We always enjoy going to the NASFT Winter Fancy Food Show, which now in its 38th year was attended by over 18,000 members of the food industry. It showcased 80,000 Specialty food & beverage products displayed by more than 1,300 exhibitors from around the world filling two halls at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. We like to look for new trends and of course love to sample the food. Gluten Free, Organic, Sustainable, Probiotic, Hand Crafted, Fat Free, Ethnic, Natural and Individual Size Serving Packaging were definitely the trends. We also enjoyed chatting with New Orleans Celebrity Chef Paul Prudhomme and tasting samples by local San Francisco Chefs Chris Cosentino from Incanto and Chef Alan Fairhurst from Scomas.

Getting noticed by buyers from major retailers is always the goal of exhibitors and “catchy” names were everywhere. We especially enjoyed the excellent organic mushroom based foods FungusAmongUs www.fungusamongus.com and the healthy and tasty Allure Mangosteen- mango drink from Alo Drinks www.alodrink.com. Hot Can www.hot-can.com was a unique beverage and soup product where the can heats itself! “Push the button and in 3 minutes the can is hot.” Holy Crap www.holycrap.com breakfast cereal had a great name and is very healthy but it may be an acquired taste.

New Orleans Celebrity Chef Paul Prudhomme

Another favorite beverage at the show was Josuma Coffee Company’s Malabar Gold Premium Espresso www.josuma.com which had fabulous taste and wonderful crema. We also enjoyed the pickles by Sonoma Brinery www.sonomabrinery.com , the single serving of mixed drinks by The Modern Cocktail www.themoderncocktail.com and the Belgian Waffles which were made with a HVD Waffle Iron www.hvd.be . We looked for Tokyo Banana but could not find them and were told by the Japan pavilion that they are not imported into the U.S.

Sonoma Brinery

We met quite a few sweet people, sampled some great new items and look forward to attending again next year or perhaps going to the Summer Fancy food Show in New York http://www.specialtyfood.com/fancy-food-show/summer-fancy-food-show/

 

By Carol & Joe Davis