Consumers are obsessed with food; they watch cooking shows and scour Pinterest and websites with visions of being the next contestant on Chopped. They’re hungry all the time but don’t have the time to shop and cook the meals they want at home. Add to this the fact that the unique, fresh sourced ingredients they…
It’s happened. Eating healthy is cool. Vegans, Paleo and Whole 30 devotees have become part of the “in crowd,” with more consumers than ever making bold declarations of challenging their food to do more for them. It seems that you can’t go a day without hearing about someone at work, in the neighborhood, at the…
Snacking. It’s become a way of life, a bonafide part of our day. And with 94% of Americans admitting to snacking at least once a day and forty percent of adults substituting a snack for a meal these days, the choices required to satisfy diverse palates and dietary choices has to be bountiful, flavorful and…
Its subtle—but have you noticed how the burger has been elevated to a whole new status? Today’s burger is much more than “two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese”. The bun and what is sandwiched between is the juicy manifestation of all that is trending in our industry. Let’s pop the lid off the burger…
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…
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…
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…
Each year, we always look forward to the trends that seem to capture our attention so much that they drive our taste buds (or cars) to the nearest local spot to try them. One hot trend for 2016 that we never thought would grace consumer’s plates is sea vegetables. Sea vegetables, like sugar kelp, dulce…
We’ve been creating umami since 1964 so you could say we know a thing or two about umami. And while we talk a lot about umami flavors we felt it was time to put a spotlight on the ingredients that deliver umami and how easy it can be to add it to your applications with…
