7 supplier food & drink trends for 2018

Sodexo's Salon Culinaire event in 2018 featured live and static culinary competitions, a street food challenge, the National Barista Challenge, and an innovation tent with over 100 of our SME suppliers.

Here are seven innovations some of our suppliers told us they were looking forward to in 2018.

The salted caramel flavour has been trending for a while, and St Jude’s ice cream is no exception. It’s been their most popular product this year.

The family-run business based in Winchester is looking ahead to 2018 with a new flavour ‘Black Coconut’. This flavour tastes fantastic and unusual colour gives it a new visual appeal.

Smoothies have become a big phenomenon, including the ‘Hail the Kale’ era where that became the ingredient for smoothie making.  It should be little surprise that The Green Reviver by Projuice – made of kale, mango, banana and lemongrass – is the biggest selling smoothie in Europe at the moment

The new trends for 2018 will be protein shakes. We can expect two new smoothies from Projuice: the berry protein smoothie and the tropical protein smoothie.

Rubies in the Rubble are committed to making food for the future. Not only is their delicious relish made from fresh fruit and vegetables that would otherwise be discarded, their ingredients have to pass a taste test based on the ways in which the fruit and vegetables can be preserved. The rather unusual banana ketchup flavour has proved a hit with consumers this year.

Vegan mayonnaise relish is on the menu next year. The mayonnaise is made out of aquafaba, a by-product from the hummus manufacturing process.

Air popped popcorn with more than 40 flavours and a lovely range of caramel sauces. The most popular flavour at the moment is salted caramel (like St Jude’s ice cream above!)

Joe and Seph’s will be adapting to healthy habit changes in 2018, launching a brand new grab & go range. These are healthy and less than 65 calories per packet but still sweet, indulgent and keep to the Joe & Seph’s taste.

Divine Chocolate is a completely sustainable business owned by the cocoa farmers. Cappuccino, dark chocolate and the milk chocolate are the most popular flavours in the market at the moment.

Dark chocolate is the most popular, most likely because of the health benefits associated with that flavour and as a result of the market being more switched on to healthy eating. We all want to eat healthily – but there is always the need for a chocolate bar!

The small bottle packaging and low sugar content of Oranka’s fruit juices make them popular in the conference and events industry. The packaging makes them easy to consume on the go or in corporate settings and the two per cent sugar content means delegates’ energy levels won’t be crashing come mid-afternoon.

The super smoothies are proving most popular, which focus on using vegetables as well as fruits. ‘Kiwi, spinach, cucumber and lime’ was the most fascinating example, completely natural with an energising taste.

Graze is all about healthy eating and making snacking healthy.

Crisps, chocolate, flapjacks and the protein-based products saw a huge increase in 2017 all linking back to consumers being able to comfortably choose the healthy alternative.

Interesting fact: Graze gets 50,000 ratings per hour on all their online products due to their online subscription database!