every cocktail entered in Shake, Sparkle & Stir, a new competition sponsored by Coca-Cola that pitted restaurant bartenders against each other to concoct the best drink, contained pineapple. Other tropical fruit flavors used in the competition that reflect the popularity of tropical fruit included coconut, guava and passion fruit. Food IQ in their presentation also pointed to mango as an increasingly popular fruit, along with the Philippine citrus calamansi.
• Apples: Comforting, accessible and increasingly popular among the cold-pressed juice crowd, who praise it for its ability to improve cognitive function, this fall favorite was very much in evidence at MUFSO, where apple juice served as the base of The Farmer’s Almanac, the award-winning cocktail in Shake, Sparkle & Stir. (It also contained egg white, housemade maraschino cherry syrup, pineapple reduction, rum, nutmeg and an orange twist.) At the Food & Spirits Festival, Smokehouse 220 highlighted its sauce with Granny Smith apple slaw. Meanwhile, Knouse highlighted its Musselman’s Apple Butter. In its beverage trend presentation, Food IQ also pointed to the ongoing renaissance of hard cider.
• Asian flavors: Also at the Food & Spirits Festival, Smithfield highlighted its pork medallions with a sweet Japanese tonkatsu sauce, Campbell’s Soup handed out its Wicked Thai chicken and rice, and the Mango Board offered a Thai steak salad. In the Kitchen Hero Cook-Off, sponsored by Texas Pete, contestant Eric Ernest from the University of Southern California used the company’s Fiery Sweet sauce to make a spicy chicken ramen — mixing the sauce into the noodles themselves. The winning entry, a shrimp-and-steak surf-and-turf by Brian Hinshaw of Cameron Mitchell restaurants, was made using Texas Pete’s newest sauce, a Sriracha-style blend called Cha!
• Superfoods: Nutrient-dense foods, along with fruits and vegetables high in antioxidants, were very much on display in MUFSO, where Hot Concepts winners LYFE Kitchen and Protein Bar both offered dishes containing the trendy, high-protein grain quinoa. LYFE Kitchen also served a chocolate budino made with chia seeds soaked in pomegranate juice and topped with toasted almonds.
Food IQ pointed to coconut water in cocktails and the rise of the popularity of tea, both of which are considered superfoods.
Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected].
Follow him on Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
