Food trends 2017 - Jose Luis Cabañero (Spain), Founder of Eatable Adventures

Le Cordon Bleu, the leading Global Network of Culinary Arts and Hospitality Management Institutes, is happy to share a vision of 2017 foodtrends in the world, through the eyes of its alumni.

Jose Luis Cabañero (Spain), Founder of Eatable Adventures.

What have you accomplished since graduating from Le Cordon Bleu?

I launched Eatable Adventures, a company focused on channeling innovation in the Food and Beverage segments. We provide consultancy services for established companies that wish to modernize their food offering and adapt it to market trends; we also nurture new food based businesses through our incubation and acceleration programs, where we detect talent and help it progress to enter the market.

We also launched a community for Gastro-Preneurs, www.gastroemprendedores.es that has grown up to over 3.000 members in the last year, we see a huge demand for information on how to enter the food system.

What do your customers crave when they come to see/taste your work?

They value our approach to market, based on bringing up new things to the table. We are in close contact with the entrepreneurship fabric and are able to detect new trends very early on; in parallel, we stay very close to the Food Industrial complex to identify what is coming their side. This position our company as the hub where industry, financial systems and entrepreneurs can meet to develop their businesses.

What foodtrends do you foresee for 2017 and onwards?

For sure healthy food is a top trend that is here to stay; we are totally focused on improving the quality, the taste of the food and also to induce healthier profiles in terms of lower fat, added sugars, etc.

We see business models evolution as a huge trend as well; we are starting to see food companies with novel models that allow them to reach their public in a totally new way.

Crafted drinks are also a hugely trendy item, we start to see them prepared locally within restaurants and offered instead of commercial drinks, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages qualify. Organic, local ingredient and also healthier profiles are searched for rather than commercial alternatives.

Fermented foods is another item we see growing, not only it is trendy but allow every chef to impart their unique flavor to the ingredients used in their preparations. This is an area we see huge potential in the market.

Looking back to 2016, what is the main evolution you have seen in the food industry in your country?

It is based on business models, the country is thriving for an economical recovery and the restaurant industry is trying to cope with the new needs of the population. We see restaurants growing in the form of federated businesses instead of individual companies; we also see an evolution in new forms of food retailing, where food is freshly prepared locally and ready for taking away. These changes imply a huge change compared with the traditional long hours for a heavy lunch.

Any aspirations for the future?

We want to see more Spanish Food based businesses successfully grow outside our borders, we have unique elements, such as our gastronomic and agricultural capacities, that make us a strong contender to satiate Europe’s appetite and want to fulfill that need.