The average Costco consumer would be jealous. Multiply the number of in-store food samplings by 1,000, and you have the National Restaurant Association Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show.
I usually cover booths and/or workshop sessions for one publication or another at the annual May event, but I take my time scoping the 1,900 exhibits for what’s new.
If there’s one category that stood out to me this year (other than technology, which is a subject for another day), it was beverages, and particularly coffee and tea. No less than 47 companies exhibited coffee, and 33 touted tea.
Watch Coca Cola. It’s extending its beverage bevy with its Georgia Coffee, a brand it has served in Asia for more than 30 years. Now it’s available to the U.S. foodservice market, both roast ground and ice coffee. And it was apparent at the show that ice coffee is becoming quite a star. Coca Cola/Georgia Coffee offers it as a concentrate in caramel, mocha, vanilla and hazelnut flavors to mix with consumers’ favorite dairy, as in skim milk, soy milk, etc. (This works with the growing customization trend.)
S&D Coffee Inc. was sampling frozen, slushy caramel, vanilla and mocha coffee, and in the tea department, frozen honey green; pomegranate; and chai tea.
I’d say we have McDonald’s to thank for the burgeoning popularity of frozen coffee beverages. By its sheer volume, McDonald’s made the category a trend, and thus it was so on the NRA show floor.
Anything else I’ve gleaned as a food trend of recent certainly made an appearance at NRA. Let’s take oatmeal, which is multiplying like rabbits on quick-serve menus. There’s a category to capitalize on, and coffee-machine maker Bunn is on it. The company demonstrated a prototype oatmeal machine that’s the same principal as a powder cappuccino machine, only it dispenses oatmeal. That is, the operator can put up to three flavors of a suppliers’ dried oatmeal into the hopper, and with the push of a button, the machine releases the oatmeal and hot water at the same time into a cup. Wallah. Instant oatmeal.
And how about gluten-free everything? Any restaurant operator with any smarts knows from experience by now that there must be gluten-free options on the menu. Suppliers, of course, are also onto that. Wearing my media badge, I was nearly tackled on the show floor by a supplier of gluten-free cookie, pizza crust, waffle and chocolate cake mixes. I found gluten-free granola, soups, entrees, pancake and bread mixes, brown rice snacks, cheese puffs and baked fries for starters.
Just guessing which booth had the most visitors, I’d have to say Coca Cola. They were dispensing Coke like it was water. But they had a story to tell to those standing in the long lines for a nice-size guzzle. It had to do with the company’s Freestyle machine, which has been out for over a year now.
Celebrating its 125th anniversary, Coca Cola upped the number of beverages available in its Freestyle machine from 106 to 125. The company claims that some 400 outlets use the Freestyle machine that allows guests to push a button for the type of drink they want, such as Coca Cola or Diet Coca Cola, and then select from a list of flavors. This includes raspberry, orange, cherry and vanilla Coke, for starters. Guests can even mix flavors. I recommend 2/3 orange Coke and 1/3 vanilla!
Watch for my next blog when I’ll outline the restaurants that are most on top of food trends.
Jody
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