Weekend Edition Hot Off The Press #6: 2011 Fancy Food Show

2011 Fancy Food Show Directory

Earlier this week, I attended the 2011 Fancy Food Show at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, which is the west coast’s largest specialty food and beverage event. The show, which is in its 36th year, is put on by the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade (NASFT). This year, over 1,300 exhibitors from 50 countries came out to show off about 80,000 specialty foods and beverages. The purpose of my visit was to see what kinds of gluten free products were available as well as talk to the companies and manufacturers about their thoughts on gluten free food. 

First things first, this show was huge. Vendors filled up the north and south halls of the Moscone center. The vendors ranged from large well known brands, to smaller mom and pop operations. I was surprised to see so many gluten free products, a lot more than I had expected. They were sometimes hard to find as I had to ask many of the representatives if their products were gluten free. I think that a sign signifying that they had gluten free products would have been helpful. Just about all of the vendors knew what gluten free products were so it is definitely on a lot of radars. Many of the vendors who didn’t have gluten free products said that they have been getting a lot of requests for them and that they have gluten free products in the works. This is definitely a step in the right direction for celiac and people with gluten free intolerance and see next year’s show being even bigger for the gluten free world. 

Vendors are coming out with very innovative ideas. One I liked in particular was the Gluten Free Falafel chips made by Famous Organics in Southern California. They had a great product that I think will be very successful in the gluten free market. I also saw a lot of sauce companies like Shiloh’s who have a whole line of gluten free sauces. Talking to some of these companies, I saw a genuine interest in the greater good. Like a particular salad dressing company who refused to put a gluten free label on their products even though they are gluten free. They want to ensure that they go through the right channels to ensure that their products don’t harm anyone. In fact this came up several times. It was very humbling to see that these companies actually care about the needs and health of their consumers. This also brought up a very good question of which gluten free certification company is the best and has the strictest testing. This is definitely something I will need to look into in the future. 

I learned a lot from the Fancy Food show and it also gave me a lot of great ideas on what to write on in the future. Combine that with the great companies who are putting work into producing a broader variety of gluten free food and it really shows me that things in the food world are changing. Companies are listening to the needs of the people and the people are becoming better informed and actually looking at what they are eating. With the conclusion of the 2011 Fancy Food Show, look forward to my reviews of the gluten free products I found at the show. 

~Calvin C.