It’s no secret that food trends drive the supermarket industry. From flavors to food choices, shoppers continue to seek, and often demand, new experiences in your stores. Engage customers and their wallets by anticipating and following appropriate trends for your area.  Join Mark DiDomenico at Supermarket Sense and get up to speed on flavors, flexibility, and functional foods.

Try enticing shoppers with flavors that make their mouths water like the Middle Eastern flavors and dishes taking the food industry by storm.  By showcasing rising options like falafel in menu offerings and how to incorporate them into American meals, you are educating your customers about new ways to delight their palate.  Keep your offerings simple and relatively familiar, but with a Middle Eastern twist.

Vegetables stay in the spotlight as consumers express desires to reduce meat consumption.  For some, it’s a lifestyle change to vegans or vegetarians, while others simply want to reduce environmental and health impacts of meat.  As more shoppers welcome plant-based proteins, it’s worth offering more in your stores, too.  From the menus to the health food aisle, giving the option of flexibility is key.

Speaking of health foods, they are no stranger to the supermarkets.  For the last few decades, they’ve morphed from selections shoppers felt they should eat to desiring more impact in what they purchase.  In other words, foods need to serve more than one purpose, like add flavor and improve inflammation or enhance nutritional value and reduce health risks.  Functional foods like these are here to stay and will continue to broaden their reach within communities.  When you can support your shoppers’ desires to eat well and be well, you’ll have them coming back for more.

Looking at flavors, flexibility, and functional foods to spice up your menu items?  Why not take them on a test drive at Supermarket Sense?  Food Studio is your chance to try your ideas against millions of dishes to see how yours stack up.  Datassential’s trend-forecasting program, Haiku, can offer insight into what food and flavors will work and which ones will not in your particular region. Join us in September to create, test, renew ideas, and begin a whole new opportunity into your business.