The Specialty Foods Association holds a Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco in January. The 2020 edition just wrapped up. I did a virtual fly-over of the show to see what caught my attention. The sheer number of specialty foods and beverages on exhibit is overwhelming: 80,000 + items! There’s no way any one observer could cover the whole show in person or by perusing the online directory and pages devoted to the more than 1400 exhibitors from around the world. I relied on a steady stream of pretty picture posts from folks covering the Fancy Food show in person to get a sense for what was getting buzz.

For this episode I asked my business partner, and wife, Farnaz Badie to have a light-hearted, definitely not definitive or comprehensive chat about a short list of items I thought made a statement. With all our combined years managing, marketing, and researching food and beverage brands I thought we might weigh in on the prospects of some of these products.