Innovation Roundup - Speciality and Fine Food Fair 2023
- John Want
- Sep 19, 2023
- 4 min read
We love the Speciality and Fine Food Fair when it comes round to Olympia. Such a great show which brings together big and small food brands, international specialities and more than anything, a great community of passionate food producers. We spent a full day speaking to everyone there, sampling a terrific mix of food and drink, and seeing the latest trends in food, consumer habits and promotion. Here are our favourite discoveries from the show.
Our noses drew us to this stand as they were serving up warm Masala Chai and we wondered why chai hadn't exploded yet like coffee lattes did many years ago. Certainly if this award-winning concoction is anything to go by, many are missing out on a wonderful, warming, flavoursome hot drink.
The guys do a chocolate chai version too and we had a sneaky sample of a turmeric chai which is being launched.
They were gracious enough to give us a small bottle to take home and all weekend we've been giving our own samples out to family and friends!
What a lovely story this is, creating healthier plant based treats for their kids but considering the most sustainable and ethical supply chain. And the chocolate is amazing too!
We swapped stories about ingredient issues, delays in packaging development, issues in sourcing plastic-free packaging and the benefits of being small and nimble enough to move quickly.
It's interesting that as a small food business, you have the battles to be heard and achieve your first big listings, but unlike bigger suppliers, you can turn things on quickly and have very flexible production, a huge benefit actually!
We were really impressed to see more British Charcuterie coming into the show, with some excellent innovators curing and smoking high quality meats across the British Isles.
Our favourite though was Freedown Hills, who after a period of importing Japanese Wagyu, have developed a British version using Holstein cattle grazing on the fields of Yorkshire, with olives part of their diet. This is turned into everything from superb quality charcuterie, to whole steaks and mince. The eating experience was just the best, it was very difficult not to continually come back for more!
There were a few honey businesses at the show but this one - Mama Buci - caught our eye due to it receiving a three star Great Taste award.
Tell you what - it deserves a five star award (even though there isn't one!) Just the best, most amazing honey we've ever tasted. Made by wild bees from the Zambian Miombo forest, the sourcing is spot on for ethical and sustainable trading, yet nothing is sacrified in the quality of the product.
The Winter Harvest honey packed a punch with a gorgeous, treacle-like consistency and a natural smokiness with a flavour reminiscent of caramel and molasses. Sensational. Get some, now!
Meal kits have been around for a while and they offer the consumer a more authentic meal experience at home without the faff of having to find what can be some unusual ingredients.
The Tastesmiths were showing off their curry meal kits and the first thing that grabbed us was the visual appeal of the ingredients in the clear pouch pack. Whopping great bit pieces of ginger or chilli, whole leaves and garlic cloves. It looked stunning, with comprehensive instructions and further inspiration on the back, they offer a reasonably priced high quality introduction to proper Indian cooking.
A true passion project from Gary Tomlins, with his whole family involved (his wife Joanna could sell tea to China!) this chilli brand stood out for us from many others at the show for a couple of key reasons important to achieve cut-through when you're starting out.
Firstly the story is brilliant, Gary is a keen gardener who happens to have lived in many places globally and always grown his own fruits and vegetables wherever he's ended up, Tanzania being the most recent. Here he really got to love the chilli and realised the country was the perfect place for growing them. He developed a strong relationship with the farmers, understood how to support them in the right way so he could source top quality chillies ethically for....
The second thing are the products. Possibly the best execution of a range of chilli sauces and chutneys we've seen. Really creative innovation and using the right kind of chilli for the right kind of product (it's not rocket science but many got it wrong).
We hope Gary and his family go far, definitely a show highlight for us.
End on a high. And we certainly were after trying this. After years of coffee appearing in a few liqueurs, it is about time all the wonderful tea varieties out there are given the same treatment and fair play to Whistler's Storm for creating a fantastic collection of cold brew tea in liqueur format.
From a strong Black Assam to a warming Masala Chai, it was great to have the flavours of the tea come through really well with the sweetness of the alcohol taking away the sharp tannins. We could have easily had these neat but they provided ideas for a range of cocktails which really appealed. We have ordered a bottle of the Black Tea for the office drinks cabinet!
In summary, it was a brilliant show full of great food innovation we thoroughly enjoyed. The above are just some of the food businesses there, many true start-ups looking to see what route they might take to success. It struck us that clearly there were some ahead of others. These guys had truly innovative and high quality products, with thought given to the consumer and how they use it, and impactful brand and product design to shout about the product on shelf or online. We love to support businesses like this on the fundamentals of marketing but also we get that actually you need to make money so can also partner you in your first big pitches to grocers or foodservice operators and once you win your listing, help you grow. Get in touch if you'd like to chat about what we can do for you.
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