Fancy Foods: Alt-Sushi, Calamari Debuts; Snacks Look To Sourcing And Sweets Shrink Size

The Specialty Food Association’s Winter Fancy Food Show returned to the Las Vegas Convention Center with a wave of new product innovations, novel formats in the plant-based alternatives space and growing prominence for outer space aesthetics.

Clocking in at over 1,100 booths and approximately 13,000 registered attendees, the show saw a rise of new ingredient trends, sourcing practices and production methods, particularly in the snack space.

Plant Based Seafood Serves Up Sushi, New Species

Yves Potvin, founder of plant-based brands Gardein and Yves Veggie Gourmet, used this year’s Fancy Food Show to debut his next CPG venture, Konscious Foods.

The Canadian brand showcased 12 SKUs of plant-based seafood items including sushi rolls, poke bowls and kits and onigiri, a grab-and-go style sushi that’s popular in Japanese c-stores, said a spokesperson for the brand. Backed by a team of CPG experts and chefs working on R&D for nearly two years, the brand recently began rolling out products for soft launch at select Whole Foods and Choice Market locations in the Vancouver area, with U.S. expansion being the next target.

Konscious developed each input for the products in-house using clean ingredients, from the plant-based salmon and tuna to regeneratively-grown rice that can hold up through freezing and defrosting. The sushi roll line comes with eight-pieces in California, Spicy California, Tuna Avocado and Rainbow varieties. The 2-piece onigiri sets are available in Kale Gomae, Korean BBQ Mushroom, Roasted Corn & Poblano, and Japanese Vegetable Curry varieties.

While a spokesperson for Konscious said the products bring a boatload of sustainability attributes, the package itself features food photography and key ingredient and attribute call-outs. Instead, brand reps said Konscious hopes that rising awareness to the benefits of plant-based foods broadly will be enough to draw in early consumers and intends to iterate its packaging with appropriate climate-related callouts following its retail test launch.

The company is targeting opportunities to grow the business in foodservice by supplying its ingredients to restaurants and fresh food sets in grocery. For these customers, Konscious sells each piece of its sushi roll ingredients in bulk formats so items like its salmon or tuna can be freshly sliced and prepared on-site.

In addition to Konscious, plant-based seafood maker Jinka showcased its alt-tuna spreads in Original, Lemon + Dill and Spicy varieties alongside its latest innovation: sea-free calamari. The new product will soon roll out to the frozen set of Whole Foods stores.

Jinka launched in 2019, only weeks before the pandemic hit, and has struggled to maintain a consistent supply to its retail partners. However, the brand has maintained its distribution agreements and is rolling product back out to nearly 300 Whole Food stores this month. A spokesperson for Jinka said the brand is aiming to tackle crab cakes as its next format.

Snacks See New Ingredient Plays, Positioned On Sourcing and Production Methods

Eye-catching ingredients from “crunchy hard fish” to horse gram and green mung beans found their way into novel snack flavors and formats at this year’s Winter Fancy Food Show.

Icelandic snack brand Naera introduced its latest innovation – fish jerky puffs in a cheesy chili flavor. The new fishy flavor joins its existing lineup of puffed skyr and cheese products manufactured in its production facility in Iceland. This latest launch takes advantage of the network of independent local fishermen that wild-catch all of the company’s live ingredients, which are then processed into the snacks locally for optimum freshness. According to co-founder Hordur Kristinsson, the brand is also selling whole fish, crunchy capelin fish in international markets.

On the plant-based snack side, BIPOC female-led bean and lentil snack maker SVAA HAA was reintroduced under its new name Sanchi with three flavors of puffed chips – Sea Salt, Chili Garlic and Tikka Masala. After navigating a trademark dispute with its former moniker late last year, the brand has relaunched the air-puffed product which is made from a blend of horse gram, black gram and green mung beans. Each single-serving, resealable bag contains 5 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber per serving.

Elsewhere, South Korean vegetable chip brand Mush Garden made its U.S. debut with a flagship line of vacuum fried shiitake mushrooms in Original, Sea Salt, Wasabi and Spicy varieties in addition to a secondary lineup which features cherry tomato, okra, garlic and snap pea chips. According to the brand’s founder, the vacuum frying process retains all of the nutrients and colors of the respective vegetable due to the lower cooking temperature while also preserving the taste, resulting in a crispier chip that is shelf stable for over a year.

Also notable in snacks was the debut of a new walnut snack brand, Unbound, launched by Northern California walnut farm Sutter Foods. The family-run farm had been growing walnuts for three generations when sibling duo, Anjali and Rikki Bhatti, decided it was time to help diversify the family business. Enter Unbound, which is now selling pouches of roasted walnuts in flavors such as Chili Lime, Butter Toffee and Cinnamon.

Cosmic Themes Have Captured Food and Beverage

Oregon-based nut butter, seed, dried berry and trail mix company Wilderness Poets has extended into the beverage category with the launch of a new space-themed brand, dubbed SPIN. After learning some customers were attempting to make nut milk with its nut butters, the company began working on a ready-made product and landed on nut milk concentrates, which were revealed for the first time at the show. Packed in 8 oz. squeeze pouches for retail, the product comes in four almond milk varieties – Original, Unsweetened, Chocolate and Vanilla – as well as in Macadamia Milk and Cashew Milk & Cream. Each pouch makes up to the equivalent of three, 32 oz. cartons of nut milk by simple blending or mixing with water.

SPIN is also targeting foodservice where it sells large formats of the concentrate. According to Wilderness Poets Co-Founder John Bannerman, the product can be used to make anything from smoothies to plant-based sauces and baked goods. The team also exhibited its new miso-based nutritional yeast “nooch” product, branded under its parent company.

Lafayette, Indiana-based family roastery Copper Moon Coffee currently markets a line of space-themed coffee products including Artemis 1 Reserve, Bean Me Up, Stargazer and Dark Sky roasts following a rebrand in 2020. Most recently, the brand expanded its foodservice presence through a partnership with Purdue University’s Maurice J. Zucrow Laboratories, a propulsion testing facility that has received grant funding from NASA.

MyMochi Looks To Diversify With Waffles, Syrups Come To Cereal

After expanding with smoothie-inspired flavors last year, ice cream brand MyMochi continues to explore ways to diversify its product lineup in testing a new format – mini mochi waffles – at the show this week. Currently the product is still in its R&D phase, but was exhibited and sampled at the show so the brand could collect industry feedback.

According to a spokesperson for the company, MyMochi is hoping to ride off the growing mochi waffle recipe trend while also offering its consumers a complementary product that can be paired with its ice creams. With flavors including Original, Blueberry and Chocolate Chip, each ready-to-heat- back contains six mini mochi dough-based waffles. The product can be prepared in a microwave or toaster oven and is intended to be a grab and go snack for any time of day.

Elsewhere on the floor, new brand Cerup made its industry debut with a 13-SKU line of “cereal syrups.” The company launched on Amazon during the first day of the show and said reception to the product had been overwhelmingly positive. With flavors ranging from Coffee to Cinnamon Toast, the brand’s founder said it aims to offer flavors that will personalize any breakfast bowl, for the “sophisticated to sweets-obsessed” consumer.

Sweets See Innovation In New Formats, Smaller Sizes

While making better-for-you versions of classic desserts is pretty standard stuff, this year’s Winter Fancy Food Show saw several brands aiming at one item in particular: cheesecake. Organic refrigerated dessert maker Petit Pot debuted its new single-serving cheesecake line extension in three flavors: Original, Crème Brûlée and Strawberry, marking the brand’s first foray outside of its classic and plant-based French dessert varieties. The new offering will be offered in a two-pot pack and will land on Whole Foods store shelves nationwide in the upcoming weeks.

Looking to expand into brick-and-mortar retail, Boston-based low-sugar cheesecake maker Wonder Monday unveiled its new single-serve format. According to co-founder Jonathan Weinstein, the brand is looking to debut in natural retailers before eventually expanding into the conventional category. Available in two varieties – Strawberry Bliss and Key Lime Pie – each single-serve cheesecake has just two grams of sugar.

Better-for-you candy brand Oomph is also rethinking the size of its sweets following some consumer feedback and new iterations on its original chews format. The keto-friendly chews will soon relaunch in a more “pop-able size” that amounts to about half of the original volume and aims to reduce time spent eating each individual piece with the intention of becoming a more snackable sweet.