Gourmet goes convenient at Winter Fancy Food Show 2017
At the Winter Fancy Food Show 2017 in San Francisco this week, brands tapped convenience-minded consumers with grab-and-go, ready-to-eat food and beverages.
![Gourmet goes convenient at Winter Fancy Food Show 2017 Gourmet goes convenient at Winter Fancy Food Show 2017](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt09e5e63517a16184/bltc725fb75a658b6e3/64e8ef20a98e5447bb72c3e5/wffs17-grab-go-promo_1.png?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Pre-diced cheese to add taste, protein and calcium to a ho-hum salad.
Cucina & Amore branches out from its existing quinoa line with this cooked farro and sauce meal. Eat it cold or heat it up. Shelf stable, the farro container is flushed with nitrogen to prevent spoilage.
Very similar to Cucina & Amore's quinoa product (as in, almost identical). A quintessential grab-and-go item with a long shelf life.
An individually packaged Belgian waffle ideal for coffee or breakfast stations at your store. But where's the maple syrup?
A fully contained snack pack shoppers can throw in their bag for a later nosh. This is one example of how an existing company can innovate in packaging design to craft a new SKU (and potentially have a product merchandised in more than one area of the store).
Macaccino, a coffee substitute made with—you guessed it—maca, will be delving into the ready-to-drink category come spring. As a relatively new brand with a relatively new product, it will behoove Macaccino to first entice consumers with a smaller portion, and then lure them into purchasing their existing bulk bag for everyday use.
Newsflash: Even the freezer case is transitioning to grab-in-go items. This adorable hand pie is ideal for those living alone or small families who don't need an entire pie hanging around their house.
Previously available only in a pint, this frozen lassi is packaged in single-serve push-pop to help attract new fans.
Nona Lim's perfectly crafted savory bone and veggie broths now available in a takeaway cup. We swoon with delight!
Cheese dip and pretzels, a signature pairing previously only available in bars, is now an option for the train, plane, game or while binge-watching Netflix.
Buttery spiced nuts now in a snack pack. A good placement for this item would be at checkout.
This bar is notable because it's from a company that originally started off making salad dressings in unique flavors (such as Citrus Splash). The bar format allows consumers to recognize the brand in both the nutrition bar and salad dressing section—two points of shopper contact.
Ultra-popular hummus and flatbread, packaged in one refrigerated entity.
A decadent, teensy dessert made with traditional ingredients, including coffee-soaked ladyfingers and mascarpone cream. Designed to be merchandised in the ready-to-eat refrigerated section (spoon not included).
Until now, I've only seen fruit shrubs as cocktail mixers or bitters. Soaked fruit in vinegar with spices tastes surprisingly good with bourbon, vodka or other spirits. This brand takes such flavors and adds bubbly water for effervescence. The result: A lip-smacking sipper you can take anywhere.
Until now, I've only seen fruit shrubs as cocktail mixers or bitters. Soaked fruit in vinegar with spices tastes surprisingly good with bourbon, vodka or other spirits. This brand takes such flavors and adds bubbly water for effervescence. The result: A lip-smacking sipper you can take anywhere.
For years we’ve known that natural retail stores are rapidly transitioning to function less like traditional grocery stores and more like cafeterias and restaurants.
From simple salad bars to extravagant sushi stations, many natural locations are widening their grab-and-go sections to better serve convenience-minded consumers popping in for a snack or a quick meal rather than those stocking up on a week’s worth of groceries. Savvy retailers are even adding separate seating sections with ambiance (think: fireplaces, mood lighting) to their stores—all the better to encourage shoppers to stay longer, and perhaps buy a dessert or a snack for later in the day.
Widening the periphery of a store, of course, is not possible for all natural retailers. Square footage may be limited. And square footage is money. Exhibitors at the Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco were dishing out samples of newly reformulated products designed to be merchandised in the deli, grab ‘n' go or ready-to-consume sections of grocery stores.
Nona Lim, makers of delicious soups, broths and ramen noodles, for example, launched a microwave-safe, personal serving of broth packaged in a coffee cup-shaped BPA-free container. Likewise, Sweetaly tapped into the grab-and-go refrigerated section with adorable single-servings of Italian desserts, such as tiramisu, packaged in a glass container.
True, rapid-assemble speed scratch products are certainly still relevant and lucrative—but perhaps just for dinners, where the stigma of eating out of a package is still perceived as unhealthy. But for breakfast, lunch and snacks, the lion’s share of when our eating occurs, the trifecta of healthy, delicious and especially quick reigns supreme.
Ready-to-eat convenience foods are making lives easier and healthier. This is good—and I commend the companies who are innovating by observing how modern Americans actually live.
But there’s a catch. Grab-and-go inherently means that items are individually packaged, meaning more packaging waste. It is of the utmost importance for brands, such as the ones featured in the following slideshow, to become a part of the solution for plastic—and glass and paper and metal and Styrofoam—package mitigation (someday, elimination), not the problem.
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