Prime Time for Fancy Foods

The economic downturn and heightened interest in at-home cooking and entertaining are contributing to an uptick in gourmet/specialty food sales.

Food Technology Magazine | Article

A. Elizabeth Sloan

With consumers watching cooking shows like soap operas, gourmet/specialty/fancy food sales in the United States topping $63 billion in 2007, and celebrity chefs like Emeril Lagasse creating personal empires in excess of $150 million, the “foodie” revolution shows no signs of slowing down (Schoenfeld, 2005). More than 5 million Americans download recipes from the Food Network Web site each month. Moreover, it’s a global movement; “superchef” Martin Yan has hosted more than 1,800 cooking shows air…

Gourmet dessert shots like these tantalizing concoctions from Galaxy Foods make it hard to resist capping off a meal with a sweet treat.

Table 1. Specialty food and beverage product launches, by category, in gourmet, health food, and specialty retailers in 2007. From Mintel (2008).

Table 2. Sales of top 10 specialty food categories in 2007. From Mintel.


Figure 1. Importance of various labels/phrases when shopping for foods and beverages. From The Hartman Group (2008).

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In This Article

  1. Food Business Trends
  2. Consumer and Marketplace Trends
  3. Food Product Development
  4. Culinary and Ingredient Trends
  5. Food, Health and Nutrition
  6. Food Product Development

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