Campbell Soup Wants to Lead Food

It is now apparent that Denise Morrison and her team are on the path to take the once sleepy soup company and make it the food industry’s leader. Aquiring cutting edge food upstarts, testing recipes in food trucks and most recently severing ties with industry on GMO labeling, this is a company that is changing the landscape. It’s 2016 Culinary TrendScape report is no exception.

 

Their team of culinarians led by Thomas Griffiths, Master Chef and VP of Culinary at Campbell predict that there is a revival in French cuisine in everyday cooking using of course, butter and other traditional fats and oils, including rendered chicken fat, beef tallow, and pork fat – which is even being touted on packaged foods labels!

 

While many of the trends the report offer area already commonplace, some, such as restaurants installing “live hearths” we find of interest. He says it is a return to the simplest form of grilling, (where) chefs are embracing wood­fired grills for cocktails, appetizers and even desserts, deliberately burning dishes, and incorporating specialty woods and charcoals to intensify flavor – and showcasing the type of wood or charcoal used on the menu.

 

My favorite of their trends? They named it “Inspired Ice Cream” and say that the ice cream category is being reinvented with bold new flavors like chorizo­caramel, hibiscus­beet and black pepper­butter pecan. Not a new innovation around the globe as we have reported in Food News Today before, especially in ice cream shops in Israel, but here in the US it might well push Baskin-Robbins well beyond it’s 31 mundane flavors.