To get a sneak peek of food trends before they go big, there’s no better place than the Fancy Food Shows.
Industry expos showcasing the newest products across the entire specialty food landscape, the Fancy Food Shows are chock-full of innovation, offering attendees a first look at where consumer tastes, values, and preferences are headed.
For 10 Gen Z attendees of the 2024 Summer Show this past June in New York City, five food trends rose to the surface.
Read on to learn what these next-generation food experts—all students in the Drexel Food Lab program—found most noteworthy as they explored more than 330,000 square feet of specialty products.
Table of Contents
Trend 1: Beverage Boom
Innovation in beverages continues, with a number of trends to watch: sparkling, cocktail-inspired, and offering clean labels and health benefits without compromising on taste.
Brands like Kombucharista combine multiple elements with non-alcoholic, gut-healthy, prepared mocktails. Bluestem Botanicals (organic mocktail kits with herbs) and Seraphim Beverages (non-alcoholic wine) display the depth of NA offerings. Ceybon comes in with mushroom-infused concentrates, and Unity offers natural energy drinks with adaptogens.
Finally, the dry beverage market has also expanded. Pinky Up offers boba in a tea bag while Everydaze Reset Kombucha has powdered kombucha in a variety of flavors.
Trend 2: Crunchy Snacks
If you ever wanted to make a loud announcement when walking into a room, you now have endless edible means to do so. In the snack category, new methods of producing snacks, ingredients, and flavors show the rewards of experimentation.
Mr. Mushroom features vacuum-fried vegetables, from its namesake to tomatoes and lotus root. Similarly, freeze dried snacks are continue to evolve through new offerings from brands like Uptop Treats and Pocas.
In just one example of the creative potato-chip boom, Bret’s Chips showcased flavors like camembert and summer truffle. Everyone is bound to find a new favorite snack!
Trend 3: Global Flavors
More than 56 countries were represented at the Summer Show, and flavors from every corner of the world were on display. Sauces and spices are walking the specialty-to-mainstream path of Sriracha, with offerings from Watcharee (Thailand), Perfeito (Brazil), HOXY (Korea), and Brundo (Ethiopia).
Prepared foods like Xinca‘s pupusas, Doro’s Cheesy Korean Rice Cakes, and snacks from HBAF (tteok-bokki almonds and cheeseburger popcorn!) exhibit how global flavors have popularized across the industry.
Trend 4: Flours Beyond Whole Wheat
As gluten-free snack innovation continues, we see a wider variety of featured alternatives. Diggables strays from the traditional with buckwheat puffs.
In the same vein, Sorghum Symphony’s puffed snacks include global flavors like churro and curry while Yuca Balls offers a crunchy cassava snack. Ieialel offers dehydrated fermented millet flour while Local village has ready to eat sorghum grain in brine along with their sorghum, teff, and tiger nut flours.
For Good granola features buckwheat in their oat free granola. Yolélé has expanded fonio to the American market with chips made from the African grain.
Trend 5: Honey Everything
Honey’s moment continues. From hot honey to tea and sauces, you scarcely walk an aisle without tasting a honey product. Explorer has a honey chai concentrate and Savannah Bee Company launched a honey hot sauce. Fresh Fizz sweetens their sodas with honey.
Casa Folino’s set out a wide array of flavored honey like bergamot, lemon, and balsamic. Bumbleberry farms featured their peach vanilla cream spread. Zen Bear has a selection of honey teas. Honey B has a sparkling honey drink… and the list goes on.
Reported by the Specialty Food Association Junior Trendspotters: Felicia Yan, Belinda Faakye, Zae’Onah Howell, Adam Gladstone, Victoria Sanchez-Galarza, Alessandra Mora, Alex Ly, Gabe Thayer, Jocelyn Leal, and DeAndra Forde, led by Drexel Food Lab Associate Director Chef Rachel Sherman, Drexel University Professor Jonathan Deutsch, and Chef Brooke Olasewere.
Get a first look at what comes next for these food trends at the 2025 Winter Fancy Food Show, January 19-21 in Las Vegas.
Thank you, Total Food Service, for the shoutout for Kombucharista!! Much love!