The (culinary) road less traveled

A career in business consulting and management may be an unorthodox route to a culinary career, but it worked for Harry Crane, executive chef & culinary manager of Kraft Foodservice.

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It may seem that Crane took the road less traveled to arrive at his goal, but he's in the right place at the right time doing what he most enjoys. "I use everything I’ve ever learned," he says. "I cook, run a business, write and research. I love this job."

Waxing and waning trends

Each year, Kraft compiles a Foodcast Trend Report, supported by a national ingredients study, for major customers. “We list about 250 items, from wasabi to Hunan cuisine,” explains Crane. “We ask a national panel of consumers if they are familiar with each item, have they used it in the past six months, and do they plan to use it in the next six months. In our last report, we compared the results with those of the previous two years, to determine which items jumped the most in intent to use.”

Some 90 percent of respondents will always use American cheese, but grilled and roasted vegetables experienced the sharpest rise, observes Crane. "Consumers want bold flavors and vegetables are low in carbs, fresh and healthful," he says. "We don't sell grilled and roasted vegetables, but we do sell salad dressings and other flavor enhancers. Wrap sandwiches also jumped, as did organic products. They weren't at the top of more than 50 percent of respondents' lists, but the percent increase was very high. All of us look at secondary anecdotal data, but this is hard data that we can track over time to see how ingredients are waxing and waning."

One of the biggest changes, according to Crane, is interest in good-for-me products. "In past years, consumers said they were interested, but we didn’t see as much intent to try them,” emphasizes Crane. “That's a major shift in consumers' attitudes about their eating habits; they are taking action. We recently spoke with a group of chefs and asked them to identify items as healthful or not. One chef said in the past, if he had an item on the menu and wanted to get rid of it, he identified it as healthful and it didn’t sell. Clearly that is changing!”

Fat, not carbs, was the major concern for most respondents; they want to eat less of it. "The consuming public is not monolithic," Crane emphasizes. "The more choices that people have, the more they will try. People are much more willing to try new foods than they were even 10 years ago. It's great for chefs and food companies."

"National menu development in foodservice will still be influenced by the big three cuisines -- Italian, Chinese and Mexican," acknowledges Crane. "Our research confirmed that. It's notable that some items like Chinese egg rolls had a much higher intent to try than an Asian egg roll. Chinese still has more of a recognition factor among consumers.

"Southwestern, Greek and Japanese had the most momentum and growth since the last survey," he continues. Although not the most popular, they showed the highest increase in intent to try. I think we'll see many Greek items going forward because of the Olympics. On national chain menus, expect to see -- say an Olympic salad. You can talk to that."

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