Entrepreneurs weigh in: As the US flavor trend landscape
responds to globalization, just saying ‘Asian’ is not enough.
Matcha, kimchi, and adobo are just a few among the popular flavors from Asia that one can easily stumble upon in US grocery stores and restaurants.
Just 10 years ago, these culinary flavors would’ve been familar to only a small subset of people in the US. It’s no news in the food industry that, as noted in food trend reports from Whole Foods Market or Campbell Soup , a large sample of American consumers today enjoy foods and beverages with flavors that may have been standard in different countries, but are relatively new to hit US shores.
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Putting a new spin on things
Riding on momentum of the US consumers’ growing familiarity with global flavors are numerous young companies that tweak the old and create something new altogether. New York-based Yumami, for example, is tapping into the healthy snacking trend with a line of nori chip plus dip combos with flavors that not to Japan, including roasted onion shitake and green pea wasabi.”Culinary histories, like any cultural histories, are often centuries-long stories of inter-cultural collision and innovation,” said co-founder Karsten Ch’ien.”As long as you’re not misleading consumers by pretending a novel idea is “traditional” or denigrating the value or quality of the original, I’m all for discovering new applications for older ideas.
“At Yumami we use the word ‘Asian’ to describe our flavors because we intend to draw from a diversity of cuisines in the future…and there is nothing fundamentally Asian about our snacking formats,” he added.
Read the complete article at Food-Navigator.
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Daniel Karsevar, Founder & Chief Problem Solver at SOLUTIONTOPIA & is also a Mentor at TheBrooklyn FoodWorks and Advisor to many CPG brands. SOLUTIONTOPIA provides turn-key solutions, product development, and operational scaling solutions for food start-ups and national brands in the natural foods CPG space.
