For all the great things at the Fancy Food Show, there's a bunch of bad stuff too. I'm not going to name names, but I have a lot to say...
Food trends that need to go away:
- Organic/natural food where that's the only feature. That is, if you made organic butter from pastured cows that's one thing, but it's entirely unnecessary to just make normal butter and say it's organic. There's no point. If it tastes better, people will buy it regardless of what you say it is. It's about taste, people.
- Products that combine the worst points of two different products. One of the exhibitors had a barbecue brining system that made the meat taste like it had a soggy dry rub. So it was wet and didn't have the nice crust of a dry rub, but since it was a brine it had none of the saucy goodness of normal sauce. Not a very smart product.
- There are entirely too many chocolate vendors in the world and they're all trying to taste the same. They can try in vain to differentiate themselves with single origin chocolate but the fact of the matter is that there just aren't that many places that grow cacao. The diminishing returns once you hit the Valrhona level of chocolate are pretty minuscule.
- Cheese makers that aren't good. Sorry, but the cheese industry in the US is saturated with phenomenal cheesemakers. If your stuff is just average you are going to be pushed out of the market.
- Dry soup mixes. None of them taste good.
We'll be back tomorrow with our Chomple Award winners! Stay Tuned!
