Upscale chocolates and plant-based foods shared space at the Winter Fancy Food Show.
It seems a lifetime since international vendors packed Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco for the Winter Fancy Food Show, which ran January 19-21. Currently many borders are on lockdown because of the COVID-19 virus, with neither people nor goods able to move. But our prediction is we’ll get through this, and sooner than we expect.
The president of the Specialty Food Association opened the seminar I attended on the Mediterranean diet, and I learned the west coast FFS was added to the much older New York event as a way for importers to make contact with American retailers. I first attended in the early 1990s when I was doing some work with Harry & David; their buyers were looking for unique jarred sauces and jams to incorporate into gift baskets.
Over the years the number of jarred vs fresh, fermented or frozen items has dwindled, but the underlying mission has not changed. “Fancy” food is food that’s unusual enough, by whatever definition, that consumers will pay a premium for it and make it worthwhile for retailers to source products at the show.
This year we had a specialty pavilion of high end chocolate next to a pavilion of plant-based products. On the face of it, two categories as different as they could be. But both are catering to a customer who is looking for something new.
One year, I was astonished to find the wife of my high school Great Books teacher, presenting her line of home-baked Jewish pastries. She didn’t return but a similar business with big ideas, Les Trois Couchons, is an example of a specialty foods distributor growing from a single location to nationwide distribution. Each year I see them at the show and each year they have more products and more traffic.
We were at the first show where Serrano ham was legally available in the US and people stood in line for it. Today it seems there’s a handsome ham on display in every aisle. We’ve seen foie gras get banned, let back in, then banned again. We like to report on these changing trends and there’s always something new.
Vanderbilt professor Amanda Little led a packed session on sustainable food alternatives in the face of climate change.
Food is a vehicle for bringing people together, including the vendors and retailers who come to the show. They like to work face-to-face rather than virtually, like most of us these days, and every booth seems to have a small meeting table where serious prospects or customers can sample wares. It’s inspiring to see how food can mean so much to so many. At the end of each show I’m full and exhausted, but within a few days I’m looking forward to the next one.
