8 food & drink trends blowing up this fall.

Mustard mayhem - This summer, it was all about the pickle. Now it’s mustard’s moment in the spotlight. Definitely an interesting one, this trend is turning up in fun grocery and convenience store combos, like mustard-infused beer, Dijon ice cream, and even kooky candies like mustard-flavoured Skittles. There’s also some cool TikTok trends playing with the condiment-de-jour, like veggie dip made with cottage cheese and mustard — something that could easily be added to any app menu.

Say (cottage) cheese - Speaking of cottage cheese, this incredibly nutritious, high-in-protein, and super versatile snack is on its comeback tour. The retro food is gaining popularity in all sorts of fun ways — you can spread it on toast with a drizzle of honey, add it to pasta sauce in place of heavy cream, or make a simple side dish with a little olive oil and some tomatoes and cucumbers.

Reduce. Reuse. Upcycle - In Canada, avoidable food waste adds up to a staggering 2.3 million tonnes (or $20 billion) per year. And therein lies the opportunity. Upcycling food is the process of taking ingredients that would otherwise have been thrown out and using them to create new, high-quality food items. Canadian feel-good brand Happy Planet is already on the bandwagon, offering products like their delicious bottled smoothies made with imperfect produce that would have otherwise been discarded. With more and more brands becoming food waste heroes, this is one trend that’ll hopefully be here to stay. (Source: http://www.nzwc.ca/media/releases/MediaReleases/fwaw-2023-english-media-release-final.pdf)

Oh my gourd! - It’s no secret that if fall was a flavour, it’d be pumpkin spice. But if you think you’ve heard of all the pumpkin-flavoured products that are out there, are you ever in for a surprise. In 2023, this trend has gone over the top with products like pumpkin-flavoured faux caviar and pumpkin-spiced protein powder. Even the beloved Oreo has concocted a pumpkin cookie. What will they think of next?

Stick it to ’em. - There’s nothing new about serving meat on sticks. But there is a fresh opportunity these days to get creative with it. Think Thai satay with grilled chicken bathed in lemongrass and coriander, served with peanut sauce. Or Turkish shish kebabs marinated in yogurt, olive oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes. Not only are meat sticks delicious, but they make protein the hero — a big win in today’s protein-packed diet market.

Brown butter me up. - An elegant ingredient with roasty, toasty flavour and aroma, brown butter is being used in all kinds of surprising ways to add more dimension to food. We’re talking grilled oysters served in a puddle of brown butter, roasted Brussels sprouts served with a brown butter dip, even brown-buttered coffee cake. No matter how you serve it up, we know one thing’s for certain – brown butter makes everything better.

Bring on the sweet heat. - Move over hot honey, there’s a new spicy sweet in town —chili-infused maple syrup. This new ingredient is not only taking the path that hot honey laid down, but it’s also blazing a new trail. Give it a whirl as a mixed-nut glaze or as a drizzle on pizza. You can even toss chicken wings in it to give them a spicy kick.

Wake up and smell the olive oil. - Kicking the bulletproof coffee craze up a notch, olive oil has come to join the party. When the bulletproof trend started, it combined coffee with MCT oil and grass-fed butter with promises to add a little more fuel to your morning. Now it’s all about olive oil. Even Starbucks is in on the trend with its new Oleato bevvies that have just launched in the U.S. For a copycat version to offer your customers, froth together oat milk and olive oil to pour on top of espresso and voila! Trend-ilicious.