flavors most likely to captivate consumers this coming year.  This year the conversation was about the cultural significance of food and the role consumers play as curators.

Curation has become the new art form practiced by opinion leading chefs who are among the important cultural curators of our time.  Consumers, who have been digitally enabled, have become enchanted with the idea of becoming the curators of their real or imagined lives.  Following are highlights from the insight collected that includes both food professional and consumer foodie perspectives, and what it suggests for the coming year:

Reversing the Flow

Conventional wisdom in the food business has looked to fine dining and cutting edge independent chefs to drive the trends.  Today many leading chefs are inspired by the street markets of Asia and Latin America and the classic American state fairs which have stimulated fun and exciting ways to serve food.

Pure Food

Real food, pure and simple, is the secret to successful new products.  Nothing sells like pure and simple as consumers clamor for clean fuels for their bodies and demystified ingredient statements for their minds.

Menus on the Move

Food trucks have become part of the culinary landscape in major cities, and have migrated to industrial areas and college campuses.  They are far more than a new delivery system; they are leading the charge in finding new ways to deliver a truly unique dining experience.

Look for innovative menus to move to even more unexpected venues enticing all kinds of consumers.  For the farm to table crowd, farmers are renting their fields to chefs and their guests.  For adventurous fine diners, Diner en Blanc (a flash mob of upscale diners decked out in white bring their own lavish meal to a public place) has been exported from Paris to nine cities in the U.S. and twenty worldwide. The pop-up dinner is the experiential antidote to a tight economy taking advantage of underutilized real estate all over the country.  There are always options for the well-heeled consumer to drop a bundle for the promise not to be dropped from a dinner table suspended by a crane.

Catering to Kids

Chain restaurants have cracked the code on healthful, family friendly dining.  Family dining is now benefitting from chefs who bring their culinary training and their family heritage along with their own kids into affordable, casual restaurants.  Catering to food allergies and preferences is second nature to parent-chefs, which makes their restaurants even more appealing.  Families are finding new ways to share their evening meal together and dispense with the take out containers or cleaning up their own kitchen.

The chefs who create these family friendly restaurants are welcomed into local neighborhoods where residents recognize their value to the community because they have seen the positive impact chefs can have on young consumers’ respect and understanding of food.  Chefs who work in school kitchens are bringing a new level of nutrition literacy and good taste to the consumers of tomorrow.

24/7 Snacking

Meal times have expanded from the traditional three to seven as snacking increases among time starved Americans hectic schedules.  Small plates are no longer a trend; they are just part of the way Americans eat today.  Major restaurant chains have re-imagined menus with snack items like popcorn, pickles, cotton candy, olives and deviled eggs.  Consumers can choose to have a bite or try it all.

New age vending machines offering customization and fresh food are breaking vending out of its desperate food reputation.  Look for greater variety of offerings and more healthful options to feed this 24/7 on demand food culture in all segments of the industry.

Canning, Curing, and Cutting in House

As the push toward local is finding its way into almost every segment, chefs are moving toward preservation.  Pickling is proving to be a popular way for chefs to add their personal touch and showcase a unique aspect of using local ingredients year round.

A few years ago there was little expectation that nose-to-tail would move beyond a few independent chefs who embraced it as a novelty.  Nose-to-tail is a sustainable practice that is expanding awareness of a wider range of meat cuts and going mainstream.  Fast casual restaurants, college and university campuses and other foodservice segments are experimenting and finding a receptive consumer audience.

Home and Away Flavors

Look for a rediscovery of regional American cooking as chefs continue to explore the culinary cultures from cities and towns around the country.  Memphis, Harlem, and New Orleans are all playing a part in bringing these regional American cuisines to the forefront.

This will be the year for destination flavors that are fresh, hot and sweet.  Niche cuisines are slowly making their way onto menus, giving consumers an opportunity to expand their palates.  Chefs are using ingredients as a way to bring these flavors to the menu; look for ginger, cinnamon, exotic citrus, sriracha, chiles and sweet-heat blends like honey and harissa.

Vegetable Concoctions

From hyper local to exotic foreign lands, vegetables have become an undeniable part of the healthful culinary landscape.  And selling the farm is all the rage with entrepreneurs and large enterprises alike. From school lunch to gourmet retail shops, consumers are ravenous for vegetables.  The latest twist is stem-to-root cooking with fruits and vegetables.  This trend is about making a lot more than flavorful stocks – look for leaves, pits, rinds, stems, seeds and peels to turn up on trendy menus.

Kale is taking over healthy menus in quick service restaurants and on college campuses. School foodservice operators are turning vegetables into super heroes with kid-appealing names like power punch broccoli and x-ray vision carrots.  French fries are evolving from potatoes to sweet potatoes, eggplant, zucchini and wider range of vegetables.  Everything about today’s vegetables is chic and appealing including those sporting a black color like garlic and mushrooms.

Liquid Luxuries

The beverage industry has been a hotbed of innovation across all fronts.  Healthful, handcrafted, heady, hearty and happy are just a few adjectives to describe the latest in beverages.  Amber spirits, house made tonics and bitters have created a whole new bar scene.  Non-alcoholic beverages are getting a flavor boost with fresh ginger soda, handcrafted sodas, and exotic lemongrass flavored iced teas.  Juices and smoothies have become the elixir of our day with unique, delicious and sometimes palate-challenging blends of fruits and vegetables.  Even desserts like milkshakes and floats have moved to the beverage menu.

Fashionable Plates

The parallels between food and fashion have always captivated the senses.  From artfully presented entrées to couture condiments, innovative chefs are feeding the senses of consumers with an appreciation for fashionable plates.

Food mimics the fashion industry in the capriciousness of desire and the ability to continuously recycle and reinvent.  Brilliant and painstakingly detailed construction and artful deconstruction are part of the art.  Chefs and fashion designers are the vanguards and the trend-makers who are bringing couture style to a mainstream audience in the grand democratization of fashion and food.

In the year ahead, the consumer curator will have a lot to say about the trends.  Individual relationships with food and beverage are key to understanding the trends and the psychology of what inspires people to choose what and where they eat.

The Culinary Visions^® Panel has been serving up insight and ideas from food professionals and consumer foodies since 2002.  Go to www.culinaryvisions.org to find out more about what cutting edge chefs, emerging leaders and consumer foodies are saying about tomorrow’s menu.

those who always or usually like to try new dishes and flavors.

Sweet and salty were the clear favorites among the overall sample, with 81% consumers reporting sweet as their personal taste preference and salty close behind at 67%.  The same cannot be said for the other 3 flavors.  Umami, bitter, and sour scored the lowest with consumers at 19%, 18% and 16%.  However foodies, those who identify themselves as always or usually liking to try new dishes and flavors, ranked bitter (62%), umami (61%) and sour (59%) as their top flavor preferences.

“Flavor balancing is key to customer satisfaction,” said Sharon Olson, Executive Director of Culinary Visions Panel, “even though customers will say they gravitate toward one flavor over another, when they choose a menu item, there is a wide variance in the dominant flavors they choose.”  Olson went on to say, “It is up to the chef or restaurateur to entice their customers whom they know best.  Sweet and salty flavors are sure to please mainstream consumers looking for dining comfort and satisfaction.  If you want to challenge your customers a bit more, take a cue from what foodies prefer and introduce a bitter or sour note into a favorite menu item like chocolate for dessert.  A bitter chocolate trio was a top scoring menu item concept among the majority of consumers who participated in this survey.”

The survey also revealed significant differences in flavor preferences among the age groups as well.  Gen X, baby boomers, and seniors preferred salty and sweet more than Millennials, although a high percentage of Millenials also ranked salty and sweet as preferred flavors.  Millennials also ranked the more adventurous flavor profiles like bitter, sour and umami higher than the other age groups.  The sour flavor profile was least preferred overall, and especially by Gen X, whereas bitter was the least preferred flavor profile for boomers and seniors.

The genders have much in common when it comes to favorite flavors except for bitter, where men are almost twice as likely to pick menu items with that characteristic.  Surprisingly though, of those consumers who identified themselves as health conscious, none mentioned bitter as a flavor preference, even though bitter is a flavor characteristic in many healthful vegetables.

In addition to exploring consumer flavor preferences, this Culinary Visions Panel, Essentials of Flavor survey also examined other dimensions of flavor such as the taste expectations of consumers at different times of the day, their most trusted sources for culinary discovery, and their taste preferences versus their menu choices.

High percentages of respondents said they’d order traditional burgers and pizzas at their favorite casual dining restaurants, while far fewer said they’d order those dishes if they were changed to match particular ethnic flavor profiles. Of the three ethnically inspired burgers, 44 percent of respondents would try Latin burgers, while 36 percent and 28 percent respectively would try Mediterranean and Asian burgers.

In the pizza category, the Asian concept was most likely to be ordered followed by the Mediterranean, 36 percent, and the Latin with 33 percent. On the gender breakout, ethnic pizzas were not well received with less than 35 percent of females responding favorably to the Latin and Mediterranean pizzas, and less than 30 percent of males responding favorably to the Asian pizza. Ethnically inspired burgers and pizzas were also the least likely to be ordered of all five categories of ethnic menu items tested. The other categories were salads, ice creams and side dishes.

“One trend we are seeing is that Americans have some favorite flavors in certain menu items and they are less likely to be adventurous when ordering those items,” said Sharon Olson, president of Olson Communications in Chicago. “We’ve also seen that some traditional menu items may transition to particular ethnic flavor profiles more successfully than others.”

Indeed, of those who said they’d order ethnically inspired menu items, more than half would order the Latin burger and slightly fewer than half would order the Asian pizza. As expected though, respondents who described themselves as “foodies,” or those who “always or usually like to try new dishes and flavors,” were more likely to order the ethnically inspired concepts.

In fact, the main change since Olson last surveyed on this topic in 2008 is that they want more. Respondents said in 2008 they’d like to see tamales, enchiladas, tortilla soup, tacos, salsa and Mexican chili offered at the casual dining restaurants they frequented. Today, they’ve added burritos, beans, rice, quesadillas, fajitas, fried ice cream, stews and soups.

In the most recent survey, 72 percent of respondents named traditional Mexican and Mexican American dishes as items they’d like to see on the menus of their favorite casual dining restaurants. Only 18 percent named dishes from the Caribbean, and Central and South America as menu items they’d like to see. However, diners are not unaware of offerings from the deep, deep south and they have also become more knowledgeable of them.

In the earlier survey the most-mentioned Latin food flavors were chile, tomato and cilantro, all traditional Mexican and Mexican American food flavors. In the latest survey, people also named Caribbean and Central and South American dishes. Respondents said Cuban pork sandwiches, ceviche, fried plantain ice cream and even coconut shrimp served with pineapple curry rice and plantain chips were Latin recipes they’d be likely to try.

“What we’re seeing is potentially the beginnings of a wider interest in foods from countries south of Mexico,” said Sharon Olson, president. “With casual diners naming specific dishes we can see those flavors are becoming memorable to them, so it’s a good bet they will be seeking them out.”

Olson’s latest survey on this topic asked consumers to rate how likely they would order Latin, Asian and Mediterranean menu concepts that were based on classic American dishes: burgers, chopped salad, pizza, side dishes and ice cream. Consumers were interested in all concepts and ethnic variations, yet some ethnic flavor profiles scored higher. The consumers who participated in the survey had the highest awareness of authentic Latin dishes.

According to a recent consumer survey and an accompanying Culinary Visions™ Panel discussion among culinary professionals conducted by Chicago-based food marketing firm Olson Communications, people in these challenging economic times seem to be yearning for simple, fresh and authentic meal experiences and are displaying an innovative frugality in their food choices.

This “New Simplicity” revealed by a recent consumer survey shows that people are turning  inward – dining out less often – and going back to tradition. In fact, 90 percent of people polled said they are cooking at home at least once a week, with approximately half of those respondents reporting they cook at home every day.  Moreover, nearly half (46%) of consumers said they cook from scratch at least once a week.

Other findings from that consumer survey:

• Who’s cooking?  Of those who enjoy cooking at home, the majority in all age groups – 65 percent – said they were the cook.  Seventeen percent of respondents said that another family member or friend did the cooking, 12 percent indicated that the whole family pitched in to cook, while 4 percent reported that they had a restaurant meal brought in.  In an ideal world – and in their notion of an ideal home kitchen – 2 percent acknowledged they would love to have an in-house chef make their meals for them.
• They get by with a little help:  While three-fourths or more of respondents said they cook from scratch or reheat leftovers for another meal at least once a week, prepared foods still play a key role in eating habits:  57 percent indicated that they buy prepared deli food and 49 percent purchase meal kits at least once a month.
• Flavor notes:  Although people find the simple pleasures of eating home cooking appealing, it doesn’t mean that they want their food to taste dull. Half of the respondents, for example, cited unique spices as important or very important in creating an ideal home dining experience.
• Fresh ideas:  When asked what items are important in an “ideal” home cooking experience, the majority of survey respondents cited fresh ingredients, followed by healthy ingredients, local fruits/vegetables, prepared items from the deli, organic fruits and vegetable and chef-branded items.

Meanwhile, during a recent roundtable discussion among the Culinary Visions™ Panel – a multidisciplinary group that includes acclaimed executive chefs, a culinary historian, pastry school owner, cooking school instructor and gourmet caterer – food professionals agreed that consumers appreciate good food with quality ingredients, prepared in an uncomplicated, authentic way whether at home or when they decide to go out to eat.

Panelist Mary McMahon, culinary director of the Evanston, Ill.-based cooking class and demonstration business Now We’re Cookin’, reported to the panel that her clientele has shifted in the past year, as people seek to balance budgets by balancing food preparation.  “Family classes have become more popular. People want to learn how to cook and they don’t have time. Our mission is to get families back to the table,” McMahon said.

Consumers also clamor for the good things in life when dining out. As panelist Jimmy Sneed, executive chef of the acclaimed SugarToad restaurant in Naperville, Ill. commented: “I don’t put anything on the menu I cannot explain to my mother.”  Added Chef Sebastien Canonne, master pastry chef instructor and owner of The French Pastry School in Chicago: “Less of something better is often more satisfying and simpler ingredients don’t need flavor-masking ingredients.”

According to Sharon Olson, Executive Director, the findings from both the consumer survey and the Culinary Visions™ Panel underscore the importance of culinary basics: high quality, simple ingredients, authentic and fresh preparation methods and time spent with family and friends around the table.  “Our research shows that home and hearth matter to consumers, in ways we haven’t seen or talked about in a while,” notes Olson. “Certainly, things like convenience, a memorable dining experience and price remain influential, but for most people, it really does come down to good food and good times.”