Summer Fancy Food Show: Incubator Brand Trends

One of the best places to see what’s new at the Summer Fancy Food Show is the Debut District, home to Incubator Village, with food business incubators like The Hatchery and Oregon State’s Food Innovation Center displayed. Trends emerging from new brands here lean towards inspired functional nutrition; cuisine styles and flavors reflecting entrepreneur heritage; and fresh ideas like vertical farming and interactive culinary products.

Functional Health: Several Oregon Naturopaths developed EllyPops, freezer pops made with herbal teas, real fruit and balanced electrolytes. Gluten-free Tempo Granola taps into the gut health trend with antioxidant Vitamin E and prebiotic fiber fortification. On the snack side, Freekah Harvest leverages the ancient grain freekah in high-protein pita chips.

Global Heritage: An Oregon restaurateur, Sao Noi, showed off its signature Laotian chili oils with Ginger and Lemongrass versions. Indian flavor and ingredient combos were featured in Sun Ghee Kitchen’s grass-fed ghees: Cardamom, Ginger & Black Pepper and Cinnamon & Ashwagandha.

Elevated Flavors: We found more flavor adventure with Canyon Salt, a woman-owned company that blends red, white and rosé wine into sea salt for home cooking creativity. Two Hawaiian best friends founded Better Sour, a low-sugar, naturally flavored sour gummy with more diverse flavors from the Asian Pacific (Guava, Calamansi, Ume) and Middle East (Pomegranate, Apricot and Plum).

New Food System: Oishii grows two varietals of Japanese strawberries in a New Jersey vertical farm and packages them in a novel flat pack. Both the ‘always in season’ Omakase Berry and Koyo Berry are pesticide-free, non-GMO and sold ‘perfectly ripe’.

Interactive Baking Kits: We were impressed with Flour & Olive’s whole-wheat and olive oil cake mixes that can be baked into 70 global recipes thanks to an interactive website map. BaKIT Box’s baking activity kits use STEM concepts in its kid-geared educational cookie mixes.