Tapping into Almond and Chocolate Creativity to Drive Consumer Interest
08 May 2019 | Almond Board of California
In this 40-minute webinar, Lu Ann Williams of Innova Market Insights showcases the latest chocolate with almond product trends from across the globe focusing innovative ingredients and key labeling insights to help manufacturers get ahead of what consumers are looking for. Chocolatier Christopher Curtin of Éclat Chocolate shares recipes and inspiration to his development process that align with the latest consumer trends.
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Hello and thank you for joining us today.
I'm Habinderman, the associate director for trade marketing stewardship at the Almond Board of California, and we are pleased to host today's webinar, tapping into almond and chocolate creativity to drive consumer interest.
And in today's presentation, we have Luanne Williams.
Some innovative market insights, who will be showcasing the latest chocolate or almond product trends from across the globe with a real focus of looking at innovative ingredients and key labeling insights to really help us get ahead of what consumers are looking for.
And then we will have master chocolatier, Christopher Curtin of Eclay Chocolate in Westchester, Pennsylvania, which is a real mouthful, will then take us through two confectionery recipe concepts that he developed for the almond board.
He'll, I'll go through these and discussing the inspiration for his development process and the unique ways that he pairs almonds with chocolate.
Please feel free to submit questions throughout the system at any point during the presentation and after the presentation.
So we'll try and address as many of them as we can, and if you submit a question that we can't answer live today, we'll, follow up with you via email after the webinar.
And finally, your feedback is really important to us.
So at the end of the session, please take a moment to fill in a very, very brief survey on your screen.
And so with that, without much further ado, I'd like to hand things over to Luanne to start.
Thank you, Luanne.
Hey, thanks Harbender.
OK, so today we're gonna go through some of the trends that we see in chocolate, and we're going to apply some of the top 10 trends that we do every year.
I'm gonna assume that a lot of you have seen in Nova's top 10 trends.
The top trend trend for 2019 is discovery.
So we're gonna start with that.
So we call this discovery the adventurous consumer.
We see a lot of consumers that are really interested in, in trying new products and I think you see it yourself.
You can see it from even when you buy shampoo, there's all kinds of botanicals, that there's a big focus on provenance and where Comes from things you've never heard of, but we see this in food as.
And if we start with the consumer insight here, you can see we ask consumers to agree or disagree, and, and one of the questions we asked was, I love to discover new flavors.
And you can see that more than 60% of consumers in China, the US and the UK all agreed with that.
And the food industry has really responded to this trend everywhere you look around, there's all kinds of cues.
So we looked at words like discover, explore, uncover, unveil, unravel, and to see how there's being used on food packages.
And what we see is that there's a 17% increase in the use of these discovery claims on food and beverage products that were launched over 2014 to 2018.
We have a couple of examples there of chocolate products.
You can see the word Discover and other really chocolate from Kit Kat, Discover a new chocolate experience.
So consumers are definitely looking for new experiences.
Food has become a great source of entertainment for consumers.
And we see this in a lot of the marketing.
So just diving a little bit deeper into flavor discovery again, of those, the consumers that we asked, you can see here this is looking into the US and I love to discover new flavors.
You can see that 65% of consumers, said I agree or strongly agree.
So that's the green bars on the right-hand side and a much smaller number says, I, I disagree.
So what you see is there's lots of different ways to really tap into.
Really both consumer groups.
So if we look at the product on the left, we're calling this Classic flavors reinvented.
So it's a chocolate with the inclusions right on in big chunky kinds of blocks on top of the chocolate bar.
So this is orange and chocolate, a flavor that's very classic, but still it has a little bit of a twist.
So for those consumers who don't want to try something new, this is still.
A way to give them something with a twist.
And on the extreme other side, we have barbecue potato chips.
It's a 70% dark cocoa potato chocolate with a potato chips.
So this really does appeal to that adventurous consumer.
And I think everybody would want to try that, at least once.
So again, flavor discovery is definitely one way to reach, this new adventurous consumer.
Diving into this again, looking at ethnic flavors.
So we're seeing, I think for the past 20 years or so when, when people really did start traveling, a huge increase in interest in new flavors.
And what's happened over time is that, it's just gotten more specific again, big focus on provenance.
And here on the left hand side we've looked at the number of of confectioning launches with ethnic flavors, and over the past 5 years we've seen a 14% average annual growth rate in confectiony launches with ethnic flavors and some examples of those on the right hand side you can see green tea mints.
And again, these contain morocco mint, so really focused on the provenance of the ingredient.
You can see also the little made with whole leaf, green tea.
So a lot of focus on, on how this is made.
And on the right-hand side, this product is sub, the sub-brand Culinary Tours, but dark chocolate bark, so a new type of shape there with California almonds and sea salt.
So again, global inspiration but with the twist of those very local kinds of flavors.
And now, Chris, you can explain your first concept here.
Thank you, Louanne.
Hello everybody.
I'm Christopher Curtin from Mlaw Chocolate.
Basically, we really wanted to create something that really highlights the versatility of almonds.
So in our first recipe, we layered, almond butter and a cardamom ganache to create a really playful sort of transition of flavors.
The flavors are paired together and sort of almost like a herbal property of the cardamom.
And the earthy nuttiness of the natural almond butter.
We specifically put the almond butter first, because we want that extra creaminess of the product, and we really want to showcase the almond, and the first flavor release of the almond, and the second flavor will be the carbon, because both flavors will then meld together.
It's interesting to sort of orchestrate the flavor release with either the layering or the percentage of each layer or with the combination or the shape of the chocolate.
So in this case we actually played a little bit with the ratios.
So we filled 1/3 almond filling, 2/3 cardamom ganache to get a proper balance of the almond cardamom flavor profile, but still sort of a nod and a wink to the almond, the creaminess of that.
So, we just simply love this combination of the caramine and the almond because we keep seeing this flavor profile time and time again from anywhere from Norway to Persia.
And all the way in between there seems to be a lot done in almond cookies and different spicings that way.
So there are lots of, you know, there are so many different possibilities you can do with different forms of almonds, and we like to experiment with different flavors and textures, and that's why we like working with almonds, which is, it seems to be just continually expanding and all the possibilities we can do with it, so.
Since there's so many forms to choose from, we decided in this case that almond butter provides a nutty flavor with a smooth texture that makes for the almost a perfect balance.
You see in the slides here how we, we make the shell and we filled it first with the, the, the almond butter.
Basically we, we polish the molds.
We set that aside, we make the, we slightly warm up the molds, fill the cavities with the tempered milk and chocolate.
And with the almond and we actually vibrate it so gets all the little bubbles out of the filling we actually flip it out and then we add the filling in after that and seal it off.
I think that looks fantastic and it really is a great play on discovery that you have the different, the different layers, the different colors there, and the different flavors in each layer.
So super interesting cardamom is also one of those very on trend herbs right now as.
So Chris, I look forward to trying those sometime, and you can see everyone, there's recipes at the bottom.
So in the almonds.com/foodprofessionals, I think you've included all the, all the recipe details there, correct?
We did.
We have both the recipes included which are really made to be done in a professional setting or even at home, and we, you know, we chose the two molds that are really easily accessible because we, you know, we could find molds that are custom and then it'd be much harder to do.
So these are actually quite easy to do.
At home or in a professional kitchen.
OK, and it's a great, again, a great source of inspiration I think in terms of an adventurous flavor.
OK, so let's move on.
So that was a great culinary example, especially with the flavor combination, the texture combination, also the flavor release there.
So here's a few more.
I think nice examples to also inspire you with a culinary experience.
So we have a nice example here, the Dove raspberry Rose dark chocolate.
Rose was, certainly one of the big trends at the big confectiony show this year in Cologne at the ISM, big hit, lots of people talking about it.
We see it more and more.
And then we have again another example from the culinary tours, a dark chocolate bark with Hawaiian coconut and macadamia nuts.
So again, this whole idea of provenance being a unique part of the, of the product, and I love the ones on the right, gin and gin and tonics are so on trend right now.
And these are craft gin truffles.
So taking some inspiration from the alcohol category, and again you can see the description there.
They're fruity, naughty, classic gin and tonic, cranberry, honey bush, ginger, lemongrass.
So again, lots of cues also around the way gin is made, also so there's so much you can do with, with different flavor combination for this discovery consumer.
Following on, just talking a little bit more about alcohol.
Again, alcohol is a very adult flavor.
This is a nice example here with, Frangelica liqueur used to make something really new.
Frangelio has a, has a nutty, type of flavor, as.
So this is, , an interesting combination which is kind of different and unique.
Tea and chocolate tea is again, it's, really seen as a botanical.
The plants are very on trend nowadays.
So here's an Earl Grey, Earl Grey tea and an organic milk chocolate.
And then rose petals, a botanical again, something that might not appeal to kids but definitely would appeal to, adults is something very unique and different.
And then following on with alcohol, this is something that's been a classic combination for a long time.
So we've always been able to buy alcohol, chocolates, especially I associate that with duty free.
But again, looking at just the different chocolates.
So again, rum, very associated with chocolate, but whiskey and gin are two of those craft.
Alcohol products that are again, very, very on trend.
And we see those now creeping more and more into chocolate.
And I love the example on the right, that this is, chocolate truffles with whiskey and rum and rice, big on the front, craft specialties, traditional craft products, high in sugar, high in saturated fat, high in calorie, and it's all about, guilty pleasure.
So really owning the indulgence.
So we're gonna talk a little bit about health later on.
But I always like to talk about, don't forget about just owning the.
The whole, when it is indulgent, go for it and make it super indulgent.
Like, consumers really are looking for a balance today.
So sometimes they wanna be very healthy.
Sometimes they wanna be, you know, healthy, indulgent, something in between.
And sometimes you just wanna go for it.
And that's something that's super indulgent.
And this is a nice example of that.
Color differentiation is also interesting.
There was a lot of, kind of discussion last year when we started to see the arrival of blonde chocolate as the 4th chocolate.
Now we have ruby, so we have 5.
So this is another way to also differentiate and create a bit of excitement and discovery.
Something, you know, you can do something with the color around dark chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate, ruby chocolate, and the blonde.
Starbucks have been promoting their blonde coffee.
Recently, blonde chocolate is really just caramelized white chocolate, to create, to create a very different taste, but also to do something around the positioning around color.
So, again, one more, I think nice twist to chocolate is to do something with color.
And now we're gonna move on and talk a little bit about health and healthier indulgence.
So for many years, we've been talking about personal indulgence.
And we see again several different ways to, to apply this in the very indulgent category of chocolate.
Nuts and seeds are still the number one inclusion in chocolate confectiony.
So here we looked at all the chocolates with an inclusion.
And then broke it down by the type of inclusion.
So 38% of chocolate products with an inclusion, have nuts and seeds in them, followed by grains, followed by fruits, and then by herbs, spices, and seasonings.
And a nice example again from Nestle on the right-hand side, the toasted almonds on the outside, big chunky, inclusions right on the top of that chocolate bar to also create a different type of visual appeal.
And also, Even though health is not part of the message on this product, it certainly is a little bit implied with the nuts.
So for that consumer looking for something that's indulgent but also has that little bit of a health halo, the nuts certainly do bring that in this case.
And just a few more examples, and again, health is not part of the positioning of these products, but it did that kind of still add that little bit of a hint about it.
So the nuts and seeds, and the dark chocolate there, hazelnuts and almonds, and again, big chunky inclusions right there on the top of the product and pictures of the whole nut on the front of the pack really does, you know, contribute to that image.
The M&M's is definitely pure indulgence, but we see the crispy rice products, inclusions also right there on the top.
Fruit, this is a chocolate covered dried banana that does look slightly healthier, and then again the mint, and the dark chocolate on the right.
So again, all these do give that little bit of a, of a health cue, and the positioning of these products.
And then looking at this slide, these novel inclusions, these really do have a very direct.
Connection with something healthier and you can just see it in the package instantly, especially the two on the left, the green color also communicates something very natural.
So here, the tiger nuts are being positioned as a prebiotic fiber for digestion and for gut health, to feed the probiotic bacteria in the gut.
Hemp, of course, everything hemp, CBD, all this is massively on trend nowadays, of course.
And here this is saying that the hemp, the seeds give an extra nutritional boost and then the cocoa nibs there for a natural source of energy and flavonoids.
And Chris, over to you to talk about your next recipe.
Thanks again, Luanne.
Basically, when creating this chocolate, I was really inspired by its sense of discovery that you mentioned earlier.
So being from Philadelphia, there are two really hot restaurants, an Israeli restaurant and a Palestinian restaurant.
And the food is very similar but still use some different flavor combinations.
So I was aware of these different classic flavors, so I was trying to incorporate that and get to more of the sense of travel and, and sort of new flavor profiles that that we might have tried before.
So I incorporated dried orange peel, a little dried fennel, and just a hint of sea salt that really elevates the already natural almond flavor from the marzipan.
Once we had the marzipan component, we wanted to add another texture and thinking what better than adding the pure natural almond for extra texture and purity.
So we actually made the marzipan, put that into the mold, and then used pure almond on top to get some crunchiness.
And then we went off and did another almond praline on top of that.
So we can actually go through the assembly if you like.
It's basically we were toasting the almonds to get the flavor out of them a little bit more and get them sort of a nutty flavor, and then we put a little bit of sugar, and so we caramelize it a little bit, then we crush it so we still have nice sized pieces so we get the maximum, you know, texture.
Once cooled, we can, we can add that to the almond butter.
And that brings out even more of the earthiness flavor, and that's, that's a very simple technique that we use, and we pipe the praline at the bottom in the prauline shells, we sprinkle the caramelized almonds.
And after that we're going to grind the sea salt, dried orange peel, and dried fennel together.
And add that to the ganache and make the that we'll put that on top of the marzipan.
It's a very simple process.
We've actually also ordered a little bit of kirshchwasser, and Kirschwass will be added primarily to add a fruit and cherry component to it.
It also helps the filling be a little bit more pipeable so we can pipe it into the molds.
Again, both of these molds are easily available online, so everyone can do that at home or in a professional setting.
After we, we pipe everything in, we let it sit for a little bit, we skin it, so we cover the bottom of the mold, then we let it sit in a cool room for 60, 65 degrees.
For about 20 minutes and then normally that bangs out or releases from the molds and you can enjoy it right then.
That's it.
You make that sound really simple, but it looks very sophisticated and super interesting, and, the sound is really interesting.
I'm very intrigued by that and the the texture, but this again, yeah, the recipe may look more complicated than it is, but it's very simple, and it's, you know, something you can do for your friends and for your kitchen.
Yeah, and, but you could also imagine this if it was a packaged product you have lots of natural things going on the sea salt, the dried orange peel, the fennel, so this would be something to me that would come in a, in a green box, with some leaves on it.
So it's super interesting.
And I think fits really with the trends that we've been talking about today.
So having said that, we're gonna lead on continuing to talk about texture claims.
So we just saw a great example of the, oh, you've been talking about almond butter and also the earthiness of almond butter, but also the crunchiness of the chopped almonds.
And here we see that texture claims, are becoming more important in products.
So we looked at, new chocolate launches in 2018 and you can see here from the chart that 5% of them had a creamy.
Texture claim 5% had a smooth, another 4.5% crunchy.
But overall, we're seeing a lot more communication around texture claims.
And again, Nestle Crunch is one of those great products.
It was always my favorite product as a child.
It's been kind of slightly reinvented here, repositioned.
The 100% real chocolate is new, but again, the creamy milk chocolate with crisp rice really making the connection there with, with the texture claim.
So this is a great way to add a bit of, of an extra indulgence to a product.
Another big trend that we talked a lot about last year was, and still very on trend this year, this whole idea of lighter enjoyment, and here lighter can mean a lot of things.
It can mean portion size, it can mean, you know, lightly sweet, lightly sparkling, lower alcohol products certainly fit into this as , but definitely bite size chocolate or different types of formats.
So earlier we had an example of the bark, and here you can see that we have squares, we have nibbles, we have bytes.
So again, this is also a super interesting way to do something very indulgent or even something slightly healthier, but then to make the the shape and the size part of either a sharing moment or as you know, a portion controlled snack as kind of a, you know, permissible indulgence.
And again looking at, I love, I'm gonna say it 1000 times, so last year someone, a chef said to me, thin is the new thick.
So thin is also kind of a, a nice texture, aspect as because it's gonna have a very different bite when you bite into it.
You can see that we've seen, a 10% increase from 2014 to 2018 in thin claims, a 10% growth, over that period.
And a couple of examples here you can see the the dipped and dusted almonds with an ultra thin chocolate coating that certainly has lots of texture implied in it and then the extra dark chocolate but very thin as so lots of thin claims communicated front of pack in the chocolate category.
We also see some of these other things that are very on trend like vegan claims, protein is still very hot trend.
Fiber is one of our top 10 trends for this year.
So you can see that we've seen, over the 2014 to 2018 period, a 24%, annual growth rate in vegan claims in the chocolate category.
So again you're gonna have lots of dairy-free chocolates, for example, with there with that, the high protein chocolate, here's a nice example.
But a 19% increase in high protein claims and a 16% increase in high fiber claims.
So chocolate is really popular as a flavor in many different categories, but we can also see that these trends can also be incorporated into chocolate products in the chocolate category for consumers looking for that extra bit of nutrition in their products.
And now this trend, I feel good.
So this really, last year our number one trend was the mindful consumer, and this year we're really talking more about, consumers.
And again, we see differences in different groups of consumers, Gen Z versus, you know, Gen X or boomers, but people really looking for food as a source of comfortment of comfort and part of their emotional -being.
We also see this mindful consumer kind of thinking, I feel good about what I eat, but what I eat is also, good for me.
So, again, this whole idea of emotion and the sense of -being, is really important and much more connected with food than ever before.
So here you can see we ask consumers, the feeling of comfort is important to me when I consume food and beverages, and you can see 50% of Chinese consumers agreed with that and 40% of UK and US consumers.
And again, just looking at some positioning around that.
Here's a chocolate-covered almonds that have a positioning, positive eating guilt-free chocolate.
So again, it depends upon what type of emotional -being, if it's, you know, a really a good, a feeling of health or You know, this feeling of, of indulgence.
But you can certainly put cues on your products to make that connection for consumers.
So another innovation sweet spot we're calling it is healthy plus sustainable.
So this is again, thinking about that mindful consumer.
There are more and more consumers who are looking for products that also make them feel good from the point of view of how they're made and so on.
So here is a product that's claiming love for people, planet, and chocolate, and there's lots of claims about how it's made, where it comes from.
Again, Providence, chocolate has been one of those products again, very closely associated with, with labor and, and how it's made.
Organic, of course, you know, really more to how the product is produced.
And then also sustainable farming.
We're seeing more and more claims around regenerative agriculture, and actual farming practices.
So here's a product that, again, is making some claims around that.
So again, It really does come down to communicating what you're doing in the right way, how you're using resources and so on.
It's not that you have to necessarily go out and look for something, but just talking about what you're doing, that's good.
Here looking more about, I buy chocolate to make me happy.
I think chocolate has always been associated with that great indulgent treat.
But now we see, this whole idea around food being part of, something that improves your mood and really as part of the marketing message, we're seeing more claims on products around things like happy, joy, and so on.
So this increased use of feel-good claims, here's three nice examples.
So milk of joy, and that kind of plays on joyful, but joy-filled.
A happy mug, chocolate, a mug, a cake mix that you make in the mug, and then the, the Cadbury creme eggs, the pots of joy.
This is definitely something that we see an increase in this type of positioning and, and wording on products.
Lots of things are on happy and, and makes you feel good, claims.
Another thing around, we've been talking a lot about snacking and not just about the snack category, but snacking in general and again it crosses many different categories.
But of course, when consumers are looking for snacks and what time they're, or what time of day they're eating snacks really does affect what type of snacks they're looking for.
That was kind of messy, but I think you know what.
But here we ask consumers, when do you typically consume chocolate products and you can see.
It's not a surprise that it really, they are associated with an evening snack, that little bit of indulgence after dinner.
The majority of consumers here, we looked at Germany, the UK and the US.
So again, I don't think anything surprising there, but it probably validates something that you know already.
And then after 8 was always the classic after-dinner mint anyway, but, again, it really does kind of just highlight and reinforce this whole idea that chocolate is a perfect.
Indulgent products.
So again, looking at how do you play around all these things that we've been talking about today, you know, adventurous flavors or a texture or super indulgent or, you know, for consumers who want that little bit of help, maybe the afternoon snack is a better opportunity for that.
So again, occasion targeting is something that we're seeing a lot more of.
And I just mentioned that we've been talking a lot more about snacking, and this year it is one of our top 10 trends that we're saying now is the the the definitive occasion consumers plan for their snacks like they plan for their meals, they think about what they're going to snack, so.
We just picked in some examples here looking at different positioning so you can see the one on the left.
This is just the afternoon treat that you were looking for.
So again it would fit into that healthier afternoon snack, type of product that has almonds and dark chocolate and slightly darker chocolate, so lots of health cues there, the one in the middle, eat on the go at the gym or at lunch.
So this is telling you this is something that you can indulge in also.
When you are doing something that's good for your health like going to the gym and then the the last one, the perfect pick me up snack at the office, so something a bit more specific but maybe that you have this before lunch, you know.
In the morning as a morning snack or even after lunch as an office pick me up snack but again lots of positioning around the perfect time to to have a snack.
OK, so we're gonna move into our key takeaways before we do our Q&A.
So just to kind of sum up things that we've seen today, so I talked a lot about discovery, consumers wanting to discover new flavors.
And that can be the reinvention of classic flavors, but also experimenting with totally new and very innovative things.
Also looking at ethnic flavors, Chris gave some great examples of a twist, you know, adding the, the spice marzipan, the cardamom, the, the fennel.
So lots of different things that you can do to play with all this for that Discovery consumer.
And also looking at healthier indulgence.
We talked a lot about inclusions.
It can be nuts, it can be herbs.
We didn't talk about plant-based today, but again, looking at some of those cues that can also apply to that plant-based trend because we know that consumers associate plant-based, with health.
And then at the end, really summing it all up is this whole idea of I feel good and it can be feel good, you know, from the indulgence, this is my guilty pleasure or from the point of view of This is a product made in a great way, you know, very dark chocolate.
It also makes me feel good about what I'm eating.
But again, I hope we've given you lots of ideas and some of the inspiration today on how you can not only create a new product, but also positioning it, position it, in a very new and different way.
And just to remind you before we go into our Q&A that all the almond recipes are on the food professional, website at almonds.com, and now we're gonna take your questions.
OK, so we have a couple of questions.
So Chris, I'm gonna throw the first one at you.
It's kind of, it's gonna, it's kind of long.
So listen.
OK.
So what are, what, so what are the possibilities and trends or a new opportunity for the use of chocolate and almond and beverages?
So do you see some ideas there?
That's great.
I think chocolate is a very traditional ingredient to begin with, so I would think I'd be first sort of inclined to go back and innovate something that's already been done in the past, like a horchata.
We had down in Tabasco, Mexico, this wonderful drink there with, with the almond milk with a little bit of cinnamon, cinnamon and sugar, and then just a very slight, maybe 3%, 4% of rolled oats in it to give it a little more body.
But we had it a lot down there for breakfast and midday, sort of a light snack almost.
But then you could spice it up and go into, you could maybe even make it, I wouldn't say mint flavor, but you could also do different spices that way and sort of evolve it into a new sort of a new age style product that way.
So that that'd be interesting, or you could even make it with ginger and some superfoods while keeping the base of the almond, which has been really amazingly product with all sorts of other products with coffee and so forth.
OK, I think that's interesting.
I was just thinking about some of the ingredients that you mentioned earlier like the cardamom as.
What about, so the, the second part of this question is, are there any possibilities to position this as a snack?
So do you think you could play around with texture?
Like we've been talking about almond butter for texture.
You had different forms of almonds, so thinking about almond is a very versatile ingredient.
Can you think of a way to do something, maybe a snack version of that?
We also talked about occasions and indulgence.
Products being, you know, really interesting for an evening occasion, but what are your thoughts about that?
I would think it would be great to put it in some sort of a small tetra pack, and then maybe having two different grounds of the almond.
So you have the almond milk as the base, but then maybe have some that's ground down to make maybe 60 microns or something like that.
So you still get some grittiness and, and that gives the mouth sort of, it has more substance, but it also makes it feel like a more of a natural product than if it's totally smooth.
And then you could go even farther and then add different spices and the superfoods or the cinnamon and and some of the things that are on trend right now, I think would be really interesting.
A way to approach that, and you, like I said, you could put it and package it in a very small to go tetra pack or pouch.
Or someone could have it on like the 3 o'clock slump, they could just try it and would get you over to you go home and have dinner.
Yeah, I think I'm really interesting.
I'm thinking about like adult flavors.
It's something kind of interesting like, so you mentioned like some of the spices, those are definitely kind of adult flavors, but I'm even just sitting here imagining what you're talking like, I think about the Italian espresso, you know, this tiny little cup.
I wonder if you could do something super indulgent, put some caffeine in there, and have a, a kind of indulgent chocolate.
Caffeine shots or something also is, is a tiny little snack with something mega mega indulgent with a lot of using a lot of almonds as a texture, you know, like the almond butter as a texture in there as maybe.
OK, moving on.
So we see another question here.
I'm seeing products like Skinny Dip almonds on supermarket shelves.
What do you see as the status and future of the minimalism food trend?
I think another way to think about minimalism is also simplicity, which has definitely been a part of the whole clean label, trend, over the past few years.
So I think this has a lot of legs.
I think this is where you really can focus on the quality of the ingredients.
We know that there's a lot of different types of almonds.
There's different shapes, different , they all offer like different flavors as.
So I think there's a lot of opportunity to really focus on, on the provenance, the type of almonds, and then combine it with, in this case, it's.
And chocolate covered, but we showed you some examples of layering up different flavors.
There was, a raspberry powder on the almonds as.
So I think anything that's focused on really high-quality ingredients, it's very simple.
To me, the ultimate example of this is, Italian cooking.
But it's all about in Japanese cooking, having the highest quality ingredients possible and do the least amount to it to kind of maintain the, the integrity of that quality.
I think it's a great idea.
Chris, what do you think about that?
I think, we're very classic in our way we approach things anyway, so it's sort of like the, I hate to compare it to the two ingredient pizza, anything more than that, it gets kind of garbled and it breaks down the quality of the products you have.
So we really believe heavily that, you know, 3 ingredients, but having the best ingredients is how we tend to do things that a clot.
So that goes back to the minimalist, I guess it's the way they call it, but we just believe it and just not.
Mucking up so many different flavor profiles that you, you don't have one single profile at the end.
So I agree with that, with this very simple, you know, make it almond milk with green tea, almond milk with.
Lemongrass, almond milk with, you know, whatever you want to add cinnamon, where it just, you know what you're eating right away.
It's not like this, this garble of flavors, and I think most chefs will agree that that's, you really want distinct flavor and be able to tell what ingredients are in there.
Yeah, and I, and I think also, I think you made a great point where you gave some nice examples of like almond and almond and, I've described almonds before as like one of the hero ingredients.
Avocado is a hero ingredient, honey is a hero ingredient.
And I think when you have high quality hero ingredients, they also combine very to do something, together that, that's super simple, but, but still very interesting.
So those are some nice ideas, Chris.
OK.
So the next question is, can you give us your view of the UK market potential for international manufacturers of healthy snacking and healthy chocolate?
OK, so if I can answer this really quickly, I think.
The UK is a highly innovative market.
A lot of food trends have started there.
There's a lot of creativity also around the marketing of products, but I think maybe one example to use as potential success or as an example, maybe it's kind of a case study.
Think about Prada Manje and how successful that chain has been in the UK and now also outside of the UK you see them in some of the major cities in the US as.
But that's an entire food chain, that is a trendsetter.
It's all about really healthy indulgence.
It's also healthy indulgence with a twist.
They've been great leaders in, in vegan foods and plant-based as.
So I would say, If that can be such a successful concept in the UK, there's absolutely, a market for healthy snacking, snacking and healthy chocolate.
We know that also the UK is a very sweet market.
I, I think you have to look at the national drink.
Tea is the national drink and what goes great with tea, things like chocolate and cookies and cake and things like that.
I think it's also a market where consumers are really looking for healthier alternatives.
So I think I think that's an answer.
I hope that maybe kinda answers your question that do I think there's a market?
Absolutely, yes.
For sure.
OK, Chris, I'm gonna put you on the spot now.
This will be our last question, so do we think there's some of the same trends that we talked about today, do we think that we see the same trends in dairy, particularly ice cream or yogurt products?
What do you think?
I think they're similar, but I think dairy, you tend to have more flexibility and make it more whimsical, I think, with almond also.
I think, I'm coming from a chocolate perspective where it tends to be more traditional and conservative.
Wacky flavors do come out in the market occasionally, almost for a while, you know, a while thing, but I think it's really important that ice creams and almond-based ice creams have the potential of doing a lot more interesting.
Flavor profiles.
As far as, you know, some of the things we touched on with lemongrass or cinnamon or things that have traditionally paired very , but also pairing it with the other superfoods or other, you know, rock stars like you said with avocado and things like that.
Yeah, true.
Today I was, I happened to be looking through a lot of data today and in 2018, 18% of all the launches in the dairy category were plant-based products.
So there's been massive growth as we know we've talked about things like plant-based milks like almond milk, also almond yogurts.
There's been an increase in spoonable non-dairy yogurt, for example, also ice cream, and one of the product examples I came across today was.
And again, it's one of those iconic massive brands is the Unilever Magnum ice cream brand and they have a.
A non-dairy version, and based on almond milk.
And I remember seeing it positioned as vegan in Europe, and now it's been repositioned as plant-based.
And I think so that's like an iconic product I think also just to kind of also make that connection to to almonds and also the trends the link to plant based but also to all the flavors that we talked about today about healthy indulgence so I think there's an opportunity, I think you can do anything now.
I think for every trend there's a counter trend I think you can see.
The plant-based opportunity really applies to every category now.
I think this week we've been looking at like also the, the IPO of Beyond Meat.
Beyond Meat has now appeared on the shelves, in some countries in Europe.
So I think that you see a lot of these trends cross every category.
So I think everything that we saw talking about that we talked about today, you could also find a way to make it relevant to dairy, to ice cream, also to yogurt products.
I think that's the main questions that we have.
If you have any other questions that come in at the last minute, we can answer those by email.
We would like to ask, you're gonna see in just a minute, some, a few questions pop up on your screen that, that gives you the opportunity to provide some feedback, which is always appreciated and always used.
So, Chris, very fun presenting with you today and thank everyone who attended.
Yeah and we'll see you next time, thanks very much.
