With all the attention paid to Millennials, it’s hard to imagine another consumer group having the ability to distract and befuddle marketers. Wonder no more because Generation Z is moving in and bringing with them more than $44 billion in purchasing power. (Huffington Post, 2016) Loosely defined as those born between 1996- mid-2010’s/present, Generation Z is…
THE CONSUMER’S PERSPECTIVE We promised a second round of clean but this time we are examining it from the consumer point of view. We set out to uncover what the consumer understands about clean label and how far apart their knowledge might be from the industry’s definition. After that, we take a look how consumers…
Clean. What comes to mind when you hear that description applied to a diet, ingredient, recipe or label? And just as important, what comes to your consumer’s mind? While clean for consumers might be more of a flavor descriptor equal to fresh or bright or taking a break from sugar or carbs, in the industry…
Fusion cuisine. Born from the knives of Wolfgang Puck and Roy Yamaguchi, fusion cuisine morphed from an 80’s culinary innovation to a menu standard to “con-fusion” as ingredients were forced to play nice together even when they shouldn’t. By the mid-90’s, consumers appeared weary of fusion and their heads quickly turned to experimenting with exotic…
If you haven’t noticed, fermentation is everywhere. It’s on the tables of our favorite brewpubs in Mason jars jammed with house made pickles and veggies, and it is in the crocks of consumers making their own kimchi or sauerkraut. And it is a favorite Japanese soup – miso soup. Miso is a fermented wonder that…
adaptogen (noun) adap·to·gen \ə-ˈdap-tə-jən\\ : a nontoxic substance and especially a plant extract that is held to increase the body’s ability to resist the damaging effects of stress and promote or restore normal physiological functioning -Merriam Webster Meet the Adaptogens. Potent cornerstones of ancient Chinese medicine and Indian Ayurveda , these plants, herbs, and even mushrooms have…
Listed on several top ten trend lists for 2016, poke is an Hawaiian staple seen in fine restaurants, food trucks and local diners for generations. Usually made from yellowfin (ahi) tuna, poke is the latest global food poised to become a fast-casual craving. Poke’s bright, fresh flavors recall the familiarity of sushi, and appeals to…
It isn’t Chinese, Japanese, Korean or even Vietnamese. The original Asian fusion cuisine came from a country that dresses its spaghetti with hot dogs instead of meatballs and banana ketchup instead of tomato sauce. We’re talking about the Philippines, home to an intoxicating amalgamation of flavors from China, Spain, Malaysia, Thailand and Mongolia with a…
It might come as a surprise to you that we have been mastering the art of soy sauce powders for quite a few years. Since 1964, Nikken has made soy sauce powders (among other real food ingredients) one of our top priorities because we think its versatility and complexity is frankly…well, underrated. Sure, soy sauce…
We are one month into 2016 (which – frankly – is a little overwhelming). The holidays are over and we are back in the groove of things. Each year, we here at Nikken look forward to the food trend predictions by a variety of industry experts. We even made our own predictions the past two…
