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Replicating food experiences at home is an overarching trend amid COVID-19, said the Specialty Food Association Trendspotter Panel, who spent last week exploring showrooms and talking with exhibitors at the SFA’s inaugural Specialty Food Live! virtual marketplace event. That replication can take the form of comfort food and family traditions or recreating restaurant or travel experiences.

Three representatives of the Panel spoke Thursday at the session, Trendspotters Take on Specialty Food Live!, and discussed their picks for food and ingredient trends the industry will be seeing in the fourth quarter and into 2021.

Participants included: Clara Park, corporate chef of culinary innovation for Chelten House Products, which creates sauces, dressings, soups and more for the nation’s top grocers; Sheree Williams, owner of V. Sheree Creative Enterprises, a boutique consulting agency, and publisher of Cuisine Noir magazine, which connects the African diaspora through food, drink and travel; and Melanie Zanoza Bartelme, a global food analyst for Mintel, who provides insights on innovation and consumer trends across a number of food categories.  

Here are some of the trends they highlighted in the session. A full list of official trends from Specialty Food Live! will be released in the coming weeks.

Global and regional American “travel” through food. With consumers sticking closer to home, global flavors are of strong interest. Scandinavia, Cambodia, and Senegal were on display at the event. Nordic cuisine has been on the radar, said Bartelme, and interesting ingredients showing up at Specialty Food Live! included sea buckthorn and birch crystals.  

Other global flavors noted by the Trendspotters were Cambodian chile pastes and fonio, an ancient grain from Senegal, which continues to gain attention.  

“There is an effort to preserve culture through food and have that taste at home,” noted Williams. 

The trend extends to regional American as well, noted Bartelme who pointed out the concept of road trips and discovering what’s here in your backyard is increasingly appealing in the wake of COVID-19.

Connecting products with the stories behind them. This movement encompasses cleaner more authentic ingredients and consumers wanting to know where their food is coming from, not only the product itself but is the company women- or diversity- or LGBTQ-owned. “Consumers are making more conscious decisions about who they are supporting with their food dollars,” said Park.

Holiday 2020: Recreating traditional foods and giftable staples. “With everyone trying to figure out what the holidays will look like this year, I think we’re going to see more recreating traditions even if it’s in a smaller way, but with a twist,” said Williams. Park agreed: “We’ll see familiar things but made more special, like Mexican hot chocolates or filled candy canes.”

“It’s also an opportunity to talk about a lot of pantry staples as gifts,” noted Bartelme. “Items like pasta, rice, you can bundle up some of the nicer ones and feel like you are giving that love to your friends and family.” 

Among continuing trends the Panel noted: Plant-based in new formats, including a meatless mix for at-home cooking; cocktail kits and ingredients like simple syrups; keto-diet foods; upcycled foods like watermelon rind pickles; and low-sugar and alternative sweeteners like monkfruit.

The SFA Trendspotter Panel consists of retailers, chefs, foodservice professionals, market researchers, journalists, food educators and other industry professionals who apply their expertise in their individual channels to help predict trends for the year and at various events like the Fancy Food Shows. Other members of the Specialty Food Live! Trendspotter Panel included Jonathan Deutsch, professor of culinary arts and science in the Department of Food and Hospitality Management at Drexel University in Philadelphia; Chris Styler, chef, culinary producer, and cookbook author, including the soon-to-be-released Golden Girls Cookbook; Dawn Padmore, food event producer and cultural programmer, and Kysha Harris, food writer and culinary producer.

Related: Consumers Treat Food as Medicine During Pandemic; Kroger Drives Plant-Based Meat Sales in Integrated Sets.
 

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From exotic sweets to infused syrups, to tea sets and pasta sauces, these holiday gift packs have a little something for everyone on your list. Here are some of the newest gifts to hit shelves this season.

Ahmad Tea USA English Tea Four Collection. Ahmad Tea has two new London-inspired gifts: English Tea Four and English Tea Six sets. Both come in metal tins with whimsical and iconic London landmarks. Each contains an assortment of Ahmad’s most popular blends. Ahmad Tea is a U.K.-based family business, drawing on four generations of tea blending and tasting. Founded on a passion for the finest tea, the company is dedicated to the unique place that tea drinking commands at the heart of daily life in Britain and beyond. ahmadteausa.com

Enzo’s Table Buon Appetito Gift Box. This box includes a bottle of Medium Enzo Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil, a jar of Enzo’s Table Sun Dried Tomato Pesto, a jar of Enzo’s Table Basil Pesto, and Organic Artisan-Made Semolina Pasta in a custom Enzo’s Table gift box. For more than a century, the Ricchiuti Family has diligently worked the land in California’s fertile San Joaquin Valley with a goal to grow, produce, and harvest premium fruit and nuts. With a desire to provide a farm-to-table experience, the family opened a retail store that has evolved over the years from a small roadside stand to Enzo’s Table, a regional favorite known for its local specialty items and farm fresh produce. enzostable.com (Not pictured.)

Hella Cocktail Co. Hella Harvest Highball Cocktail Kit. Hella Cocktail Co. believes that cocktailing is about discovering the world through taste and celebrations, large and small. This kit combines the Hella Founders Collection Apple Blossom Bitters with the gingery bite of Moscow Mule Mix, topped off with Hella Bitters & Soda for a bubbly finish. It’s the perfect dose of holiday flavor. Other Hella kits include If Life Gives You Limes Kit, Ultimate Bloody Mary Kit, and Old Fashioned Kit. hellacocktail.co (Not pictured.)

Ines Rosales Holiday Gift Box. To celebrate its 110th anniversary, Ines Rosales has released a limited-edition holiday gift box which includes five of its tortas: the Original Olive Oil Torta, the Orange Olive Oil Torta, the Cinnamon Olive Oil Torta, the Sesame and Sea Salt Torta, and the Rosemary and Thyme Olive Oil Torta. This gift box is great for an eye-catching display and perfect for holiday giving and sharing. Ines Rosales, with more than 100 years of history, specializes in making traditional Andalusian baked goods, hand crafting its products with quality ingredients. inesrosales.com (Not pictured.)

Meska Sweets Mogador Gift Box. This 10-piece tasting box provides an introduction to Moroccan sweets. The box contains a combination of Meska Sweets’ most popular treats, including Classic Moroccan Macaron with Orange Blossom & Almonds, Matcha Moroccan Macarons with Matcha & Walnuts, Almond Crescents, Coffee Moroccan Macaron, and Almond & Raisin Biscotti. Everything is dairy-free and kosher OU Pareve. Meska Sweets’ Moroccan cookies are hand crafted from scratch, using all-natural ingredients, and following the recipes of the founder’s grandmothers. meskasweets.com

Miracle Tree Organic Moringa Tea Gift Box. These gift boxes contain Miracle Tree’s award-winning herbal infusions in a beautifully crafted tea box. Enjoy 48 individually wrapped tea bags in four flavors, for a total of 12 each. With three varieties from which to choose, Miracle Tree’s Moringa Teas Gift Boxes are a gift for any occasion. Miracle Tree is a superfood brand focused on Moringa—an emerging superfood with an exceptional nutritional profile. Miracle Tree works with ethically responsible and independent farmers from all over the world and ensures a positive impact on their social well-being and communities. miracletree.org

Runamok Maple Syrup Gift Boxes. These gift boxes come in two sizes. The first features three full-sized bottles of barrel-aged, infused, or traditional organic maple syrup. The second features four smaller 60-milliliter bottles of barrel-aged, infused, or smoked organic maple syrup. Infusion flavors include Hibiscus, Cinnamon + Vanilla, Elderberry, Cardamom, and Makrut Lime-Leaf. Barrel-aged syrups include a Bourbon and Whiskey flavor, and the smoked flavor is Smoked with Pecan Wood. Runamok Maple is located in Northern Vermont. Its products are all-natural, small-batch and uniquely crafted. runamokmaple.com (Not pictured.)

Simón Coll Chocolate Christmas Basket. This large Christmas basket comes with different milk chocolate products and a lump of coal for a festive and funny holiday gift. From 1840 to the present, six family generations have contributed in making Simón Coll what it is today, a combination of traditional know-how and the latest manufacturing technologies, both acting together to achieve increasingly more elaborate, diverse, and innovative products. simoncoll.com

Stonewall Kitchen Cheese Gift Set. This Cheese Pairing Collection comes with Stonewall Kitchen’s White Fig Spread, Roasted Garlic Onion Jam, Sea Salt Crackers, and Simple White Crackers; perfect for a holiday celebration or to give as a hostess gift. Stonewall Kitchen is a specialty food maker that focuses on products made with quality and local ingredients. stonewallkitchen.com

Teapigs Advent Calendar. The most highly requested item in Teapigs history, its Advent Calendar is back for Christmas 2020. The calendar of 24 teas includes a combination of new and old favorites, along with a new design and a super special festive treat to be enjoyed on Christmas Eve. Teapigs offers a selection of sustainably-sourced teas made with whole ingredients packed into biodegradable mesh bags for a loose tea experience without the fuss. teapigs.com

Find more products from Specialty Food Association members in the Product Marketplace on specialtyfood.com

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Arielle Feger is content associate for Specialty Food.

Photos: Mark Ferri; Food Styling: Leslie Orlandini; Props Styling: Francine Matalon–Degni

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Consumption shifts to home-brewing as cafes revamp operations.

With millions of consumers working from home for much of 2020, coffee consumption has shifted away from cafes and restaurants toward people’s kitchens and dining rooms.

Commuters who had been buying coffee on the way to work in the morning and office workers who had been taking midday coffee breaks were instead stocking up on coffee online and in retail stores for home brewing. The pandemic also disrupted the coffee market in myriad other ways throughout the supply chain, from the farms to the point of sale, and the wholesalers and roasters in between.

 The shift in consumption patterns has forced consumers to take a fresh look at the way they buy coffee, as well as the way they make their coffee at home, says Madeleine Longoria-Garcia, a partner in Pacific Coffee Research, a Kailua-Kona, Hawaii-based provider of coffee education classes and other services. “I noticed a lot of people on social media have been saying, ‘Wow, I do not know how to make good coffee, and I appreciate my local barista a lot more,’” she says.

Madeleine Longoria-Garcia pours cold brew coffee. Photo credit: Pacific Coffee Research

Home-brewing drove strong retail sales gains of whole bean and ground coffee, as well as an 11 percent increase in sales of home coffee-making equipment such as presses, kettles, and grinders during the first weeks of the pandemic, according to research from the Specialty Coffee Association and payment technology platform Square.

Many consumers have sought out retail versions of their local cafe brands, while others have explored new brands outside their local areas, either online or through subscription services, says Longoria-Garcia. In fact, the Square/SCA research showed that during the early weeks of the pandemic, coffee shops that remained open saw their subscription-based sales increase an average of 109 percent.

Cafe operators also saw a massive shift toward pickup and curbside delivery. Coffee cafes reported a combined sales increase of 5,380 percent through those off-premises consumption channels, and the number of cafes adding pickup and curbside delivery increased 521 percent, the report found.

Overall, however, global coffee consumption in terms of raw coffee product is expected to decline slightly for the 2019/2020 coffee production year, according to the International Coffee Organization.

The outlook is rosier for packaged coffee. According to the Specialty Food Association’s recently released State of the Specialty Food Industry research, the Specialty Coffee and Hot Cocoa (non RTD) category hit retail sales of $3.6 billion in 2019 and is projected to grow 4.9 percent by 2024. From January to April 2020, during the surge of the COVID-19 spread, specialty products in this category grew 13.8 percent versus a year ago, higher than the 8.9 percent growth for all products in the total category during the same timeframe.

Cafe Operators Adapt
Roasters and cafe operators reported that coffee sales shifted toward retail and online sales of their products during the pandemic, with a sharp drop-off in brewed coffee sales. Many operators managed to run takeout offerings with limited staffing and new safety guidelines in place.

“We’ve had to pivot many aspects of our business to adapt during this challenging time,” says Lori Haughey, vp of retail at Intelligentsia, which as of July had 10 of its 14 coffee bars open for pickup. “We’ve continued to adjust operations and simplify processes to ensure a safe and efficient experience for our team and customers.”

Photo credit: Intelligentsia

The Chicago-based chain, known for its carefully curated selection of high-quality coffees, has been operating limited hours, opening later in the morning, and closing much earlier in the day, she says. Intelligentsia has also eliminated items from its coffee and food menus, and is only accepting contactless payments such as credit cards and Apple Pay.

The company has also rolled out online ordering at all locations through Intelligentsia’s own website or through the Toast takeout app, both of which allow customers to order and pay ahead for contactless pickup. In addition, it relaunched its website on June 11 with a subscription service, says Britt Berg, director of brand and e-commerce.

“Improving our digital customer experience will be critical as we look ahead,” she says. “When we had to close our coffee bars back in March, we knew it was important to keep our customers engaged, so we reimagined the coffee bar experience and shifted our efforts to focus on virtual community engagement to stay connected.”

 Intelligentsia launched “Intelli Celly”—through which customers can call or text coffee educators to ask for home-brewing advice. It also launched an Instagram Live series called “Connecting Over Coffee,” through which Intelligentsia has invited people from a variety of fields to participate in a virtual coffee break.

“It’s creative ideas like these, that foster a sense of community, that will keep us moving forward,” says Berg.

New York-based Café Grumpy, which operates 11 cafes and a roastery, saw a shift toward retail sales at the start of the pandemic, according to Caroline Bell, founder and CEO. As a result, the company began making ground beans available for retail sale for the first time, assuming many consumers might not have grinders at home. “We definitely got a good response,” says Bell. “We saw a big increase, and we’ve had some customers continue to order even after the cafes have started to reopen. But online sales went up, and grocery sales went up.”

Café Grumpy also launched a Tetra Pak line of its cold brew coffee, which previously had only been available in bottles. The product is available online and through Café Grumpy’s grocery retail partners.

Photo credit: Café Grumpy

Bell says the company received several calls from consumers asking about how to make cold brew coffee at home when they were under stay-at-home orders. Cold-brew is normally Café Grumpy’s top-selling item in its shops, she says.

Specialty Brands See Retail Shift
Some specialty coffee brands saw large gains in online sales during the pandemic. Darron Burke, founder and CEO of Burke Brands LLC, parent of the Don Pablo coffee brand and others, says his online sales rose to a peak of about 400 percent, year-over-year, in March, and then leveled off to an average of about a 100 percent increase during the following months.

The company also sells whole beans, and a very limited assortment of ground coffee, through Costco Wholesale, Sam’s Club, and other retailers and wholesalers, including KeHE Distributors. Its foodservice accounts slowed down considerably, however, with many asking the company for longer payment terms and reduced pricing, Burke says. That business has since rebounded somewhat, but has remained below pre-pandemic levels, he says.

As sales through Amazon soared and the e-commerce retailer became the coffee company’s biggest seller, Burke says he began to wonder if his supply would be able to satisfy the rapidly escalating demand.

“I enjoyed [seeing Amazon sales rise] for about a millisecond, and then fear struck my heart, and I thought, ‘Oh my God, we’re going to run out of product,’” he says.

 However, the company’s in-house buyer was able to secure green (unroasted) coffee beans through the company’s existing relationships and has also been able to secure some additional beans from suppliers whose high-end foodservice business had disappeared.

Darron Burke, founder and CEO, Burke Brands. Photo credit: Burke Brands

Burke Brands in July was preparing to release some of the new varieties under its Don Pablo and Subtle Earth Organic brand, which both offer a range of coffees of different origins. In addition, the company was preparing to launch a new brand, Goodness and Light, which features a lighter roast, as opposed to the medium-dark roast of its typical product. “The trend is that people are going from ground Folgers to whole bean coffee, and from basic whole bean coffee to more exotic, more expensive origins,” says Burke. “There’s an opportunity there, for sure.”

Longoria-Garcia of Pacific Coffee Research says she sees two basic types of coffee consumers in the specialty coffee market: those who want a high-quality coffee but with a familiar coffee flavor, and those who want to stretch their sensory experiences with coffees that have strong fruity or acidic notes, for example. “Those two sectors of the consumer market exist in every specialty coffee or high-quality cafe setting,” she says.

Sourcing Is a Challenge
Sourcing has remained a challenge for coffee sellers, in part because predicting sales during an ongoing pandemic has proven difficult. Cafe operators aren’t sure whether they should be planning for business as usual by year-end, or if perhaps a second wave of the virus will bring their operations to a halt again. In addition, growers who are often dependent on migrant workers have been unsure about whether or not they would be able to find enough labor.

“It’s been a little stressful for me,” says Bell of Café Grumpy, who buys the green coffee that her company roasts at its Brooklyn facility. “You want to continue working with the same producers and buying the same amount of coffee and not going back on any agreements that you made. So, you just hope that things will turn around.”

The company sources most of its green coffee from Central and South America, along with some from Ethiopia. Many suppliers are concerned not only about the coronavirus’ impact on their own countries, but are also worried about their loss of sales to foodservice accounts.

Samuel Sabori, director of coffee at Intelligentsia, says the pandemic has had a broad impact on buying and sourcing coffee. “For us as buyers, the biggest change is not visiting coffee producers for the foreseeable future,” he says. “We managed to visit most producers within our Northern Hemisphere portfolio just before quarantine began, so the real challenge is on the horizon. We will have to navigate how to determine quality, working conditions and overall potential, remotely.”

Intelligentsia has longstanding relationships with producers that will help it navigate the sourcing challenges ahead, he says. “For companies that don’t have relationships like this, there is a risk of potentially not knowing what you are purchasing, who the coffee is coming from, the working conditions of the workers, or the state of the farm,” Sabori says.

He says coffee producers have been struggling with many aspects of their farm operations, such as the logistics involved in transporting workers to and from the farms for such tasks as pruning, replanting, weed mitigation, or picking.

One Guatemalan producer that Intelligentsia works with, for example, says its staff is about 85 percent what it normally would be because those who typically travel for work are choosing to stay home. “These decisions are keeping people safe, but how this will impact coffee quality will be determined at harvest time,” Sabori says.

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Q&A with Scott Owen, PCC Community Markets

Photo: PCC Community Markets

Specialty Food recently asked Scott Owen, senior grocery merchandiser at Seattle-based PCC Community Markets, about retail coffee trends at the 15-store co-op chain.

What specific types of whole bean and ground coffees have your customers been most interested in? How about ready-to-drink coffee beverages?

We have seen a growing trend towards lighter roasts in both whole bean and ground coffee. This growth started well before the pandemic but remains strong. Seattle consumers want to taste the coffee’s nuances, and that tends to be easier with lighter roasts. In RTD, unsweetened cold brew and larger concentrated bottles for take-home are seeing large surges. We find that if shoppers want a sweeter coffee, they want to control how much and what type of sweetener is used.

Are you seeing a lot of innovation from smaller/local producers, and can you cite some examples?

Without the support of our local distribution chain getting products to our stores during the start of the stay-at-home order and continuing even now, it would have been impossible to keep up with customer demand. Several of our local partners added second and even third shifts to produce and ship coffee, milk, eggs, bread, and numerous other essentials for daily life in Seattle. It was truly inspiring to see.

How has the pandemic influenced demand for coffee (beans/ground and RTD)?

As PCC is located in the greater Seattle area, our coffee supply is heavily influenced by an educated coffee consumer. Ninety percent of our coffee sales are in whole-bean coffee, and sales of whole-bean coffee have risen substantially (50-70 percent). PCC’s private-label coffee has been our best seller for many years, and shoppers tend to prefer beans in the medium roast ranges. Of our top 10 best sellers, eight are PCC’s private label. Sales of our 24-ounce bags have been popular, most likely due to the same “bigger equals better” trend we’ve seen in snacks and beverages.

What are some key trends in this category you see going forward?

Consumers are looking to have more fun in the kitchen while staying at home, and that includes knowing how to make a good cup of coffee. Customers will continue to have favorite everyday beans but will be willing to branch out to try single origins or lighter roasts as they look to expand their coffee-making skills.

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Mark Hamstra is a regular contributor to Specialty Food and SFA News Daily.