The Tastemakers (19 page)

The goat caramel couple, Louisa Conrad and Lucas Farrell, from Big Picture Farms, had their table in an aisle with other Vermont producers. Their exquisitely soft goat's milk caramels, in vanilla bean and chai flavors, were cut up into little cubes and displayed on dark wood boards, which they'd stained themselves. On the table behind them sat a mix of homespun decorations, from tin milk pails to portraits of their goats that Conrad had illustrated by hand. The two had met at college in Vermont back in 2000, and after graduating they remained in the state, where Conrad pursued a successful career in photography and fine art while Farrell wrote poetry and taught at a nearby college (sigh). Though Conrad was raised on the concrete pastures of New York's tony Upper East Side, the two began an apprenticeship at the goat farm of one of Farrell's students and quickly fell in love with it. In 2010, after their wedding, they acquired some property and three goats (they put milking equipment on their wedding registry) and began making cheese from the milk. Shortly after, they began experimenting with goat's milk caramels, which are common in Mexico but almost entirely unknown in the United States. With their rich, creamy texture and clean, sweet flavor, Farrell and Conrad believed that the caramels they made were simply the best in the world, and this was their first time at the Fancy Food Show—or any food show, for that matter—as well as the first time they were nominated for any award. Less than a year before, Farrell and Conrad had been cooking their caramel in their home kitchen, hand stirring a pot for hours on end
and delivering the final product to five local customers. Now they had fifty customers around the region and were at the show to see whether there was more interest for their caramels, which they still wrapped by hand. “We're limited because we only have twelve goats now,” Conrad said, talking sweetly about each of their personalities like they were her children. The company's silver sofi award was displayed proudly next to the caramels, and Conrad and Farrell were nervously awaiting the results of the gold awards later that night. They had already used the nomination to help secure a USDA loan to purchase their farm, which they were closing on in ten days. If they could clinch the award, the future was bright. Theirs was a Cinderella story in the making.

B
ased on the backgrounds of many new companies at the show, selling everything from chia seed cookies to fine cheeses, a prior career in corporate law or investment banking seemed to be the main prerequisite for starting a specialty food company. The dynamic at play was the same one that saw so many cupcakeries popping up in the wake of the financial crisis, helmed by corporate refugees with Ivy League degrees. The attraction to the food business, though difficult, costly, and cutthroat, is that it is also incredibly fun, and if you have an idea that people will eat, the potential is limitless. The Fancy Food Show was where these dreamers could look across the aisle and see those who had once been in their shoes, had succeeded in establishing trends, and were now market leaders with billions of dollars in sales each year. Companies like Jelly Belly jellybeans, Fage Greek yogurt, and Kashi grains didn't just have their food displayed at booths for the show; instead, they had erected entire pavilions, complete with custom carpeting, arrays of televisions, lounge seating, and dozens of company representatives in matching polo shirts or suits, there to handle every sales inquiry and opportunity from buyers all around the world.

Of course, this is the era of global trade, and the international community brings its own flurry of activity to the Fancy Food
Show each year, paid for by the governments of nearly every food-producing country and region, aiming to entice North American buyers. These range from small booths displaying the seeds of an obscure African country, such as Zambia, to massive pavilions like Chile's, which featured a lounge with dozens of companies selling everything from wine to oil to pisco mix and a huge food truck dispensing Chilean meals. Not only did each nation's presence reflect their spot on the global hierarchy of food trends; they were also a mirror into their culture, like food-based exhibits at Disney's Epcot Center. The first one I encountered was Canada, my home and native land. Despite the abundance of terrific specialty food companies here, producing everything from craft beers to salad dressings and artisan breads, my government decided to showcase unprocessed hemp seeds from Manitoba and a company selling glass containers. In fact, one well-known Canadian cracker company took a booth far away from the Canada pavilion so they wouldn't be associated with our country's milquetoast effort. Nearby, in Mexico, salsas, tequilas, and minitacos freely flowed from big, colorful booths, and Mexican producers clearly believed there were few products that couldn't benefit from a tightly clad, attractive, female spokesperson. The Brazilians were still pushing the açai health trend hard, displaying it in candy, drinks, liquor, and cereal, even though much of the American market had already moved on. Over in Argentina a smattering of booths promoting chia seeds, olive oils, and dulce de leche were left unmanned for long periods of time as the Argentines observed their customary two-hour lunch.

Most countries seemed almost to be courting their national stereotypes, especially the Europeans. The United Kingdom booth was set up with understated displays of shortbread cookies, cheddars, and other finger foods from her majesty's island, accented by a pile of Wales/USA friendship flag pins. Germany's precision engineering was on display in perfect arrangements of Ritter Sport chocolates and erectly postured trade representatives sitting in sharply tailored suits and with modern, angular glasses. The financial crisis hadn't really affected the Greeks, whose bounty of olives, oils, and stuffed grape leaves attracted constant activity as other Greeks popped by
for samples like it was a village market. Next in store was Italy, usually the strongest pavilion in the hall of nations (the Italians basically established the specialty food market in America), with the country's gorgeous men and women sporting pristine suits as they poured out shots of limoncello and carved huge chunks off parmesan wheels. Then, on Sunday afternoon, when it was time for Italy to play Ireland in the Euro Cup, all the men disappeared to a booth in the rear with a large television, leaving their women, once again, to do all the work.

Portugal's austerity in the wake of the Euro crisis must have had an impact on their presence, because they ended up with one unaffiliated booth decorated with a homemade flag—even the Palestinians outdid them. No one in Africa or the Middle East outdid Morocco, however. Among that country's plushly carpeted lounges was a bevy of TVs that didn't show anything and several ornate fountains like you would find in the courtyard of a palace but dispensing fresh pear juice. The Japanese, it seemed, were out to create a parody of Japaneseness, with samples of sake, beer, and kangaroo-shaped cookies displayed like objects in a museum. Many of their vendors wore traditional robes, and the whole Japanese pavilion was being filmed, constantly, by enthusiastic Japanese TV crews. Thankfully, they weren't too close to their South Korean rivals, who brought their Fancy Food A-game, offering up freshly fried persimmon jam–stuffed donuts, bulgogi sliders, and flavored dry seaweed snacks thrust into every hand and bag from promoters who fanned out all around the show.

By far my favorite section belonged to China, simply for its sheer disconnect with the audience at the Fancy Food Show. Despite China's glorious food culture, its booth seemed to reflect almost no taste at all. The largest international contingent by far, spread out over four separate areas, China's delegation featured companies with incongruous names like Ningbo Glory International Corporation and Shaanxi Yiyexuan Ecology and Science and Technology Co. Ltd., all of whom occupied tables and chairs in sparse booths. These were decorated with photographs of factories and stock pictures of food products (grains of rice, a tanker ship), additives, and, in one case, a
tribute to Lei Feng, apparently a People's Liberation Army hero and icon of the Chinese Communist Party who died at twenty-two when he was struck by a falling telephone pole and was so beloved by the booth's sponsor that he had dedicated his entire space to him despite the fact that Feng had absolutely no connection to food whatsoever. Chinese samples were sparse and unappetizing—a few nuts in a bowl or some unlabeled candies—though my favorite was a large baking sheet, covered in tomato paste, with a single plastic spoon resting in it. “Please,” the tray practically beckoned, “enjoy all the tomato paste from Ghanzhou Trading and Chemical Corporation you can eat. Now 98 percent formaldehyde-free.”

In Ecuador's brightly colored area I met up with David Bermeo, who had recently taken over his family's fragrance and ingredient business, which had lost its biggest account when Nestlé moved its regional soup production to Chile. Bermeo had repositioned Terrafertil to exclusively sell dried fruits and was here at the Fancy Food Show to talk up the potential of the goldenberry. Grown in the Andes and also known as the
uvilla
, or Peru cherry, goldenberries are best known as the deep yellow, perfectly round, tart fruits with the papery husk that regularly garnish molten chocolate cakes and other wedding desserts. Bermeo believed that dried goldenberries had the market potential to become the next cranberry, and he saw his company's future as a goldenberry version of Ocean Spray, sold under the name Nature's Heart. Terrafertil already owned 90 percent of the world's goldenberry market share, but people weren't going to buy them in the volume he wanted unless they believed goldenberries were good for them. In other words, Bermeo needed to create a health trend. Already they had hired PR firms in the UK to pitch the goldenberry to press, and in 2011 Dr. Oz had mentioned it on his show. That had raised awareness in the United States significantly, and sales had tripled since, which is why Bermeo was here, trying to capitalize on that momentum. “You can spend millions on PR for these products,” he said, pointing out one of the roving teams handing out Korean seaweed snacks, “and it still tastes like seawater. In agricultural products it's not like selling iPhones. You want to take it step by step.”

E
very exhibitor at the show, whether they were mom-and-pop startups like Big Picture farms or international market leaders like Twinings Tea, were there to attract the attention of the tastemakers in attendance. These include restaurant consultants, corporate chefs, and distributors. There were also representatives from large food corporations, such as Kraft and Proctor and Gamble, who came to encounter the latest trends, assess potential companies they could acquire, and find ideas that they could emulate. The show is covered by hundreds of reporters ranging from mainstream culinary magazines like
Food & Wine
and
Martha Stewart Living
to national outlets like CBS, NPR, and the
New York Times
as well as plenty of trade industry publications, including
Food Safety Magazine
and
Candy Industry
. Overwhelmingly the most important and numerous tastemakers at the show are the buyers from grocery stores. They walk the aisles, looking for new products and ideas, almost as though they were cruising their own stores with a shopping cart, plucking the latest trends off the shelves.

As I waited to enter the show on the first morning, I bumped into Sergio Hernandez, an acquaintance who owns BKLYN Larder, a small but well-known specialty food store in Brooklyn. On the train ride down from New York that morning Hernandez had gone through the list of vendors with his partner, Francie Stephens, flagging those they already sold and those they were interested in checking out, based around products they needed in certain categories (e.g., a new chocolate or olive oil). “Once we get inside, we start walking the aisles,” Hernandez said, setting off toward an Italian importer to taste a dozen fruit vinegars. Omnivorousness was helpful, but Hernandez had to be discerning. “You can systematically walk up and down every single aisle, but you'll be exhausted and taste stuff you don't like.” Later on I met up with Ari Weinzweig, one of the cofounders of Zingerman's, a specialty food empire in Ann Arbor, Michigan, who had been coming to the show for thirty years, looking for the full-flavored, traditional foods his stores, restaurants, and national mail-order business built its reputation on.
“With the web and e-mail, this show is a lot easier to navigate,” Weinzweig said, striding briskly through the aisles on his long legs. As he went by, people called out to him from booths left and right, and occasionally he'd stop to grab a sample or take a small bite, but most of the time he just kept on moving. “My method is to start on one end and take notes till I run out of time. You have to suspend all eating convention. It's not a good way to do it, but it is the only way to do it.” Finally, he planted his feet at the booth of Taza Chocolate, a Massachusetts company that specialized in Mexican-style stone-ground chocolates. “Where's the salt and pepper one?” Weinzweig asked the woman behind the booth. “I've tried it before, but I want to try it again, even though I sell their stuff. With chocolate, you have to taste it, because like olive oil, everyone pretty much says the same thing to describe their product.” Companies will tell Weinzweig something is “artisanal” and “traditional” and “handcrafted,” but rarely do they actually tell him how it tastes. The salt-and-pepper chocolate tasted just as you'd expect … like you'd sprinkled salt and pepper on a good-quality chocolate bar, which was too jarring and confusing for me, but Weinzweig swore there were people who wanted that.