Specialty Food Magazine is the leading publication for retailers, manufacturers and foodservice professionals in the specialty food trade. It provides news, trends and business-building insights that help readers keep their businesses competitive.
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association news SFA's Kafarakis Outlines Generational Trends W ith responses ranging from Adam West to Michael Keaton to Christian Bale to Ben Affleck, attendees at the Food Business Incubation Network Conference helped demonstrate generational differ- ences when asked "Who's your favorite Batman actor?" by speaker Phil Kafarakis, president of the Specialty Food Association, an event sponsor. "You can't just put the Batman logo on a product and expect everyone to see it the same way," said Kafarakis, who stressed the importance of catering to the disparate lifestyles, nutritional needs, and taste pref- erences of a range of generational cohorts. Ready-to-drink nutritional beverages, vegan and vegetarian meat, and foods made with alternative pro- teins are among the trends gaining traction with 20- and 30-something consumers, noted Kafarakis. Their older counterparts in Gen X have a proclivity toward nose- to-tail eating, which involves consuming all parts of an animal to minimize waste, and the similar root-to-stalk concept. Foods that are free of common allergens also appeal to members of the group. "Common allergens are now mainstream," said Kafarakis. "The first thing they ask at a restaurant after they ask if you want water is 'are there any allergies.' Can you imagine someone asking you that 10 years ago or even five years ago?" Baby boomers, meanwhile, lean toward high-pro- tein and vegetable-based snacks and seasonal foods. "This makes a lot of sense, since it represents their ver- sion of health and wellness," Kafarakis said. The inaugural FoodBIN conference focused on best practices for servicing food entrepreneurs as they endeav- or to bring these and other types of food to market. "It's critical to have partners, and a food incuba- tor can't do it alone," said Lou Cooperhouse, executive director of the Rutgers Food Innovation Center, which hosted the event last September. "It's about aggregating resources to bring people together. Not just your clients as a community, but resource partners to make it happen and leverage the expertise that others have as well." Dana McCauley, executive director of Food Starter in Toronto and another speaker at the event, noted that non-competing food entrepreneurs are likewise open to sharing best practices. "The entrepreneurs that I see on a daily basis are not competing for share. They're generally going after [different] market opportunities and because of that they're very open to mentoring one another. I see a lot of the more advanced companies co-mentoring some of the startup people and offering suggestions and insights, and it's really heartening," McCauley said. Among the more innovative clients that Food Starter serves, said McCauley, is FreshSpoke, a tech- based connector of growers and producers with retail buyers, that cuts out brokers and distributors. "It's quite Ready-to-drink nutritional beverages, vegan and vegetarian meat, and foods made with alternative proteins are among the trends gaining traction with 20- and 30-something consumers, noted Kafarakis. 26 ❘ SPECIALTY FOOD MAGAZINE specialtyfood.com