Why chow now?

Whilst I’m sure there are very few of us who actually celebrated Chinese New Year on Monday with some crispy duck, a few spring rolls and a bottle of Tsingtao, it has got me thinking about the future for Asian cuisine in the UK. Our high streets seem to indicate we’re a nation obsessed with Italian…Strada, Prezzo, Carluccios, Zizzi to name a few. And yet according to a recent survey by Food Network UK, Chinese stir-fry has just taken over as the nation’s favourite dish. Should we therefore be weeping that our high streets are bereft of any major players in Chinese cuisine? Or should we be celebrating the little sticky boxes of rice and tubs of gloopy gelatinous sauces peppered with a few pieces of unidentifiable meat that are churned out of the kitchens of our local Chinese restaurants?

It’s safe to say we should probably stick to a little bit of home cooking if we want some fresh and tasty wonton soup or a bok choy stir-fry. So, to Amazon for the perfect Chinese cookery book and what do you find? Ken Hom (there’s no denying he’s the king of Chinese cooking but surely he’s not alone?), Ching-He Huang (no doubt a woman with passion). And then? Then, we get no more than two pages in to the search results and I’m bored already from looking at the kind of books that are in the back row of my doubled-parked cookery books, the ones covered in that dusty grease from years of sitting untouched above the cooker. 

So, what is the future for Chinese food? Two decent cookery writers and maybe the odd M&S Chinese ready meal? Let’s do something about this. Watch this space for a few Chinese experiments from the Phipps team.

Posted by Liz Lock

Fanciful wine predictions or genuinely new?

In the year when the greatest show on earth, the Olympic Games, will come to town, and England yet again hopes to triumph at the UEFA European Championships, when celebration could or should be sweeping the country, what will we be drinking in 2012?

Adrian Tierney-Jones from the Telegraph suggests it could be the year craft beers continue to come of age, wine cocktails will open up new frontiers of flavour and we’ll be drinking at “pop up bars”. So if you’ve got a taste for the slightly more exotic or you’ve ever wondered how to make your own beer, cider or fruit wine, then 2012 could be the year to try out your own DIY tipple-making creations. During the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, Gin made from 10 carefully selected botanicals or a wine cocktail blended with vodka and Chardonnay could even take your fancy!

These predictions might sound a bit far-fetched, but when looking at the pub scene, Adrian suggests a rejuvenated consumer interest in 2012 propelled by renewed interest and availability of quality real ale and craft beers to offset the issues faced in the sector. The growth and strength of so-called ‘craft beer bars’ such as Cask in London and Port Street Beer House in Manchester suggest he’s hit the nail on the head with that one.  

One certain prediction for the year. 2012 will be challenging for the drinks sector! The state of the economy means maintaining let alone increasing market share will be occupying brands. Enticing cash strapped consumers to part with their money will mean consumers balance quality and price more than ever before. The drinks industry will need to keep their audience of sippers happy by offering innovative options and value-oriented choices without compromising quality. Here’s to hoping an austere New Year moves over to a summer of celebration.  

Posted by Shelly Murphy

Why food trends are hard to digest

The first week of January wouldn’t be complete without considering the predictions of what we’ll be eating and where we’ll be dining over the next 12 months.

Passions for food, and an appetite for new experiences, reached new levels in 2011 with the arrival of dozens of pop-up ventures, new restaurants and destinations, so how can trends keep emerging in a market where now almost anything goes as long as it tastes good? Ironically, it could be argued that the predictions drive the trends rather than the other way round. Take for instance the predicted trend for pickling. Would we really be rushing out to buy herring and vinegar, or vats of pickled walnuts at the farmers market, if we hadn’t been told that we would? It will inevitably become a trend, big or small, if the media says it will. 

Had Noma not been named World’s Best Restaurant – originally a successful marketing initiative from Restaurant Magazine - two years running, it is unlikely the media would have paid any attention to Scandinavian cuisine. However, a 12-page feature on Nordic cuisine in this month’s Delicious magazine shows there’s no doubt the media believe in this trend. 

Take sustainability in 2011 as the prime example. Hugh brought us the second instalment of Fish Fight on Channel 4 and we showed concern about the fish we were eating. But are consumers still concerned now or was it simply a trend that came and went alongside the media coverage? 

We may well see a rise in demand in 2012 for salt beef, English veal meatballs and salted caramel but who’s to say it’ll consumer demand rather than the presence in the media?

Posted by Liz Lock

If Willy Wonka had a Facebook page...

Thanks to the social web, you can now share anything with anyone anywhere in the world. The trend toward shared experiences online is being replicated offline and its impact can be felt in how we are choosing to eat. The rise of the ‘big night in’ has also placed greater emphasis on the need to provide products to capitalise on the desire to share.  This has given birth to a phenomenon of sharing which has been driving success and innovation in the confectionary category. Out-of-home snacking has dropped by almost 16% over the past 12 months. Kantar usage data shows in-home confectionery occasions are growing 3.4% year-on-year driven by in-home snacking – up 6.2%.

It’s an area in which chocolate brands are faring particularly well with value sales of sharing bags up 9.6% and volume up 8.3%. The sharing of ideas, opinions, media and status updates are all part of what makes social media a powerful force, and this is especially relevant for brands. Adding sharing options to content in online media can lead to more page views and better status in search results.

And with its sponsorship of London 2012 next year Cadbury has perhaps the biggest opportunity to capitalise on the spirit of sharing. In September Cadbury launched an £8m Keep Team GB Pumped campaign inviting consumers to record motivational power training songs via a webcam and share them online. Their Spots & Stripes campaign has also sought to encourage consumers to get involved in competition with their peers and communities. We’ll be watching with interest to see their next move as the games approach. 

Spotlight on Grape Choice

Here at Phipps, it’s pretty obvious to state that we’re all interested in food and drink. However, this extends far beyond the four walls of our pink and white office, with many resident bloggers in our midst. Today we kick-off by chatting to Junior Account Executive and blogger Jen Gevaux (over a glass of wine, of course).

Hi Jen, tell us about yourself and the blog in 40 words

Fresh out of university, I joined Phipps as an intern in June, and then joined the team permanently in October. I’ve been an ardent blogger since February 2010 and posts can range from product reviews and food and wine matches, to travel anecdotes and informative pieces.

So why blog?

Grape Choice is all about making wine (and other drinks) accessible to those with a limited knowledge of wine. At university, I was quite new to wine, but when I came across a wine I liked or an offer that couldn’t be missed I wanted to let others know about it. Since then, my knowledge has extended (thanks to working in the industry and completing the Wine and Spirits Education Trust intermediate course) and I’ve started to be more adventurous with my choices.

Do you think blogs like yours can help the wine industry to become more accessible to consumers?

The wine aisle can be rather daunting for many people, especially when it comes to choosing a wine for someone else or when trying to impress at a dinner party. Grape Choice is my way of making it a little easier. I’m not an expert (yet) and I believe that taste is subjective – just as some people like olives and anchovies whilst others can’t stand them, the exact same can be said for different wines.

To what extent is your blog influenced by current food and drink trends?

Quite often trends dictate what we should and should not choose to eat or drink (How many of you have tried your hand at baking cupcakes over the last few years?). So many such trends can be really alienating, so although I like to keep up-to-date with what’s hot right now, Grape Choice tends to put aside those trends – my philosophy is if you like it, drink it.

By Sara Evans

Spirits…and the paradox of choice

Counterintuitive as it may sound to anyone living in a Western consumerist society, is it possible that freedom of choice has made us not freer but more paralysed, not happier but more dissatisfied? 

That idea was already vaunted by psychologist Barry Schwartz five years ago but as of this month London’s The Social will be putting it to the test. Instead of a back wall full of bottles the selection of spirits on offer is limited to the best of the best. So that's one vodka, one gin, one rum, one whisky, one tequila. “I’m not saying it’s wrong to have 20 gins,” remarked Eric Yu, managing director of The Breakfast Group which owns The Social in the October’s issue of the Drinks Business. “We’re just trying to get a balance. There’s a whole plethora of choice that’s way beyond public understanding.” So what’s out view on this - best of the best or plenty of bottles behind the bar? Not sure actually, it’s a difficult choice to make…

Posted by Toby Schuster

Why going niche could go mainstream

We don’t need to tell you there’s an economic crisis going on – we all know it. But with the biggest and best London Cocktail Week just gone and higher than expected results from major distillers it seems the spirits market is well and truly bucking the trend. Admittedly, alcohol is what the Financial Times calls a “defensive sector that carries on selling through the downturn”, though it’s clear the sector is not immune to thrifty consumers and is facing tough times. A closer look at the sector reveals that growth is actually driven by a small number of categories within the spirits sector, namely higher quality and premium brands. This seems utterly counterintuitive at a time when logic dictates that we should be tightening our belts and trading down, not trading up to more expensive drinks.

An explanation comes in form of James Harkin’s book Niche: Why the market no longer favours the mainstream. He defines a niche product as one most people don’t want but one that is ideally suited for the people who do (subsequently, James argues that any loss of volume should be offset by a widening of value sales and profit margins from the market “sweet spot” – consumers who are willing to pay more for the privilege). The key is to avoid being “stuck in the middle” and one way we believe for drinks brands to avoid the dreaded middle is to position themselves as affordable luxury, a very niche positioning since consumers may not be able to splash out on a 5-star holiday, but a high-quality spirit is still attainable. The trouble is if everyone’s doing it the niche may become the mainstream. 

Posted by Lucy Richardson

A different perspective on Britain's drinking culture

After all the sensationalist media reports about Britain’s binge drinking culture, here’s a refreshing perspective on the problem. Social anthropologist Kate Fox claims that it’s not the alcohol itself that’s the issue; it’s the fact that it’s socially acceptable in the UK for alcohol to be used as an excuse for antisocial behaviour. How many times have you heard people (and I’m not claiming that I haven’t been guilty myself) boasting of their drinking escapades? It’s not an exclusively British problem but seems to be the preserve of those nations with what Kate calls ‘ambivalent’ drinking cultures.

Her views seem to correlate with cultures that are famed for repressing their emotions to some extent. A Phipps team member who lived in Japan for a year often relates a tale of a staff party which ended with one of her co-workers setting fire to his own pubic hair! However, alcohol induced fights seem rare in Japan, as they do in Spain, a country where I have spent a lot of time. That’s not to say that the Spanish don’t drink a lot – I’ve been to fiestas in small towns where the drinking started at 11am and continued until 5am the next day. But perhaps drunken aggressive behaviour is less of an issue because the Spanish express themselves on a daily basis – shouting, arguing and hugging their friends – and don’t use alcohol as an emotional crutch in the way that the British do. Maybe we need to look at the social ills that lead to young people in Britain feeling the need to drown their sorrows in alcohol rather than using alcohol as a scapegoat?

Posted by Anna Harris-Noble

Postmodernism on a Plate?

As the V&A opens the doors to its autumn blockbuster exhibition Postmodernism: Style and Subversion our thoughts (naturally) turned to the kitchen. Could it really be that the years between 1970 and 1990 gave us nothing more than prawn cocktail, potato waffles or the Alessi kettle? And if so, what was the connection to Postmodernism, the cultural movement of the time that said goodbye to radically utopian architecture in steel, glass and concrete, and hello to ornaments, kitsch and banality? While it’s certainly true that just as postmodernism shrugged off the austerity of modernism and reintroduced aesthetics, eclectics and ornamentation, cooking became a lot more elaborate, fun and clever but equally disposable.

From cheese hedgehogs and oh-so-sophisticated Chicken Kiev in the seventies, the kitchen took a detour via Nouvelle Cuisine to end up with convenience food ranging from Pot Noodles to Walls Vienetta. And the parallels don’t end there. Scratch the shallow surface - architecturally and culinarily speaking - and often you’ll find a plethora of quite worrying details. The nutritional content of most foods was shocking – packed with transfats, sugars and salt – while architecture revelled in high-rise superficiality hiding the economic hardship many experienced during that time. Postmodernism gave us pink granite in form of City office blocks and fluorescent pink desserts courtesy of liberally applied E123 food colouring. So why didn’t Postmodernism last? For the same reason the Chicken Kiev didn’t make it…both were essentially quite disturbing. 

 

Posted by Toby Schuster  

Pens At The Ready...Food Writers Discuss Supermarkets

We were under no illusions…putting together a panel of distinguished food writers with food retailers, and asking them to debate the power of the supermarkets was always going to be an evening of conflicting views. And sure enough the event, hosted by the Guild of Food Writers delivered. Kicking off by highlighting a trend we discussed a few weeks ago Alex Renton claimed that food has become “too cheap” while Guardian writer Zoe Williams cited feminism as an influence on the way we eat, using “supermarket meal solutions” as an example of how the modern working woman doesn’t have time to shop around. Meanwhile, former ad-man turned food writer Tim Hayward argued that advertising has created perceived problems for which, in return, brands and supermarkets provide profitable solutions (a tactic he claimed perfectioned by the beauty industry). In defence of the retail sector Andrew Opie was calling for more fact checking in the media, and used BOGOFs as an example of skewing public perception, insisting the deals are not always funded by suppliers. Thankfully, Sophie of fresh produce supplier Barfoots bridged the gap between the two sides saying that whilst supermarkets have undeniable power it is up to suppliers to be smarter in the way they run their businesses. Not surprisingly for a group of foodies, the general consensus was that it was important for the people in the room to encourage their readers to shop at places other than supermarkets and show how that can be made easy. Then again, we couldn't help but think that this is really a middle classes debate, with the majority of the general public not having the time, money or interest to look beyond the supermarkets when it comes to shopping for food. Discuss. 

Posted by Becky Erwood