Monday, January 5, 2009

"What's Hot in 2009"

Every year the National Restaurant Association surveys more than 1,600 American Culinary Federation chefs nationwide and asks them to rank 210 culinary items as a "hot trend," "yesterday's news" or "perennial favorite." The results of the survey produce the "What's Hot in 2009" culinary forecast.

According to this year's survey the top ten trends are:
1. Locally grown produce
2. Bite-size/mini desserts
3. Organic produce
4. Nutritionally balanced children's dishes
5. New/fabricated cuts of meat (e.g. Denver steak, pork flat iron, bone-in Tuscan veal chop)
6. Fruit/vegetable children's side items
7. Superfruits (e.g. acai, goji berry, mangosteen)
8. Small plates/tapas/mezze/dim sum 9. Micro-distilled/artisan liquor
10. Sustainable seafood

Since school is underway, or soon about to be, for many of you why not kick off your first class by having the students put together their top ten list and see how it compares to the ACF chefs. That would be a good way to start a dialogue with the students to connect what they are doing in the classroom or kitchen to the industry of which they will one day be a part.

To read more about the survey and the results visit:
http://blogs.citypages.com/food/2009/01/forecasting_200.php
http://www.dineout.org/research/chef_survey_2008.cfm
http://www.dineout.org/pdfs/research/2009chefsurvey.pdf
http://www.dineout.org/pdfs/research/top_10_trends.pdf

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