Anderson Partners Advertising | Food Ingredients

The 2013 Annual Conference of the Research Chefs Association (RCA) was held in Charlotte, N.C., in March and once again focused on the latest trends in new product development. The Culinology^® Expo featured over 100 different exhibitors showcasing the latest ingredients and culinary applications. Corporate chefs and new product development executives from the leading food manufacturers and food service companies exchanged ideas and experiences around new innovations and industry challenges.

One of the biggest trends getting the chefs’ attention was the ongoing pressure on food manufacturers and processors to reduce sodium in their food products. The loudest buzz at the RCA Show around sodium reduction was for ingredient supplier, Nu-Tek Food Science, and their new technology solution for reducing sodium in a wide variety of prepared food applications. At the Saturday morning conference breakfast, Nu-Tek Food Science executives showcased their new technology with an array of traditional breakfast items with significantly reduced sodium levels.

Corporate Chefs Adam Moore and Todd Downs from Charlie Baggs, Inc. presented their English Muffin Challenge with 40-percent reduced-sodium English muffins at an Eggs Benedict station that included 50-percent reduced-sodium bacon, poached eggs and mustard hollandaise. The breakfast buffet also included Cheesy grits with 33-percent reduced-sodium cheddar cheese and 50-percent reduced-sodium sausage links. All of these breakfast items were made with Nu-Tek Food Science’s sodium-reduction technology.

Attendees were wowed by the great taste of the reduced-sodium foods. Corporate Chefs from Unilever, Morrison Food Service and other major manufacturers raved over Nu-Tek Food Science’s sodium-reduction technology as a major breakthrough in addressing this important food industry issue.

Once again, the annual RCA conference showcased the leading edge trends for food manufacturers and processors and in the case of the Nu-Tek Food Science breakfast buffet, did so with the great taste and top-shelf presentation that the research chefs have come to expect.

The annual Prepared Foods’ New Products Conference kicked off on Monday, Sept. 9 in Palm Beach, Fla. This is my third conference and the combination of an intimate setting, information-packed presentations and diverse food industry professionals make this a worthwhile event.

This year started off with a timely and informative keynote presentation by Rick Lenny. Rick is an accomplished industry veteran and former chairman, president and CEO of the Hershey Company, and former president of Nabisco Biscuit Company. The key theme of Rick’s presentation was “relevance,” and how important it is for companies and brands to maintain their relevance with consumers. This seems reasonable until, as Rick pointed out, in just over 20 years, half the companies that comprised the Dow are no longer on the Dow. Obviously, these companies didn’t plan for this to happen, but it did. Today, consumer-oriented companies dominate the Dow, and the big question is: How do companies today stay relevant for the future? To address this critical question, Rick laid out his E³ strategic framework: Enhance Relevance, Extend Reach and Enhance Growth.

Day two of the Prepared Foods’ Conference featured many informative presentations from a variety of talented executives. Dr. Scott Edgett, CEO and founder, Product Development Institute and Stage-Gate International; Bob Jones, CEO, Scientific Nutrition Products, Inc.; Kevin Higar, director of operator product development, Technomic; William Bigelow, VP business development/R&D and Jeff Wirtz, corporate executive chef, Blount Fine Foods; and Mike Helser, associate director, General Mills Worldwide Innovation Network.

Mintel, a platinum event sponsor, hosted two highly informative and fun events. During one event, conference attendees were able to sample over 60 products from around the world. Products from France, Japan, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Spain and the U.S. caught my attention:

• Japan: Diet Black Coffee Jelly
• U.S.: Healthy Choice Greek Frozen Yogurt
• The Netherlands: Cyberry Healthy Eyes Beverage
• United Kingdom: Tesco’s Choka Blok Premium Private Label Ice Cream
• United Kingdom: Tesco’s Goodness Pasta Sauce with “Hidden Vegetables”
• United Kingdom: Tilda’s Sweet Vegetable & Whole Grain Rice
• Spain: Corpore Satiating Bars
• U.S.: Assure Beverage
• France: Casino Supermarket Packaged Cookies for Children

During another Mintel event, Lynn Dornblaser and David Jago presented their “10 Trends You Must Keep in Mind When Developing New Products” presentation. Lynn and David are two of Mintel’s top CPG experts and take high-level insights on market, consumer and product trends and boil them down to actionable takeaways for the attendees. Top 10 Trends we all should be mindful of in our new product development efforts are the following:

1. Weight loss evolves into hunger management
2. Everyone but consumers are focused on calories
3. Smuggling fruit and vegetables into the diet
4. Products for seniors are products for everyone
5. “Economy” is more than just low price
6. Private label ramps up innovation
7. Taking out the “fake”
8. “Green” isn’t just about recycling—it’s the whole supply chain
9. Flavors go experimental and experiential
10. Technology helps consumers “play” with their food

Lynn and David’s parting words of wisdom, “technology means connectivity, know that the powerful private label is here to stay, the food world has gone local, focus on the positives (positive features and benefits vs. calorie reduction and less fat), and most importantly keep it ‘simple’ is the driving theme across messaging to product features to benefits to ingredients.”

For Rocco's full review of the conference visit the Franklin Foods website and blog.

Rocco Cardinale

Rocco has over 15 years of marketing and branding experience in the food and beverage, and consumer packaged goods industry. His background stretches from founding a coffee company in California to his current role as director of marketing with Franklin Foods, an innovative dairy manufacturer. Rocco's marketing and branding successes have appeared in Bon Appetit, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, The Wall Street Journal and Wired Magazine. Connect with Rocco on LinkedIn and Twitter @RoccoCardinale.

With the 2012 Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Annual Meeting and Food Expo around the corner, many exhibitors have started promoting their booth presence and what products they’ll be featuring at the trade show.

As part of their IFT promotion, we’ve received weekly emails from Corn Products/National Starch. Each email features one of the samples they will be offering at their booth and highlights their ingredient products they are using.

A great attribute of the email is a link that takes you to a landing page where more details are provided about the Corn Products/National Starch booth along with their roster of presenters for the technical sessions. The website not only provides details about the show, but its main page showcases an image of the Corn Products/National Starch booth. This is a nice element and it gives attendees an idea of what to look for when they arrive at the show.

Corn Products/National Starch has done a great job of marketing their presence at the 2012 IFT Expo. As we get closer to the show itself, it will be interesting to see what tactics other food ingredient companies use to promote their show presence.