INDUSTRY NEWS & TRENDS
The food industry is seeing a greater consumer demand for products with big flavors or more taste. Thus, manufacturers are employing several methods to enhance taste, including the use of full-bodied raw ingredients, ethnic recipes and precooking flavorings. From sun-dried tomatoes to caramelized onions to smoked meats, it's all about more taste. There are certain methods to build flavor into taste:

• Full-bodied raw ingredients (arugula, artichokes, swordfish)
• Heightened spice / seasoning levels
• Ethnic recipes and influences
• High-impact cooking techniques (roasting, smoking, grilling over woods (mesquite or apple)
• Precooking flavorings (spice rubs, crusts, breadings, marinades)

Bring flavor into food fulfills a consumer demand for more healthful menu items. You can decrease the amount of fat and salt intake by increasing the flavor profile. Flavorful ethnic cooking techniques and moderate use of high fat, high-calorie food items.

At the other end of the spectrum, mainstream consumers have shown a tendency to want it all--from the comfort foods they enjoyed as youths to new regional tastes (e.g. southwestern, Tex-Mex, etc.) to exotic ethnic cuisine (Asian). Other trends, which focus on flavor, include "New World Cuisine", which is about balance, contrast, fresh foods, and flexibility.

Another recent food trend is the fusion of different ethnicities, marrying Asian ingredients to French finesse and American innovation. Chefs, endlessly hungry for a taste of something different, have found a vast new frontier amply stocked with exotic, unfamiliar tastes, and the Asian infusion was underway.

As such, they are turning to ethnic foods as an outlet to satisfy cravings for hot, spicy and flavorful foods, particularly Baby Boomers whose taste buds are dulling as they age. As vegetarianism burgeons, a melange of ethnic meatless foods step to the fore, including Thai and Indian fare. A study came out showing that ethnic foods will capture one out of every seven new food dollars spent in the decade ahead. The emerging menu focus is on foods from the Pacific Rim, Mediterranean Rim and the Caribbean.