David Michael's Innovation Roadshow 2009

http://www.dmflavors.com/innovation_roadshow.htm


Last week I had the privilege in attending the David Michael 2009 Innovation Roadshow.

David Michael & Co. (DM) is a company that provides flavors to the food industry. Where ever you see natural or artificial flavors on an ingredient statement, companies like David Michael are the companies that make them.

At the Roadshow each year, DM highlights the up and coming trends in flavors and consumer trends as well as technical and culinary creativity.

This year the topics that caught my attention were the comfort food trends and emerging ethnic flavors. Comfort food trends or "Grandma's recipes with a twist" covered the Baby Boomer and the Gen X generations, where the Baby Boomers prefer "classic" foods such as braised meats, casseroles, ice cream, gourmet artisan cheeses and dark chocolates; where the Gen Xers prefer fast food, packaged cooking, and snacks. The top trends that are emerging are being seen in meatloaf, mac & cheese, artisan pies, breakfast for dessert and casseroles. DM used the "mini" trend and demonstrated concepts like Meatloaf Cupcakes. They showed an Italian herb flavored meatloaf cupcake with a butter parmesan flavored potato frosting and a caramelized onion flavored meatloaf cupcake with a brown sugar cinnamon sweet potato flavored frosting. DM also showed "Pie Pops", which pretty much were apple pie and dark chocolate yumberry pie on a stick and with sticking with the "100 calorie" or less trend, one pir pop was 50 calories, essentially dessert on the go.

Emerging trends in ethnic flavors that were discussed were flavors from Australia, flavors like rosella (wild hibiscus) and the Australian blood lime. In addition, DM covered the emerging flavors from Asia. Flavors such as, Honey Sweet Date (Jujubee), Sea Buckthorn (Hippohae), Lychee, Yuzu, Pomelo and Shiso (Japanese basil). For the first time we are seeing more flavor trends emerging from South America, flavors such as Lucuma from Peru and other flavors like guanabana, prickely pear/cactus and chermoya.

The David Michael Innovation Roadshow directly relates to my job as a product developer and manager of the retail development lab. Staying in touch with emerging trends keeps helps to keep the products we sell current and helps us maintain a competitive edge in the market place.