FreshDirect, one of the Northeast’s leading online fresh food grocers, announced its top food trends for 2019. The trends list was curated by FreshDirect and FoodKick’s in-house teams of food and wine experts.
“Our FreshDirect and FoodKick food experts are constantly working with farmers, fishermen, artisans, and producers to source high-quality, great tasting products for our customers,” said Scott Crawford, chief merchandising officer at FreshDirect. “These deep relationships paired with FoodKick’s ability to work with emerging brands place us at the cutting edge of what’s happening in food and we’re excited to announce what we see as the major trends and influences coming in 2019 and beyond.”
FreshDirect’s top trends for 2019 include the following:
Bringing Fresh into Shelf-Stable
Shelf-stable products, which are traditionally highly processed, are continuing to evolve to be fresher and more direct to the source. This coming year will bring more innovative, fresh, and sustainable takes on shelf-stable staples. Some shelf-stable foods are evolving to become so fresh that they need to be refrigerated. Perfect Bar, the leading refrigerated bar on the market, Union’s Duck L’orange bar, and Haven’s Kitchen’s Red Pepper Romesco sauce are prime examples of new takes on shelf-stable products that use fresh, natural ingredients in convenient and creative ways. Another example is FreshDirect’s hand-harvested Olio Novello, an exclusive olive oil that is blended, pressed, and shipped from Italy soon after harvest. This seasonal, limited-time delicacy is launched under private label Just FreshDirect.
Organic 2.0
Next year, there will be more tech-enabled local organic offerings developed by vertical farming leaders like AeroFarms, and many more bio-dynamic processes and growing methods. Although organic penetration has been growing year-over-year, customers have recently evolved to become more enthusiastic about products with positive environmental impact, regardless of whether they carry formal organic certification. For example, this year FoodKick started a Transitional Farming initiative to support local farms by buying all their produce during their transitional stage, a three-year process conventional farms undertake to transition to organic farming practices. By purchasing product labeled as “transitional”, our customers can support local farmers and their better growing practices, while getting produce grown with organic methods before its certification at lower-than-organic prices.
Cauliflower Power
Kale is out and cauliflower is in. Customers are keen on incorporating more plants into their diets and cauliflower has taken a leading role in the plant-based space. Customers love the cauliflower craze as it’s a lower carb vegetable that holds up like a grain and absorbs flavor easily. It can unnoticeably replace starches in many staples, including pizza crust, rice, crackers, pretzels, and even tater tots, or as our recipe developers coined them “Tater Nots”. Keep an eye out for new developments by emerging brands like Caulipower, whose frozen pizza crusts are FoodKick’s best seller in the category.
Evolution of Kid Snacks
2019 will bring serious innovations in the snacks category, specifically in kid snacks. Kid snacks will shift in two ways — there will be more nutritional plays on traditional kids’ favorites and adult staples will also become more kid-friendly. Essential snacking items like snack bars, jerky, cookies, and crackers will welcome more child-friendly flavors and textures, with a shift towards more nutritious and clean ingredients. National players will continue to invest in developing cleaner, kid-friendly snacks and there will be a surge in new innovations like Peek-a-Boo’s strawberry ice cream, which features hidden carrots. Another example of a brand creating delicious and nutritious kid-friendly options is Little Dish, which FreshDirect will soon be carrying. They’ve developed a breadth of kid-friendly meals and snacks with really unique flavor profiles that feel more adult, such as Mild Chicken Tikka and Shepherd’s Pie.
Spreading Local
FreshDirect’s experts are seeing new and exciting twists on local that will gain more penetration in 2019. Vertical farming and its controlled methods will enable new innovations like tropical items sourced locally, as well as out-of-season strains and varietals being grown locally. There will also be a resurgence of sourcing hyper-local fish species that were previously unpopular with consumers, like ocean perch, tilefish, porgy, and blackfish. Additionally, more retailers will leverage their relationships to create high-quality, custom products with local partners. For example, this summer FreshDirect brought together two partners, Savani Farms and Bronx Brewery to create an exclusive, limited-edition Mango Queen IPA. The IPA used Indian Saffron Mangoes that are renowned for their intensely sweet taste and firm tropical scent, but only in season for six to eight weeks from mid-May to early-July.
