In January, the Specialty Foods Association held their Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco.  Wouldn’t you want to be a fly on the wall for that?  Or, better yet, attending in person, discovering, and sampling over 80,000 on-trend coffees, snacks, organic, cheeses, and the list goes on and on.

You would seriously have to pace yourself.

One of my favorite go-to-source for food research is the Hartman Group.  They keep me in-the-know of what’s hot on the food scene and with the consumer mindset.  The folks at Hartman Group attended the Winter Fancy Food Show and afterwards shared the top five food trends they observed from  the event.  Are you curious to know what is considered on-trend and hot on the food scene right now?

1.

Hummus

2.

Seeds

3.

Matcha

4.

Broth

5.

Vanilla

Ironically, as their recap newsletter hit my inbox, I had just finished a shopping trip to The Fresh Market in Rogers, and had purchased three different types of hummus for a dinner party.  I was surprised to see that all three were specifically mentioned in their research.

Guess I know a thing or two about food trends, too!

All three were delicious and bursting full of flavor.  I loved that they have minimal ingredients and are heavy on the organic and non-GMO ingredients.

Overall, Hope brand’s organic spicy avocado hummus was the crowd-pleaser and my personal favorite.  It wasn’t the “prettiest” of the three, yet it was the tastiest.  Made from organic everything, including garbanzo beans, avocado, tahini, extra virgin olive oil, jalapenos, sea salt, spices and garlic powder.  This hummus was nice and spicy with a strong lingering heat.

Eat Well Embrace Life brand’s zesty Sriracha carrot hummus with sunflower seeds and apricot topping was my second favorite.  This hummus contains 25% carrots and the base is non-GMO white beans.  It has a nice depth with lingering flavor and contains honey and milk.  The color pops on a plain cracker.

Eat Well Embrace Life brand’s beet hummus with a pickled beet topping was my least favorite although it was still delicious.  This hummus contains 30% beets and the base is non-GMO white beans.  It has a sweet taste and is very pleasant.  I felt like the taste faded fast so that is why I rated it third.  Would I eat it again?  In a heartbeat.

What flavors of hummus are you crushing on right now?  Know of any good recipes out there to you want to share?

Hummus is anything but boring nowadays.

Eat well, my friend. Eat well.

Lyndi