Hello, dear friends, and thanks for tuning into Taste Radio, the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage. I'm Rey Latif, the editor and producer of Taste Radio, and I'm with my co-hosts, John Craven, Melissa Traverse, and Mike Schneider. This episode is focused almost exclusively on the 2026 Summer Fancy Food Show, which was recently held in New York City, specifically June 28th to June 30th.
Mike and John, you were there for- A hot second ... a hot s- a New York minute, as it were. Yeah. In and out, but it looked like you were all over the floor. Everyone kept saying I saw John. I saw Mike. I saw Melissa." Everyone said k- everyone in particular said, "I saw Melissa," or said, "I saw your colleague with the black/brown hair and glasses" "who was very kind to us and told us that she likes our products."
Oh, that's so nice, and I meant it every time. Yeah. We were down in the basement, and it was almost like we had our own booth in Startup CPG because people just kept coming up to us from around the show. We got to talk to a lot of people, but we didn't make it very far. Ah, we didn't even make it to the included section, which I was like- i'm, like, horrified by. I got a record low number of steps in- We did ... during that day. We did. But that said, it was a fantastic event. That event was pure joy. Yeah. Yeah, lots of positivity. Yeah. I love the Summer Fancy Food Show. It's such a good show. Yeah, but this one was particularly great, wasn't it? I think it was.
Or is it just me? It was just you. You haven't been to that many. Yeah, sFA did a really good job. I haven't. I give the Specialty Food Association a lot of credit because they have embraced- The early stage brands that didn't necessarily go to that show, say, 10 or 15 years ago, and that happens because they've given space to the incubators, to the commercial kitchens.
They've given space to state organizations that are increasingly interested in highlighting and working with early stage brands, and so we saw a lot. While you guys didn't make it upstairs to the Debut District, I think they called it the Spark section, which the Debut District was part of. Yeah, the Spark section.
And then the Good Mercantile area, which was just on I believe that was just on Sunday. Was it fantastic? It was pretty fantastic. It was good, yeah. Ah, I knew it. Yeah. Yeah. He knew it. But the Good Mercantile section was mostly brands that are a little bit more established. I talked to folks and I saw brands that I'd known had been on the market for, say, three to five years, as opposed to ones that had been on the market- okay
for three to five months. But I did see perhaps my favorite brand at the entire show, or I met them there, and that is a brand called Garam Goddess. G-A-R-A-M, and then Goddess, and they make a line of hot sauces in these nice, cute flasks. I don't know the size of these flasks. I'll just call them... Oh, there they are.
3.4 ounces, 100 milliliters. And they are inspired by Thai food or Thai cuisine, and their tagline is they reimagine American condiments through the rich lens of traditional Indian spices. So- Get in my belly ... maybe I mistake this as being a Thai-inspired brand, but their green product, which I'm gonna call their green product, this is their tomatillo and curry leaves hot sauce.
It's hard to differentiate in that space. It's hard to really stand out 'cause there's probably 100,000 hot sauce brands out there, but this one was amazing. I love a green hot sauce. Yes. Also in the Good Mercantile section, which once again was only a one-day thing, but was all... I was kinda happy about that, 'cause I think this is the first time the SFA has promoted that partnership.
SFA have bought Good Mercantile, and so they were working together. I saw a brand called Pinny, which is a brand of New York sparkling ciders, and look at that packaging. That's nice. It's adorable. Isn't that nice? I saw it on a lot of people's- Aw ... Instagram feeds. Yeah, it looks like a pro package from the get-go.
Ray's hoarding it even in this meeting. He's, or in- No ... in this recording. He's just "Ooh, look at mine." It's on his phone. The parent company is called Nine Pin Cider, and they've been making cider for a long time, and this is intended to be a great non-alc option akin to some of the non-alc cocktails that we've seen, non-alc beers and whatnot.
So they're definitely following that trend, but this feels like a really polished product that fits right into that non-alc trend in a really authentic way. Also, I saw a brand called Better Bovine. Better Bovine is a maker of 100% grass-fed beef jerky. Their Wagyu variety- I paused there for effect.
You did? They're Wagyu rib. Imagine you chop- Wa- is it Wagyu or Wagyu? What- however you wanna pronounce it. Okay. Sure. Wagyu Imagine if you chopped up some Wagyu beef- Winky today ... and put it into a bag, then it stayed as moist and juicy and delicious as you- Come on. Yeah. Seriously? So if you dry Wagyu steak, does it really make a difference in the beef jerky?
I don't know. What does this even mean? What do you mean? You're like, "Imagine if you just-" It's a bag of beef. I was like, I'm just picturing Ray in his house- Yeah ... in his velvet bathrobe or whatever he walks around in. And he's "Ah, I need a little j-" Manchester United velvet bathrobe. "I need a little garbage snack."
He opens his Sub-Zeroes- ... and there's just some Wagyu in there. And he's let me just try this out a little." He's like- Well- He's pushing aside the high fructose corn syrup. Aren't you, Nana, describing steak tartare? Is that your snack? No. This is fully cooked steak. It's beef jerky.
It's beef jerky, but it was actually- What, but why is it moist? I don't know. This is weird. That could be a shelf-life product. It was good. You know what? It was- is it mooing in there? The steak was actually fatty. So I think that's why it kept it as moist as it was. Okay. All I'm trying to say is, you go to the Specialty Food Show and you expect to see really high-end, delicious products- that's been their wheelhouse for a long time. So we saw a lot of those, or at least I saw a lot of those in Good Mercantile. In terms of other trends I think that we saw, certainly the continued rise of global flavors in more approachable- ... accessible brands and packaging. Definitely something you saw, Melissa.
One of my favorite things at the show was Malai ice cream. Our friend Kartik actually pointed it out to us, Kartik from- Dhusra ... Dhusra. So their lassis- The chillest of chill dudes ... the chillest of ch- the C-est of the F Ds. I don't know. That- That's a, that's a- I like that. No, that was good. No that was- That hit the point.
Yeah. That works. But it's ice cream, and I tried the mango version, and it's wrapped in thin chocolate. He actually handed me one of those. Oh, they were just- Yeah ... so good. That's, it's fantastic, isn't it? So good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was great. Did you try Chen's? Yes. That's exactly the reaction. That, it was so delicious, so unexpected.
Chen's is this brand of jiaozi dumplings, but it's made with a potato-based, almost mochi skin. Those are pretty good. So good. And they had pork. They had chicken. They had vegetable. And also, I gotta say, they were very efficient in keeping them coming too. Yeah. Because we kept sending people over there.
People just kept discovering it on their own, and they kept up with all the demand, and they were telling their story to anybody who wanted to hear it, and it was, it's a fantastic and very easy to understand story. My only nitpick with it was that you should definitely have the word dumpling on your package, 'cause they didn't.
They were using a different way to describe it, but everybody's gonna understand that it's a gluten-free dumpling with a potato skin. It's always surprising to see something new and unique at these shows. That definitely was. And I put so many of the fried shallots they had to go- ... on them. Delicious. Of course you did.
And that is innovation in this industry, is somebody thinks of something that's Easy to understand. It has that differentiator built into it, and you see it, you know exactly what it is, what it's gonna taste blows your mind. Fantastic stuff. Good job, Chenza. I wonder if they couldn't call it a dumpling 'cause there's already a specific statement of identity for dumpling.
I don't know. We had the full conversation about it, and I think they thought it was a good idea to still call it a dumpling, although they were trying to use it as a differentiator. There was a company called Red Fox Spices, and they have a new line of products called Injera Club. Red Fox. I-N- The Sanford and Son is playing in my head now.
Oh, I said Red Fox. Do. So Injera Club is spelled I-N-J-E-R-A. They make Ethiopian stews that are basically in dried packets. Yes, please. And you just add water, and they're ready in five minutes. And I tried this one, which is their red lentil stew, and it's amazing. They describe it as...
Or the name of this product is Misir Wot, M-I-S-I-R W-O-T. Yeah. And it really reminded me of some of the other brands that we've seen that are marketing these types of products. Cumin Club, for example, where- oh, yeah. Delicious very convenient, great branding, great packaging. Yeah, and really high quality.
Absolutely. So really good on Injera Club for that. Their female founder did the branding and design for the product, which is gorgeous, and I also haven't seen a packaged injera before. When you think about other cultures, you can get roti, tortillas obviously, but I've never seen a ready-to-eat injera, so that was exciting.
Also, and this wasn't specific to the Davey District or the downstairs area, but Growie Foods, which is a maker of globally seasoned Indian-inspired products, they have dips and whatnot, introduced a new line of chickpea crackers. They're described as crispy chickpea crackers. Their hot harissa variety- Get in
was amazing. It reminded me a little bit of the Wild crackers that John has in his cracking- That John was crunching away on W-I-L-D Eating crackers, Ray? Yes. Hold on. What are you talking about? Okay. The prote- the protein crackers. The chicken-based protein crackers. But these were very much a Cheez-It type product without the cheese, but had the same kinda texture, almost the same size, and it was just amazing.
Also loved with Yaza. Of course, we've talked about Yaza Foods a number of times. Their baba ganoush, second to none. So great to see Christian Karim Khalil. Oh, my gosh. Karim's a legend. Great to see him, and you can talk about baba ganoush, muhammara- Yep ... tzatziki, and of course- All those good things
their fantastic labneh- Yeah ... all day long. It's going into Costco, he said. Yeah. And Wegmans. And Wegmans. And Wegmans in the northeast. Yeah. Really excited for that. Pretty awesome. I can't wait. That stuff's killer. Yeah. Can't wait. Stock up. Keya's Snacks, K-E-Y-A- Yeah ... apostrophe S. They make kettle-cooked potato chips that are inspired with Indian flavors, but this was a non-Indian inspired flavor.
Yeah, the ranch. The ranch. The golden ranch- Yeah, golden ranch ... which was fantastic. A little bit of of the same base. She asked me, she's what do you think of those?" I'm like, "I was worried it was just gonna taste like ranch." Me too. Yeah. I was worried about that. But it's got its own spin, which is awesome.
Yeah. I love spending time with Keya and that booth was slammed. I was walking by, and I saw somebody in a bright red pantsuit, and then I saw the Keya logo, and it's such a good example of how to dress so that whether you're in your booth- Just always on brand ... or, yeah, exactly. Like- Yeah ... I knew immediately that it was her.
Yeah, her branding is stunning. The front of the package, right in the darn center is a caricature, I believe, of Keya, and it looks really... It's e- I forget, it's her or her mom, I can't remember which one. But she's gonna get mad at me for that. She's gonna come after you, Ray, and me too. Please send chips though.
By de- by proxy. Did you try the Party of mango sticky rice popcorn? No, that looks amazing. It's like kettle corn, but mango sticky rice flavor. Ooh, yum. It's so good. Oh, my God, the mango sticky rice. They have a pad Thai one. And the pad Thai. Wow. These were unbelievably well-executed. I have FOMO.
That sounds like, Yeah, they were backpacking ... you know that brand Nomad Snacks, the Amer- maker of popcorn that has- Yeah. ... Like global inspired flavors? That, 'cause that sounds a little bit like that. It's a little bit like that. The flavor was Extraordinary. Yeah. I think from a convenience standpoint, we also saw that specialty foods and natural foods and better for you foods can be also very convenient foods.
We talked about that with Injera Club, but did you see this brand? This was the first brand- Yeah ... that I saw at the show, which is a brand called Pasta Craft. Now, just imagine sort of fish wife branding- It does look fish wife-y ... in this product, which is an instant pasta sauce. So you just add water and butter.
In this case, it's... specifically it says add butter and pasta water, and you have the deliciousness of a gourmet sauce without the heavy jar and heavy liquid. Why is it so crunchy? 'Cause John won't stop crunching on his crackers. That's why. No, that's Melissa. Just crunching away over here. Wasn't me.
Now it's Melissa. That's Melissa. Now it's Melissa. So I, Always be crunching ... I tried their cacio e pepe, which is cacio and pepe pasta sauce which they were sampling at the show, and it is fantastic. Really good. In fact, I think I Grammed this, and I said, "How has no one created a product like this?"
Maybe there has been. It's basically like the packet of cheese in a mac and cheese box. That's what I was gonna ask. Except that you actually want to use it. Yeah. Do they have other flavors? Yeah, they have other flavors. Like a Kraft Mac and Cheese. Like the orange stuff.
Do they have a bolognese packet? Yeah. It's bad for you, is that stuff, isn't it? I don't know if they have- Yeah. I don't know if they have- It is orange ... bolognese. I think, if I'm not mistaken, a lot of their products were cheese-based or butter-based. Yeah. I don't recall if they were tomato-based, but don't quote me on that.
But I love what Pasta Craft is doing. Kudos to those guys. I also saw a brand I hadn't seen before called Guac Shop, as in guacamole, G-U-A-C Shop, and they have these little packets that are for guacamole prep, and you just take a avocado or two, and you put the packet in there, and you've got a delicious- It's just some seasoning?
Yeah. Why is that so bad? I thought there might be guac in there, just in case you need a little hit of guac. No. You gotta come with the avocado. Pocket guac? Come on. Yeah. Someone should make this. You could put it on your Wagyu beef jerky. What did Dolly Parton say? You you want the rainbow, you gotta put up the sunshine, something like that.
So yeah. Oh, boy. Guac Shop also makes taco chips that are guacamole flavored, which were really also very delightful. You just talked about mac and cheese, and we talked about the orange stuff, and Rupa Anudata, she has a hypothesis that kids, if you raise them on the good stuff from the beginning- That's what they're gonna want.
So her mac and cheese is called Nomi. Have you had Nomi before? Oh, yeah. Of course. Yeah. We got to catch up with her, and they have stunning new packaging. Yeah. That's their biggest update, and a reformulation. The mac and cheese, if you can believe it, it tastes even better. Amazing. I got to try the Great Chestnuts chestnut nog.
I don't know if you guys checked that out. No. Listen, you find the longest tail of things. I love it. They were in the Hudson Valley section, and what I thought was interesting is it started from an ag perspective. So they got a grant to figure out a way to use the products of chestnut trees. This was one of the outputs of that.
But to me, it seems a little bit similar to maple water. The fact- Yeah ... that so many brands are using maple water, maple syrup, that kind of thing, it protects these huge swaths of forest, and they're doing the same thing with chestnut trees, and I'm sure a bunch of other things. But that, to me I like that value proposition.
Yeah, there was another brand that was inspired by, or created by a family of farmers. It was called, or it is called Finger Foods Farm. They're a maker of instant soups, and their Tuscan bean variety was really fantastic, and it's good to talk to one of their founders about how they're utilizing what they grow on the land to create these products that...
you can definitely taste the difference. Using the actual vegetables and beans they grow on that farm that go into these soups it's this, just this complete step above what you may have had in the past. Similar idea to Folkland, Farmwell, Painterland Sisters- ... all of whom were at the show.
We haven't talked a lot about beverages, but I do wanna talk about a few that I saw that were pretty darn amazing, and I know John and Mike saw this brand. It is a brand of concentrated coffee that come in these luxurious vessels. Kloo. The brand is called Kloo. He knew it immediately. K-L-O-O. One of my favorites.
Get a Kloo. We featured Kloo and their founder in an episode of Elevator Talk I wanna say it was about a year and a half ago, and they make this coffee concentrate that just will blow your mind- It's mind-blowing, yeah ... how good it is. It is literally some of the best coffee, if not the best coffee I've ever had in my life.
It's crazy. Is it a concentrate and you add- It is a concentrate- Yes ... and you just add water. Comes in a really fancy bottle. Yeah. The bottle was gorgeous. She's making some packaging updates, didn't tell us exactly. The founder is Claudia Snow, and she's a sommelier who makes absolutely fantastic coffee in a concentrate form.
I had it at an event, and I had it, I was, like, carrying it like a pocket square, and then people started asking me what it was, and I started making everybody coffee, and it was so much better than the hotel coffee. Yeah. Yeah. On an instant coffee note, I also saw a couple of freeze-dried coffees, instant coffees.
So I have here Yum Brew. They have these little coffee pods, and I do think it's a little bit confusing 'cause it looks like it might be a K-Cup, but it's actually just a little pod of freeze-dried coffee that you dump in a cup of hot water. And then there was Fortune Coffee, and they had a really elite setup of instant coffee.
But I feel like I'm seeing less of the coffee in like teabags that you brew for instant coffee and more better options for freeze-dried coffee. Yeah. Agreed. On the non-al cocktail front or ANA front, some really good stuff upstairs in the Debut District section. Nomaro, which is spelled N-O-M-A-R-O, a maker of aperitivo products, and if you can guess the name, no amaro or non-alcoholic amaro.
Aha. The founder behind this brand is a 17-year-old who- Nice ... somehow has created one of the best- Yeah ... aperitivo products you'll ever drink. Oh, you're kidding me. Yeah. That's amazing. No, it is really good. How does he know? I don't know. It took me a minute to understand that he... I'm so embarrassed, but it took me a minute to understand that he was the founder.
I, I was- Yeah ... amazed. Yeah really good stuff. Also, a brand that I saw upstairs for the first time, Brica, B-R-I-C-A, a maker of non-alcoholic bitters-based or bitter-inspired cocktails. These were next-level elite. So good. Really good. And then another brand that I saw that is a... I believe these are concentrates, but I could be completely wrong.
I think they may just be in these apothecary-style bottles. The Still Bar, they have a dry-hopped Paloma, and they also had, I can't recall what type of Negroni it was, but this dry-hopped Paloma- I would drink this Paloma, a non-alc, over any other Paloma out there. This one was really spectacular. So continuing to see some elevation on that front when it comes to ANA cocktails.
And I wanna see it keep coming because I think the knock on ANA and non-alc has been that it just doesn't taste good. You get that compromise. The ingredients aren't high quality, and the brands I think that we saw, or at least the ones I mentioned, are proving the opposite. Bittermilk had a new Negroni SKU that was also very delicious.
Nice. Can I do my lightning round, Ray? You can. So we met the founders of a brand called Good Greed that makes a probiotic gummy. They had sour cherry and peach flavor. Those were pretty fantastic, and, it's g- good to see that the better-for-you candy aisle expanding. Also got to catch up with the founders of Cotto, who make a cottage cheese for people who don't like cottage cheese.
That seemed to be pretty hot at the show. There's spinach dip flavor, a buffalo flavor- Yeah, that was, that one was- And one other flavor ... yeah, it was good. It would go really nice with the chips I was crunching. It would've gone fantastic with those. I think some of the just pure joy that we're seeing at- Some are fancy food could be attributed to the fact that the World Cup is healing everybody, and there's also- And the Knicks win too.
... The Knicks win sh- for sure. Yeah Which by the way, Caroline from Tofugo is still using to her advantage. She's using all Knicks colors for her packaging whenever she's doing stuff in New York- Nice ... and her activations in New York, and everybody's still really excited about the Knicks, but also the World Cup.
So I popped into the Figa booth, who makes a brand of cupuaçu bars, which is somewhat similar to chocolate. And probably the most joyous thing was that Ariel, one of the founders, is having a baby, and so that's great news. And then Ronnie, her husband, was there in his Brazil kit trying to watch the game like this.
He had his phone in a Figa package- ... and he kept looking at the game. And it was the 76th minute, and I was like, "Ronnie, we need a goal from Gab Martinelli. We need a goal from Gab Martinelli." And then when it happened, I turned around and he's nowhere near his booth 'cause he'd run upstairs to go celebrate with all the Brazilians who were watching on the big TVs.
Oh, yeah. That was fun. You got your goal. Yeah. Got it, yeah. Do I get a lightning round? Yeah, lightning round. Yeah, absolutely. Sirius9, they have a super high-end cotton candy that uses fruit that they are sourcing from the Hudson Valley. They had a salted butter flavor, which I was so surprised by because- Was it a crime?
No. Assaulted. Ah. Oh, no. Ah. I thought you meant crime in the way that Jelly Belly's- ... butter popcorn. That is a crime That's disgusting. Yeah. No, but this was not a crime at all. They also had a couple of sour flavors, sour melon and lemonade. So tasty. I also really liked Atelka. Mike, you just mentioned, a cottage cheese for folks who don't like cottage cheese.
This is a creamy cottage cheese, so no curds. Very good stuff. I had it too. Yes. So good. And it's- It's like a yogurt almost. Yes. But thin. And they said other words for it are quark, and there were a couple of other ones. I've had quark before, but I liked this- It's good ... a lot better.
Lots of protein. Wandersnacks, their costumes were so fantastic. They do peanut brittle. I have the dill pickle skew here. I saw their costumes. But they have... weren't their costumes... And that's just another example. What the heck was that? That's another example. If you don't have a booth, put on a costume, walk around.
You can still have a great show. Cha Matcha- Yeah ... from Maine. I think- Cha ... I just like- Maker of RTU matcha beverages. Yeah. Yeah So tasty. And then last, on-demand tea cookies. I think we're seeing a lot more tea everywhere, both in flavors and in beverages. They had these little square tea cookies. There was a golden milk, a chai, and an Earl Grey that were for food service.
And then I also learned at the UNFI show that Walmart has a modern tea set that Halfday is going to be into, so I thought that was also interesting, that Walmart's dedicating an entire set to modern tea. Maybe we'll see some Awesome Tea in there as well. Good to catch up with those guys- Yeah ... at the show as well.
They're a new tea products. It used to be Awesome, an avocado seed-based product, and now it's just a straight iced tea, and it's delicious. But much more to come, I'm sure. We're gonna highlight a lot more brands, a lot more products in upcoming episodes of Taste Radio. But for now, thank you all for sharing your amazing products and brands with us at the Fancy Food Show.
If we didn't talk about you, stay tuned. We're gonna talk about you soon. And to everyone listening out there, please have a very happy and safe Fourth of July.
