The New York Fancy Food Show

The New York food show was well attended this year by many from afar and near. It is really good to hear people who are new to the show. I take it as a sign that there is life to this industry. As an added feature this year we have the World Cup on, with two games daily to distract us. It’s really hard to concentrate when you hear cheering from across the room/hall/cavern. So what is this fancy food show? It is a North American trade show that brings together producers retailers and everyone connected to the food industry. It covers both floors of the Javits Center and covers almost every food product from every part of the world. You have big blocks of booths taken up by countries such as Italy, Spain, Germany, South Africa, Canada, etc. this show is huge. There is fresh to frozen, dried to shelf stable. I look for the shelf stable for the store but it is always good to try the cured hams from Spain or Italy, the myriad of cheeses from all over the world, and the sauces, BBQ hot savoury and otherwise. One of the highlights for me this year was running in to Mark McEwan from Toronto. He owns 3? restaurants and 1 gourmet food store there. More pertinent to the conversation is that he is the head judge for top chef Canada. This will be the first year it is run in Canada and chef Jamie Hertz has got to stage 3 of the auditions. Go Jamie. If you have gone to the show in the past it is a great way to reconnect face to face with your suppliers, talk about what’s new for them and you and reinforce the relationship. You are both there for your mutual benefit. So what’s new? Well chipotle still rules but there is a strong upsurge from the Asian market in hot sauces, vinegar flavours, and black garlic.
Black garlic is one of the most unusual items I have seen over the last four years. It comes out of Korea and I think will be one of the dominate players soon, if not just for the fascination of it all. There was a good contingent of waters from just about everywhere. Funny category that you would pay so much for what you can get from your tap, in most places. There was even, get this, organic water. What gives here, this is completely unsustainable and useless category. To bottle water in this day is and should be considered criminal. Chocolate is still big. there are, it seams more and more small business' putting there own spin on the chocolate category, gold covered, covering fruit, ghost chili infused with sel gris on top, the list goes on. All in all I like the show. It’s good to see products that we started with 4 years ago are still strong and thriving. Ones that we picked up just recently are gaining traction and proving stronger contenders, for shelf space. It is and I hate to say this some what gratifying to see some products that went into large supermarkets floundering because they no longer have the support of people like me to push it forward. I will run a small but tight line of products in a category, but I know all of them and can sell them equally to the customer. Try that in your supermarket. Overall impression is the show is totally worth it and I will continue attend when I can.