Fads and trends at IFE

Walking around the International Food & Drink Event (IFE) in London yesterday, one of my fellow visitors looked at the ice creams made from nuts and coconut and remarked, remember how popular coconut water was for awhile? And now, where is it at this show? The IFE tends to capture the emerging trends in the food industry.

The answer is nowhere, because it didn’t taste very good. I think there is a lesson here – sacrificing flavour to indulge a passing fad can be a short-term plan, not a long term one. Virtue only gets you so far in the food business. Taste has to accompany it, or people will not continue to buy the product. But you can’t process it too much. There are so many rules.

This year, IFE is for those who are fans of gin and frozen alcoholic drinks, ice cream (dairy and non-dairy), popcorn and bars made with cocoa nibs. I do think the weird thing is that a few years ago, it was nuts that were ‘bad’, due to the issue of allergies. Now, there is a lot of vegan offerings, which contain nuts. Oh dear.

On the dairy side, there is still much to recommend the show. What I find is that often, I see the same people in the dairy trade, plugging away, year after year. When the product is good, and nutrition is a given, then staying the course is made easier, I guess.

Plus, there are many treats that can be made with dairy. For example, Drunken Dairy in southeast London is making adult treats such as OMG, vanilla and vodka ice cream with Oreo cookies as inclusions, and Dark Destroyer, a dark chocolate ice cream infused with orange liqueur. In other words, if you’d like to have a drink, you can have your ice cream at the same time. A very good solution.