Skip to main content

Monocle's four food trends for 2011

 Buried away inside issue 39 are four trends that the Monocle team of trend spotters say will change the "business of what we eat and drink". They are:
  1. Blueberry juice and its ilk will sell more based on the trend towards "super-foods". Khaled Yafi, who set up the Berry Company in 2006, is expecting fruit bars and frozen desserts to take off.
  2. Less fancy dining. For example, Michelin starred Hamburg cook Cornelia Poletto is giving up her star and posh eatery to open a place where customers can "buy cheese and ham over the counter, or have a coffe at the bar".
  3. The rise of Korean food as the new Japanese food with soy or chilli-marinated meats, lead by Jung Sik Yim opening a restaurant in New York.
  4. The rise of part-time urban farmers and the Slow Food movement, with people growing fruit and vegetables on their balconies or in their basements.
Before you scoff or say these are the same old same old new things, pause to consider what you see shoppers doing and what outlets like Bill's Produce are doing. If you are in London near Waterloo, visit Buen Provecho on the street at lunchtime in Lower Marsh Street. Here is a consumer blog to get you thinking http://helengraves.co.uk/2010/05/buen-provecho-seriously-good-mexican-street-food/.

The great thing about short lists (rather than the ones with 100 trends for 2011) is to roll them over in your mind and think what they might mean for your business. Enjoy!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Digital disruption in the UK wholesale space

“Twenty years ago I was driving boxes to the post office in my Chevy Blazer and dreaming of a forklift,” says Jeff Bezos in his most recent letter to shareholders. A blink later and he points out that the company has grown from 30,000 employees in 2010 to 230,000 now. But his ambition is the same. “We want to be a large company that’s also an invention machine. We want to combine the extraordinary customer-serving capabilities that are enabled by size with the speed of movement, nimbleness and risk-acceptance mentality that is normally associated with entrepreneurial start-ups.” Amazon is great at disruption because of its customers focus and the fact that the internet means it needs none (or very few) people between its warehouses and the shopper. The threat of Prime, its membership service, is the biggest challenge facing the UK retail market and the wholesale market by extension. It is both a direct threat and an indirect threat in that is inspiring countless numbers of othe...

New look: big copy small?

The owners of B&Q are talking up how they have cut the price of a store refit from £2.5m to £1m by using wood-effect vinyl instead of wood and painted MDF backboards for displays. Managers are learning to live with grey shelving instead of a warmer-looking cream. Shoppers notice the produce, not the fixtures, suggests one executive. Up to a point! Most local retailers will extract the maximum possible life from their fixtures, sometimes taking too long to change equipment that has become tired. As in all business, it is getting the balance right. Shops need to be refreshed and with a purpose.

What do shoppers see

I read a good post (http://www.newsagencyblog.com.au/2009/08/28/what-do-newsagents-charge-for-faxing.html) asking what price local shops charge for providing a fax service. The blogger had attached a photograph of his sign with his prices on it. What struck me was the message on the sign. "You drop, we fax," it said. "Pressed for time, drop your documents with us and we'll do it for you at no extra charge." That is a message that will persuade most shoppers that you want to give them good value, even if they stay to do the copying or faxing themselves.