We’re just back from the 2020 Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco, where the focus as you might expect was on “plant-based” everything. Impossible and Beyond weren’t there, but there were plenty of meat alternatives as well as products that never had any animal protein to begin with jumping on the bandwagon. We have several reports coming up, but first a quick look at the products that caught our eye.
Oat milk products were everywhere, and why not? It’s delicious, adaptable and completely meat- and dairy-free. It’s also quite high in sugar, but never mind.
Fat Bombs are the ultimate keto snack, with 3g protein and 9 g fat per serving. Not in love with the name, though, and the high fat content gave it a greasy mouthfeel.
Like cake? Like popcorn? Here’s a popcorn cake, embedded with confetti sprinkles.
The Jelly Belly folks always come up with a new novelty snack. This time it was a tasting challenge of five increasingly hot chile flavors, from jalapeño to Carolina Reaper. We only made it as far as Sriracha.
Crapola finds a new benefit, regularity, in a tired product category, granola. They were passing out “I pooped today” bumper stickers.
Calabrese chilis are a thing, both whole like this display and ground. Add the to a pasta dish. The only problem I found was that they varied widely in heat level, so taste before you serve.
An example of bandwagon-jumping. Pasta is made with wheat, so of course it’s plant-based!
This private-label tequila company came up with some terrific bottle designs with a Day of the Dead motif. They also had some awesome aged mezcal hidden under the counter.
Matcha was big, as was tea in general. Also lot of mochi ice cream. A former trend that was hardly visible: quinoa.
