Josh, Schonwald, author of The Taste of Tomorrow: Dispatches from the Future of Food, provides his top picks for 2015 food trends in Time magazine.
Josh Schonwald, author of The Taste of Tomorrow: Dispatches from the Future of Food, sifted through the myriad food trend predictions for 2015 and provided a “highly abridged” list for Time magazine. The six trends were offered to Schonwald by “industry people” who selected their predicted top trend for 2015.
1. The Rise of Fat
Kara Nielsen, culinary director of the Boulder, CO-based Sterling-Rice Group, believes 2015 could be known as the year that more and more Americans get over their “fat phobia.” Nielsen predicts that Americans will still continue to avoid the trans fats found in processed foods, but seek out natural, animal-derived fats, citing that real butter consumption in 2014 hit a 40-year high. On a national scale, Schonwald notes that there’s a San Francisco restaurant selling a wildly popular chicken fat rice dish, and a a rapidly growing Boulder company only features full-fat yogurt. Nielsen expects more high-fat dairy products, more fat-celebrating meat purveyors, and more higher fat Asian foods to hit restaurant menus and grocery store shelves in 2015. “Americans are recognizing that the fear of fat that we’ve lived under for so long is erroneous, because of books like The Big Fat Surprise that are making the argument that natural fat is an essential part of a healthy diet,” Nielsen says.
2. Local Meat
Darren Tristano, who tracks the restaurant industry for Technomic, expects more local produce, more local beer, more local grains. But Tristano believes the big local story of next year will be local meat. Californians will see more menus offering grass-fed beef from Niman Ranch; Chicagoans will likely see more free-range bacon from Slagel Farm; and diners in DC will see more chicken sandwiches from Polyface Farms. In short, get ready for more restaurants to celebrate the local origins of their chicken, beef, or pork just as zealously as their local Brandywine tomatoes or radicchio.
3. Insect-Powered Foods
Suzy Badaracco, president of food trend consultancy Culinary Tides, believes insects will rise as a foodstuff in the U.S. far sooner than many expect. In picking insects as her “Food of 2015,” Badaracco said that insects draw on not one but three food trends: the growing interest in foraging, the invasivore movement (i.e., don’t kill them, eat them), and, the granddaddy of current trends, the desire for more protein. (Insects are protein powerhouses; grasshoppers, for instance, have about the same protein content as a chicken breast). Full-bodied insects won’t appear in grocery stores, but will arrive in processed form, especially protein-packed power bars. Badaracco expects insects, processed as flour, to soon become popular protein sources for bakery and cereal products.
4. The Next Sriracha is Harissa
Maeve Webster, a restaurant analyst for market researcher Datamonitor, believes the next sauce to experience a sriracha-like rise is harissa, a spread of dried chiles, garlic, tomatoes, caraway, paprika, coriander, and olive oil that’s as common as ketchup in Tunisia. It’s still largely unknown to Americans, but Webster says all the elements are in place for harissa. “U.S. consumers can’t get enough of spicy foods. Harissa has a flavor profile that is both spicy and familiar,” Webster says. Like sriracha, harissa is also versatile and can work in a wide variety of applications. Last year, Datamonitor found that less than 3% of American restaurants included a harisssa item, but Webster noted that’s a more than 180% leap over three years.
5. The Next Quinoa is Millet
Melissa Abbot, director of culinary insights at The Hartman Group, concedes that her pick is not very sexy. Millet is, after all, best known as the main ingredient in birdseed. It’s gluten-free, protein-rich, high fiber, and, Abbot says, has a superfood quality all of its own. “It retains its alkaline properties after being cooked, which helps in reducing inflammation ideal for those with wheat allergies and sensitive digestion.” Another plus for millet: it’s local. The Great Plains, especially Colorado, is one of the world’s major millet growing regions.
6. Peas
Barb Stuckey, who is a vice president at Mattson, one of the world’s largest food product developers, describes Americans as being in a “torrid love affair” with protein. Soy is one of the best, most widely available, efficient ways of fortifying foods with protein, Stuckey says. But whether deserved or not, soy is falling out of favor. Food makers are searching for non-GMO plant-based sources of protein and, Stuckey says, “the newest, hottest kid on the block is pea.” Peas are high in protein and, as people gain more experience processing it, the flavor is improving. “Look for pea protein to show up the ingredient list of bars, cereals, beverages, you name it.”
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