Each month the Sharp team saves you time by rounding up some of the latest trends and insights from the world of food and drink. It’s designed to help brand founders like you use trends, fine-tune your messaging and increase your brand awareness.
The last month has been all about THE JUGGLE: school holidays are in full flight, which means childcare and activities to be organised, summer holidays to pack for, taxi runs for teenagers, while keeping all the balls in the air at the office! August is never for the fainthearted if you’re a working parent.
So, this month, we’re bringing you some bitesize snippets to snack on during that precious five minutes with a hot (semi-hot) drink, to keep you topped up.
World Flavours in Fashion
Hot off the press – the ready to eat rice and pulse pouch brand Merchant Gourmet has been snapped up by Premier Foods, as reported in The Grocer. A great example of how brands trading on the consumer appetite for world flavours coupled with healthy, minimally processed ingredients in a convenient format are doing well.
Flavour Bombs is an exciting new world flavours brand, set up by Tina Faghihi-Hallam in 2024 which is breaking open the scratch cooking category and will be one to watch in the future. Responding to the boom in demand, particularly from Gen Z and younger Millennials, for authentic world flavours & culinary exploration at home, Flavour Bombs is transforming the home cooking experience and becoming a Gen Z kitchen staple. A perfectly portioned sphere packed with premium herbs, spices, onions, garlic, tomatoes, aromatics and roots from Vietnam, West Africa and Mexcio, Flavour Bombs shortcut the need for chopping, blitzing or grinding and fulfil demand for flavours like Birria and Seafood Boils, which has soared over the past year.
Natural products revival
We’re continuing to see a resurgence of brands that are natural kitchen staple products, minimally processed and focused on quality. These brands are re-educating the consumer palate, which has cultivated a taste for addictive, ultra-processed foods, and appealing to the consumer desire for real, unadulterated, nutritious food and drink.
Watch this space in September for some exciting whole milk NPD from Tom Parker Creamery. This Somerset based dairy’s traditionalist brand ethos of ‘less is more’, high welfare dairy farming, and letting the final natural product shine continues to win fans and major retail listings.
Also having a moment is the culinary staple Olive Oil. Sharp client The Olive Oil Guy, Mazen Assaf, who is an olive oil sommelier, was featured in a Sheerluxe’s trending article which digs into “the EVOO Boom” to find out how olive oil has become the celebrity drizzle and dinner party gift of choice!
It’s Christmassssss!
Yes, it feels odd to be salivating over advent calendars, festive crackers and hampers while there’s a heatwave, but the SHARP Christmas Gift Guide pitching is in full swing.
From beautifully packaged premium Extra Virgin Olive Oils; sustainable, organic and Fairtrade spices; premium, superfood-packed hot sauce giftsets and advent calendar; the finest, natural ingredient cocktail crackers; Italian artisan panettones; handcrafted fresh fudge and gingerbread caramels; to the finest English still wines – our sack overfloweth!
Journalist friends drop us a line if you’re looking for products to review.
Brain Candy
Sandwich stunts
Anyone tried the Birthday cake sandwich from Tesco or M&S’s strawberry and cream sandwich offering? These latest headline grabbing launches made us laugh, cry and despair in equal measures…. it’s like UPF and HFSS got together to have one last desperate hurrah before (hopefully) becoming extinct.
While challenger brands are working so hard to reduce any negative impact; they make eco packaging, products nutritionally dense and build ethical values in at every layer.
Big Food organisations, meanwhile, are not. They’re pulling stunts like this. Another stunt designed to make a point or highlight a celebration which offers absolutely zero value to the consumer…. or the environment, or our nutrition, it’s wasteful in every direction.
M&S Flavoured Grapes capture the Gen Z market
One of the teenage daughters went shopping at Westfield in Stratford with friends and came back raving about Mojito flavoured grapes! Some further research revealed that they’re the latest addition to the M&S range of flavoured grape varieties (no alcohol involved!!), which also include Candy Floss and Tutti Frutti.
Genius how M&S are cleverly appealing to Gen Z; marketing health-conscious natural fruit by spotlighting their flavour profiles, which are reminiscent of cocktails and confectionery! Now, whenever anyone goes shopping there are cries of “can we get some M&S grapes?”! Bravo M&S!
We hope you enjoyed our SHARP Bites digest. Please do share with colleagues and industry contacts.
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