Alternative flours, sweeteners among trends

Whole Foods predicts more plant-based foods, faux alcohol.

A year ago, Whole Foods predicted that Pacific Rim flavors, faux meat products, shelf-stable probiotics, hemp-based and fat-forward foods, fancy ice creams and sea vegetables would be the biggest food trends of 2019.

If only they could have predicted what happened with White Claw.

Well, in 2017, the company did predict that “other bubbly” drinks would be big, but I don’t imagine they expected to carry quite so many cases of the boozy bubbles in a can that were probably the biggest grocery store success of 2019.

The Texas-based grocery chain with 500 stores probably also didn’t foresee that Amazon would announce an entirely new grocery store brand that is set to launch in 2020.

Whole Foods’ sales have slowed this year, despite all kinds of efforts to lower prices or to encourage people to buy more groceries online for delivery, but even with these hurdles, Whole Foods remains at the forefront of food trends, which is why its annual prediction list is still relevant to both consumers and insiders alike.

The store compiles this list by asking more than 50 team members who specialize in finding buzzy new products to offer on store shelves.

At the top of the 2020 list is a surprising choice: regenerative agriculture, which is a method of farming that uses land and animal management practices that improve soil health and sequester carbon. Those are hard concepts to convey to a consumer, but it also shows that people are still interested in the answer to that question of “Where does my food come from?”

Customers will be seeing more nontraditional flours made from ingredients such as cauliflower, tigernut and teff, as well as snacks, desserts and breads that use those flours. West African ingredients, such as moringa, sorghum, millet and fonio, will be popping up in more products in the coming year, and so will single-serve snacks, like small packages of pickles or drinkable soups or hard-boiled eggs and slices of meat.

Soy-free condiments and meat alternatives are taking the place of tofu-based meat substitutes and protein powders. I hadn’t heard about watermelon seed butter until this list came out, but apparently there are all kinds of innovative spreads made with macadamia nuts, pumpkin seeds, chickpeas and a new-to-me superfood called pili.

Kid-friendly foods are getting a reboot, thanks to parents who have exposed them to more adult flavors at an earlier age. Think salmon puree in a pouch, seaweed snacks or single-serve olive containers that fit in a lunch box.

Americans are obsessed with finding new ways to sweeten things, and next year, look for even more nontraditional sweeteners made from ingredients such as monk fruit, sweet potato nectar, pomegranate syrup or coconut.

Blended meats sounds like a new kind of smoothie, but it’s actually the meat industry’s response to the plant-based meat crazy we’ve seen in the past decade. Major producers like Applegate are now selling ground meats mixed with plantbased ingredients that help improve the nutrition profile.

As more people dabble in what’s called “sober curious,” product makers are responding with a whole slew of zeroproof drinks, from hops-infused tea and sparkling water to Heineken’s new 0.0 beer that is alcohol-free.

WHITE CLAW / TNS