Inside Fancy Food: The Brands, Products & Trends That Stood Out

0:10Hello, dear friends, and thanks for tuning in to Taste Radio, the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage. I'm Ray Lateef, the editor and producer of Taste Radio, and I'm with my co-host, John Craven, Melissa Travers, and Mike Schneider. This episode is focused almost exclusively on the 2026 Summer Fancy Food Show, which was recently held in New York City, specifically June 28th to June 30th. Mike and John, you were there for a hot second. A hot New York minute, as it were. in and out, but it looked like you were all over the floor. Everyone kept saying, I saw John, I saw Mike, I saw Melissa.

0:50Everyone in particular said, I saw Melissa or said, I saw your colleague with the black brown hair and glasses who was very kind to us and told us that she likes our products. Oh, that's so nice. And I meant it every time. Yeah, we were down in the basement and it was almost like we had our own booth in Startup CPG because people just kept coming up to us from around the show. We got to talk to a lot of people, but we didn't make it very far. Like, we didn't even make it to the included section, which I was like, I'm like horrified by. I got a record low number of steps in. We did. During that day.

1:30We did. But that said, it was a fantastic event. That event was pure joy. Yeah. Yeah. Lots of positivity. Yeah. I love the Summer Fancy Food Show. It's such a good show. Yeah. But this one was particularly great, wasn't it? I think it was. Was it just me? It was just you. You haven't been to that many. SFF did a really good job. I give the Specialty Food Association a lot of credit because they have embraced the early stage brands that didn't necessarily go to that show, say, 10 or 15 years ago. And that happens because they've given space to the incubators, to the commercial kitchens. They've given space to state organizations that are increasingly interested in highlighting and working with early stage brands.

2:13And so we saw a lot. While you guys didn't make it upstairs to the debut district, I think they called it the spark section, which the debut district was part of. Yeah, the spark section. And then the good mercantile area, which was just on, I believe that was just on Sunday. Was it fantastic? It was pretty fantastic. I knew it. yeah yeah the good mercantile section was mostly brands that are a little bit more established like i talked to folks and i saw brands that i'd known had been on the market for say three to five years as opposed to ones that had been on the market for three to five months but i did see perhaps my favorite brand at the entire show or i met them there and that is a brand called garam goddess G-A-R-A-M and then goddess.

2:57And they make a line of hot sauces in these nice cute flasks. I don't know the size of these flasks. I'll just call them... Oh, there they are. 3.4 ounces, 100 milliliters. And they are inspired by Thai food or Thai cuisine. And their tagline is, they reimagine American condiments through the rich lens of traditional Indian spices. Get in my belly. Maybe I mistake this as being a Thai-inspired brand, but their green product, which I'm going to call their green product, this is their tomatillo and curry leaves hot sauce. You know, it's hard to differentiate in that space. It's hard to really stand out because there's probably 100 ,000 hot sauce brands out there.

3:41But this one was amazing. I love a green hot sauce. Yes. also in the good mercantile section, which once again was only a one day thing, but was, I was, I was kind of happy about that because I think this is the first time the SFA has promoted that partnership. SFA have bought good mercantile. And so they were working together. I saw a brand called Pinny, which is a brand of New York sparkling ciders. And look at that packaging. That's nice. It's adorable. I saw it on a lot of people's Instagram feeds. Yeah, it looks like a pro package from the get-go. Ray's hoarding it even in this meeting. He's in this recording.

4:20He's just like, ooh, look at mine. It's on his phone. The parent company is called Nine Pin Cider, and they've been making cider for a long time. And this is intended to be a great non-alc option akin to some of the non-alc cocktails that we've seen, non-alc beers and whatnot. So they're definitely following that trend. But this feels like a really polished product that fits right into that non-alc trend in a really authentic way. Also, I saw a brand called Better Bovine. Better Bovine is the maker of 100 % grass-fed beef jerky. They're Wagyu variety. I paused there for effect. You did? They're Wagyu variety.

4:58Imagine you chop... Is it Wagyu or Wagyu? However you want to pronounce it. Wagyu, Wagyu. Imagine if you chopped up some Wagyu beef... I'm winky today. ...and put it into a bag. Then it stayed as moist and juicy and delicious as you... Come on. Yeah. seriously so if you dry wagyu wagyu wagyu steak does it really make a difference in the beef turkey i don't know what does this even mean what do you mean you're like imagine if you just it's a bag of beef i was like i'm just picturing ray in his house and it's like velvet bathrobe or whatever he walks around in and he's like you know i need a little manchester united i need a little like garbage snack he opens his sub-zeros and there's just some wagyu in there he's like let Let me just try this out.

5:41He's like pushing aside the high fructose parts. Aren't you, Nana, describing like steak tartare? Is that your snack? No, no. This is fully cooked steak. It's beef jerky. It's beef jerky. But why is it moist? I don't know. This is weird. That could be a shelf life problem. Is it mooing in there? The steak was actually kind of fatty. So I think that's why it kept it as moist as it was. Okay. All I'm trying to say is, you know, you go to the specialty food show and you expect to see really high-end delicious products. Right. That's been their wheelhouse for a long time. So we saw a lot of those, or at least I saw a lot of those in good mercantile.

6:12In terms of other trends, I think that we saw, certainly the continued rise of global flavors in more approachable, accessible brands and packaging. Definitely something you saw, Melissa. One of my favorite things at the show was Malai ice cream. Our friend Kartik actually pointed it out to us, Kartik, from Dusra. The chillest of chill dudes. The chillest, the C-est of the F-Ds. I don't know. I like that. That was good. That was good. But it's ice cream, and I tried the mango version, and it's wrapped in thin chocolate. He actually handed me one of those. They were just so good. That's fantastic, isn't it?

6:50So good. Yeah. That was great. Did you try chenzi? Yes. That's exactly the reaction. It was so delicious, so unexpected. Chenzi is this brand of jiaoza dumplings, but it's made with potato-based, almost mochi skin. Those are pretty good. So good. They had pork, they had chicken, they had vegetable. And also I gotta say, they were very efficient in keeping them coming too, because we kept sending people over there. People just kept discovering it on their own and they kept up with all the demand and they were telling their story to anybody who wanted to hear it. And it's a fantastic and very easy to understand story.

7:30My only nitpick with it was that you should definitely have the word dumpling on your package, because they didn't, they were using a different way to describe it, but everybody's going to understand that it's a gluten-free dumpling with a potato skin. It's always surprising to see something new and unique at these shows. That definitely was. And I put so many of the fried shallots they had to go on with them. Delicious. Of course you did. And that is innovation in this industry is somebody thinks of something that's easy to understand. It has that differentiator built into it and you see it, You know exactly what it is, what it's going to taste like.

8:07Blows your mind. Fantastic stuff. Good job, Chenza. I wonder if they couldn't call it a dumpling because there's already a specific statement of identity for dumpling. I don't know. We had the full conversation about it, and I think they thought it was a good idea to still call it a dumpling, although they were trying to use it as a differentiator. There was a company called Red Fox Spices, and they have a new line of products called Angera Club. The Sanford and Son is playing in my head now. Red Fox. So Ngera Club is spelled I-N-J-E-R-A. They make Ethiopian stews that are basically in dried packets.

8:43Yes, please. You just add water and they're ready in five minutes. And I tried this one, which is your red lentil stew, and it's amazing. They describe it as, or the name of this product is Meisterwat, M-I-S-I-R-W-A-T. And it really reminded me of some of the other brands that we've seen that are marketing these types of products. Cumin Club, for example, where it's very convenient, great branding, great packaging. Yeah, and like really high quality. Absolutely. So really good on Njera Club for that. Their female founder did the branding and design for the product, which is gorgeous. And I also haven't seen a packaged Njera before.

9:18You know, when you think about other cultures, you can get roti, tortillas, obviously, but I've never seen a ready to eat Njera. So that was exciting. Also, and this wasn't specific to the Davie district or the downstairs area, but Growy Foods, which is a maker of globally seasoned Indian inspired products, they have dips and whatnot, introduced a new line of chickpea crackers, described as crispy chickpea crackers. Their hot harissa variety was amazing. It reminded me a little bit of the wild crackers that John has. John was just crunching away at it. W-I-L-D-E. Eating crackers? Yes. Hold on.

10:02What are you talking about? Okay. The protein crackers, the chicken-based protein crackers. But these were very much a Cheez-It type product without the cheese, but had the same kind of texture, almost the same size. And it was just amazing. Also loved with Yaza. Of course, we've talked about Yaza foods a number of times. Zirababa Ghanoush. Second to none. So great to see Christian Kareem Khalil. Oh my gosh. Kareem's a legend. Great to see him. And, you know, you can talk about Baba Ghanoush, Mahamra, Tzatziki, and of course, they're fantastic. Labneh all day long. It's going into Costco, he said.

10:35Yeah. And Wegmans. And Wegmans in the Northeast. Really excited for that. I can't wait. That's a killer. Can't wait. Stock up. K-E-Y-A apostrophe S. They make kettle-cooked potato chips that are inspired with Indian flavors. But this was a non-Indian-inspired flavor. Yeah, the ranch. The Golden Ranch, which was fantastic. Had a little bit of the same base. She asked me, she's like, what do you think of those? I'm like, I was worried it was just going to taste like ranch. Me too. I was worried about that. But it's got its own spin, which is awesome. I love spending time with Kea, and that booth was slammed.

11:09I was walking by, and I saw somebody in a bright red pantsuit, and then I saw the Kea logo. And it's such a good example of how to dress so that whether you're in your booth. Just always on brand. Yeah, exactly. Like I knew immediately that it was her. Yeah. Her branding is stunning. The front of the package right in the darn center is a caricature, I believe, of Kea. And it looks really, really, I forget it's her or her mom. I can't remember which one, but she's going to get mad at me for that. She's going to come after you, Ray, and me too. Please send chips though. By proxy. Did you try the party of mango sticky rice popcorn?

11:43No, that looks amazing. I mean, it's like kettle corn, but mango sticky rice flavor. Oh, yeah. It's so good. Oh my God. The mango sticky rice. We have a Pad Thai one. And the Pad Thai. These were unbelievably well executed. They have FOMO. That sounds like... Yeah, they were backpacking. You know that brand Nomad Snacks, the maker of popcorn that has... Ramen. ...spired flavors. That sounds a little bit like that. It's a little bit like that. The flavor was extraordinary. Yeah. I think from a convenience standpoint, we also saw that specialty foods and natural foods and better for you foods can be also very convenient foods.

12:17I mean, we talked about that with the Jera Club, but did you see this brand? This was the first brand that I saw at the show, which is a brand called Pasta Craft. Now, just imagine sort of fish wife branding in this product, which is an instant pasta sauce. So you just add water and butter. In this case, well, specifically it says add butter and pasta water. And you have the deliciousness of a gourmet sauce without the heavy jar and heavy liquid. Why is it so crunchy? because John won't stop crunching on his crackers. That's Melissa. Just crunching away over here. Now it's Melissa. Now it's Melissa.

12:54So I always be crunching. I tried their Cacio e Pepe, which is Cacio e Pepe pasta sauce, which they were sampling at the show. And it is fantastic. Really, really good. In fact, I think I grabbed this and I said, how has no one created a product like this? Maybe there has been. It's basically like the packet of cheese in like a mac and cheese box. That's what I was going to ask. Except that you actually want to use it. Yeah. Do they have other flavors? Yeah, they have other flavors. You know, like a Kraft mac and cheese, you know, like the orange stuff. They have a bolognese packet? It's bad for you.

13:24I don't know if they have bolognese. I think, if I'm not mistaken, a lot of their products were cheese-based or butter-based. I don't recall if they were tomato-based, but don't quote me on that. But I love, love what Pasta Craft is doing. Kudos to those guys. There's also a brand I hadn't seen before called Guac Shop, as in guacamole, G-U-A-C shop. And they have these little packets that are for guacamole prep. And you just take an avocado or two and you put the packet in there and you've got ready to make. So just some seasoning? Yeah. Why is that so bad? Well, I thought there might be guac in there just in case you need a little hit of guac.

13:58No, no, no. You got to come with the avocado. Pocket guac? Come on. Someone should make this. You could put it on your Wagyu beef jerky. What did Dolly Parton say? You know, you want the rainbow. You got to put up the sunshine, something like that. So yeah. Guac shop also makes taco chips that are guacamole flavored, which were really also very delightful. You just talked about mac and cheese and we talked about the orange stuff and Rupa Anadatta, she has a hypothesis that kids, if you raise them on the good stuff from the beginning, that's what they're going to want. So her mac and cheese is called Nomi.

14:31Have you had Nomi before? Oh yeah, of course, yeah. We got to catch up with her and they have stunning new packaging. That's their biggest update. and a reformulation. The mac and cheese, if you can believe it, tastes even better. Amazing. I got to try the great chestnuts, chestnut nog. I don't know if you guys check that out. Well, let's see. You find the longest tail of things. I love it. They were in the Hudson Valley section. And what I thought was interesting is it started from an ag perspective. So they got a grant to figure out a way to use the products of chestnut trees. this was one of the outputs of that.

15:06But to me, it seems a little bit similar to maple water, like the fact that so many brands are using maple water, you know, maple syrup, that kind of thing. It protects these huge swaths of forests and they're doing the same thing with chestnut trees and I'm sure a bunch of other things. But that to me, I like that value proposition. Yeah, there was another brand that was inspired by or created by a family of farmers. It was called or is called Finger Foods Farm. They're a maker of instant soups and their Tuscan bean variety was really fantastic. And it's good to talk to one of their founders about how they're utilizing what they grow on the land to create these products that you can definitely taste the difference.

15:46Like using the actual vegetables and beans they grow on that farm that go into these soups. It's just a complete step above what you may have had in the past. Similar idea to Folkland, Farmwell, Painterland sisters, all of whom were the chef. We haven't talked a lot about beverages, but I do want to talk about a few that I saw that were pretty darn amazing. And I know John and Mike saw this brand. It is a brand of concentrated coffee that come in these luxurious vessels. Clue. The brand is called Clue. He knew it immediately. K-L-O-O. One of my favorites. Get a Clue. We featured Clue and their founder in an episode of Elevator Talk.

16:25I want to say it was about a year and a half ago. And they make this coffee concentrate that just will blow your mind. It's mind-blowing. It is literally some of the best coffee, if not the best coffee I've ever had in my life. It's crazy. Is it a concentrate? It is a concentrate. It comes in a really fancy bottle. Yeah. The bottle was gorgeous. She's making some packaging updates. Didn't tell us exactly. The founder is Claudia Snow. and she is a sommelier who makes absolutely fantastic coffee in a concentrate form. I had it at an event and I had it, I was like carrying it like a pocket square.

16:57And then people started asking me what it was and I started making everybody coffee and it was so much better than the hotel coffee. Yeah. On an instant coffee note, I also saw a couple of freeze-dried coffees, instant coffees. So I have here Yum Brew, they have these little coffee pods. And I do think it's a little bit confusing because it looks like it might be a K-cup, but it's actually just a little pot of freeze-drag coffee that you dump in a cup of hot water. And then there is Fortune coffee and they had a really elite setup of instant coffee. But I feel like I'm seeing less of the coffee in sort of like tea bags that you brew for instant coffee and more better options for freeze-drag coffee.

17:34Yeah. Agreed. On the non-al cocktail front or ANA front, some really good stuff upstairs in the debut district section. Nomaro, which is spelled N-O-M-A-R-O, a maker of aperitivo products and if you can get the name no amaro or non-algolic amaro ah the founder behind this brand is a 17 year old who somehow has created one of the best aperitivo products you'll ever eat you're kidding me yeah it's amazing no it is really how does he know i don't know it took me a minute to understand that he i'm so embarrassed but it took me a minute to understand that he was the founder i was amazed yeah really really good stuff also a brand that I saw upstairs for the first time, Brica, B-R-I-C-A, a maker of non-alcoholic bitter based or bitter inspired cocktails.

18:21These were next level elite. So really, really good. And then another brand that I saw that is a, I believe these are concentrates, but I could be completely wrong. I think they may just be in these apothecary salt bottles, the Stillbar. They have a dry hopped Paloma and they also had, I can't recall what type of Negroni it was, but This Dryopt Paloma, I would drink this Paloma, a non-alc, over any other Paloma out there. This one was really spectacular. So continuing to see some elevation on that front when it comes to ANA cocktails. And I want to see it keep coming because I think the knock on ANA and non-alc has been that it just doesn't taste good.

19:01You get that compromise. The ingredients are in high quality. And the brands I think that we saw, at least the ones I mentioned, are proving the opposite. it. Bitter Milk had a new Negroni skew that was also very delicious. Nice. Can I do my lightning round, Ray? You can. So we met the founders of a brand called Good Greed that makes a probiotic gummy. They had sour cherry and peach flavor. Those were pretty fantastic. And, you know, it's good to see that the Better For You candy aisle expanding. Also got to catch up with the founders of Cotto, who make a cottage cheese for people who don't like cottage cheese.

19:38That seemed to be pretty hot at the show. There's spinach dip flavor, a buffalo flavor. Yeah, that one was one other flavor. It was good. It would go really nice with the chips I was crunching. It would have gone fantastic with those. I think some of the just pure joy that we're seeing at Summer Fancy Food could be attributed to the fact that the World Cup is healing everybody. And the Knicks win too. The Knicks win for sure, which by the way, Caroline from Tofugo is still like using to her advantage. She's using all Knicks colors for her packaging whenever she's doing stuff in New York and her activations in New York, and everybody's still really excited about the Knicks, but also the World Cup.

20:18So I popped into the Figa booth who makes a brand of Kapuusu bars, which is somewhat similar to chocolate. And probably the most joyous thing was that Ariel, one of the founders, is having a baby. And so that's great news. And then Ronnie, her husband, was there in his Brazil kit trying to watch the game like this. He had his phone in a FIGA package and he kept looking at the game. And it was a 76th minute and I was like, Ronnie, we need a goal from Gabby Martinelli. We need a goal from Gabby Martinelli. And then when it happened, I turned around and he's nowhere near his booth because he'd run upstairs to go celebrate with all the Brazilians who were watching on the big TVs.

20:58That was fun. You got your goal. Got it, yeah. Do I get a lightning round? Yeah, Lightning Round. Cirrus 9, they have a super high-end cotton candy that uses fruit that they are sourcing from the Hudson Valley. They had a salted butter flavor, which I was so surprised by. Was it a crime? No. A salted? Oh, no. I thought you meant like crime in the way that Jelly Belly's butter popcorn. That's disgusting. Yeah, no, but this was not a crime at all. They also had a couple of sour flavors, sour melon and lemonade. So tasty. I also really liked Atelka. Mike, you just mentioned, you know, a cottage cheese for folks who don't like cottage cheese.

21:36This is a creamy cottage cheese. So no curds. Very good stuff. I had it too. Yes. So good. It's like a yogurt almost. Yes. But thin. And you know, they said other words for it are cork. And there were a couple of other ones. I've had cork before, but I liked this a lot better. Lots of protein. Wander Snacks. Their costumes were so fantastic. They do peanut brittle. I have the dill pickle skew here. I saw their costumes. Weren't there costumes? And that's just another example. What the heck was that? That's another example. If you don't have a booth, you know, like put on a costume, walk around, you can still have a great show.

22:12Cha Matcha from Maine. I think I just love - Maker of RTD Matcha Beverages. Yeah. So tasty. And then last, on-demand tea cookies. I think we're seeing a lot more tea everywhere, both in flavors and in beverages. They had these little square tea cookies. There was a golden milk, a chai, and an earl grey that were for food service. And then I also learned at the UNFI show that Walmart has a modern tea set that Half Day is going to be into. So I thought that was also interesting that Walmart's dedicating an entire set to modern tea. Maybe we'll see some awesome tea in there as well. Good to catch up with those guys on the show as well.

22:49There are new tea products. It used to be Avsum, an avocado seed-based product, and now it's just a straight iced tea and it's delicious. But much more to come. I'm sure we're going to highlight a lot more brands, a lot more products in upcoming episodes of Taste Radio. But for now, thank you all for sharing your amazing products and brands with us at the Fancy Food Show. If we didn't talk about you, stay tuned. We're going to talk about you soon. And to everyone listening out there, please have a very happy and safe 4th of July. That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio. Thank you so much for listening.

23:22Taste Radio is a production of BevNet.com Incorporated. our audio engineer for taste radio is joe cratchy our technical director is joshua pratt and our video editor is ryan galang our social marketing manager is amanda smerlinski and our designer is amanda huang just a reminder if you like what you hear on taste radio please share the podcast with friends and colleagues and of course we would love it if you could review us on the apple podcast app or your listening platform of choice check us out on instagram our handle is bevnet taste radio as always for questions comments ideas for future podcasts please send us an email to ask at taste radio.com on behalf of the entire taste radio team thank you for listening and we'll talk to you next time