Want to know what 2016 holds for your catering business? We asked Publisher and Executive Editor Kathleen Stoehr of Catersource magazine to share the trends shaping the catering industry in the coming year. At a gathering in mid-November Stoehr sat down with about a dozen chefs from top catering companies around the U.S. and Canada to discuss where they find inspiration, and what they’re cooking up in the kitchen in 2016, as well as offered her observations from the past year.
Molecular gastronomy is taking its leave. “It’s challenging and not profitable,” one chef shared. However, if you want to impress the guests with a little smoke and mirrors, “people lose their minds over liquid nitro meringues.” Liquid nitrogen is easy to work with and impresses the guests.
Fresh and local: Local has outmaneuvered organic as of late, but local, chefs assert, isn’t necessarily the best. “I don’t necessarily want local prosciutto,” said a New England-based chef, “I want the best prosciutto!”
Eating local is a tough trend to employ in catering for yet another reason: small local farms might have enough short ribs to supply a restaurant for a dozen or two meals each evening, over a series of months. But can they supply enough short ribs for 300 people on one night?
While we are on the subject of farms, farm-to-table is great…but dirt-to-table is even better. Think herbs snipped right from a pot and muddled into a cocktail, microgreens pulled and garnished onto a plate, or tender lettuce leaves cut from a flat and tossed in front of the guests.
Vegetables & grains: Sunchokes and Brussels sprouts are on a comeback; the raw and crunchy trend is making headway. Radishes and baby beets being are shaved at stations—and guests love it. Millet is the go-to grain, farro is still popular, and chia seeds are on the rise.
Another hot button: heirloom grains and legumes grown using original pre-Civil War seeds. People want to know: what did these foods taste like when our grandparents, or even their grandparents were eating them? Considering that the United Nations designated 2016 as International Year of the Pulses, there really couldn’t be a better time to embrace this trend.
Mini vegetables, micro-garnishes, and herbs are popular to accompany and enhance the enduring trend in small plates.
Dietary restrictions: “Gluten-free is huge,” the chefs agreed. “And while celiacs want to be accommodated, they don’t want to pay for it.” Soy allergies are on the rise. “Gluten-free has become a nightmare for our pastry chef,” one chef noted.
Here’s a way to work with the myriad of restrictions. A Midwest chef noted, “The client will give you a laundry list of all the things they can’t eat. That’s too difficult. Instead, have them tell you what they do eat. Once I did that, I looked at the list and said, ‘Oh! Well, I can work with that.’”
Sous vide: In 2014, it came in dead last on our survey [Catersource’s annual Readership Survey] about various cooking techniques. Yet, we knew it was on the rise, saying, “keep your eye on this technique because—that’s the thing about trends: they take time to get rolling.” Sure enough, we saw sous vide in use and demonstrated in Salt Lake City at August’s Art of Catering Food, and at our chef roundtable in November it was emphatically stated that: “Sous vide is really a trend in the industry. I use it a lot, actually, for short ribs, roast beef, chuck flat.”
What guests love: Spectacle. Craft cocktails are hot. So how about barware moving to the savory side? One chef mentioned seeing a salad bar with attendants dressed like bartenders, agitating oil and vinegar in a cocktail shaker. Interactivity. Get a few spin art machines and use food paint in squeeze bottles such as raspberry gel to decorate a plate prior to the cake slice being served. Or put some of the hottest sauces into squirt bottles for squeezing over a plate of spuds. Customization: Bars of all kinds are favored by guests: a yogurt toppings bar at breakfast; salad-style snack bars with hummus and cut vegetables; mashed potato and pasta bars replete with cheeses, sauces, and garnishes; even a cocktail garnishes bar—we pour the drink, you garnish it…and then tweet your creation out to your followers.
What chefs want: “Anything cool that anybody ever sees ends up on Pinterest—though it might not be so cool when you have to make it for 300 people.” Pinterest aside, chefs don’t just look at ingredients and recipes; they want interesting vessels, too. “What am I going to serve it on?” one chef questioned. “What are we presenting it in?” Chefs talked about how they love to find a new vessel, “and then I will think about what I can put in there.”
Still going strong: Craft cocktails (especially barrel aged), locally crafted beer, and hard cider still rule—though watch as nonalcoholic beverages and artisan soft drinks command more space on menus; sausages and charcuterie plates continue to rise; breakfast and brunch are very hot and speak to luxury and leisure at any time of the day; pickling and fermenting persist in their march to the top; chicken and waffles show no sign of leaving us. In fact, fried chicken is in its renaissance at the moment, a part of the comfort food movement that is also on the rise. New words for consumers: crudo, kalette, rillette, matcha, sumac.
“Finally,” says Stoehr, “I leave you with this final thought: you will know that a trend is on the wane when it becomes a Halloween costume. So, Sriracha, you have been wonderful, but when I saw that kid at my door with the green cap on his head and a red tunic emblazoned with your name, I knew it was time to say farewell. Hello, Gochujang!”
For more details about catering trends, including the outlook on staffing, off-peak booking, personalized tastings and more, visit Catersource online.
This article has been excerpted with permission from Catersource magazine. The full text is available online.
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