Grocery Update Volume 2, #11: A Brief, Timely And Biased Recap of Fancy Food Show, Summer 2025.

AKA, The Dubai Chocolate Show.

A Brief, Timely And Biased Recap of Fancy Food Show, Summer 2025.

The air conditioning bill at the Jacob Javits Convention Center must be the size of a small Midwestern city’s annual budget. The massive glass and steel encased building on the west side of Manhattan, just past the sleek glass and steel towers of Hudson Yards, is essentially one enormous greenhouse. New York City in late June, with its climate-change induced neo-subtropical climate, smells like a wet sock soaked in bong juice, literally everyone in the city sweaty, grimy and smoking the now-legal and ubiquitous kindbud, especially during the Pride Weekend festivities, the whole city glowing in smoky, luscious rainbow colors.

So strolling into Javits on a humid, hot morning, past the little green park named after the midcentury socialist politician and diminuitive Bronx hellraiser Bella Abzug, past the entrance to the recently built #7 train stop buried a couple hundred feet under the deep foundations and utilities of 34^th street, past the poor fellas hawking copies of specialty food magazines in the visibly rambling heat, well, walking into Javits felt utterly divine. A fresh breeze, cool and clean, smelling like trade show, welcoming all to the 2025 Summer Fancy Food Show.

And fancy it was.

This, by my count, was my 20^th or so Fancy Food Show as a grocery nerd and retail lifer, give or take a pandemic. Possibly my 100th or so trade show in my career. I lost count at some point. This annual, early summer pilgrimage back to my homeland and city of my birth, the birthright by which I’ll identity eternally, a diasporic New Yorker home again.

This trade show is always a fun one. Less manic and dizzying than Natural Products Expo West, busier and more productive than the west coast Fancy Food Show that keeps bouncing around the overpriced intermontane cities of the far western U.S., and more like a European trade show in vendor assortment, diversity of booths, density of crowds and activity of retail buyers. Like Paris’ Sial but about half the size, and usually not crippled by the French working class’ propensity to go on strike on a frequently justifiable basis, seemingly always during trade shows. Then again, those French workers live pretty good lives compared to their American peers. Hm. They must be onto something.

Fancy Food, unlike Expo, is a buyer’s show, which seems so weighted towards influencers, media, investors, service providers and ancillary functions that are not about the blood, sweat and math of grocery buying. This was a show for said buying activities, the relational and transaction aspects of an ostensibly free enterprise system all too often otherwise encumbered by market concentration, price gouging, profiteering, and misregulation, here instead purified and top off with the negotiating, haggling, snark and raised eyebrows, trend spotting, sampling and pounding the padded pavement of the Javits halls to find the coolest products, best deals, newest innovations, and all the while hopefully dodging Covid-19, food poisoning and a host of other communicable diseases likely stirring in the midst of people, food, airborne spittle and ambition. Good times.

Fancy Food Shows are evenly split three ways, thematically.

Much of the show is taken up by national trade association sections, aisles and aisles of government-sponsored exhibits hawking the best wares and competitive advantages in the most David Ricardo classical economics sense, of Japan and Greece and Turkey and Korea and China and so freakin’ much Italy, and many other countries in between, all nervously anticipating the next tariff/trade war threats, missives and lack of coherent deals from President TACO, aka, Cheeto Palpatine.

Next there are the large scale specialty importers, processors and wholesalers, usually on the main floor, displaying vast arrays of dairy cheeses, charcuteries and higher end consumer packaged products, such as World Finer Foods, Atalanta, McMahon’s Farm, Satori, DelAllo, Divina, Cento and Colavita.

These two groups are really the anchors of the show, in space and market share.

But the highlight for so many attendees, the reason for the season, are the thousands of small and medium sized specialty food brands exhibiting, with products from all over the world and most states and metro areas of the U.S., as well as specially curated sections from incubators and accelerators such as Startup CPG, :Included, Naturally Network and more.

In fact, the Startup CPG section, a vast array of small vendors herded together by founder Daniel Scharff and his crew, was easily the highlight of the show. I kept coming back to that section and their enterprise incubator booths. While I rarely ever see anything so groundbreaking and new that I can’t get over it, I truly loved getting to sample and talk with the founders and staff at these booths, folks who tended to be really passionate and enthusiastic about what they were making and why.

It is all a seemingly endless cornucopia and typically requires at least two days to walk through the whole shebang.

And any Fancy Food Show is too big to really summarize in a brief think piece or hot trend-watching public relations. There is no authoritative take on Fancy Food. Sure those make good copy for Specialty Food Association, who also sponsors this humble newsletter (but is not in any way responsible for the commentary herein). So let’s be real, until trends are validated in syndicated retail data that aggregates the purchase habits of millions of consumers across multiple metro markets and time periods, well, trend-spotting and trend-predicting is really just some frothy bullshit. So sayeth Grocery Nerd.

Instead, here is a 100% subjective, biased, occasionally enthusiastic and just a bit salty overview of my favorite foods, vendors and things I spotted, sampled, discussed or avoided during the two days I spent strolling the show.

Biggest Annoying Trend.

This one was obvious to anyone at the show. Dubai Chocolate. Dubai-Style Chocolate. Chocolate from Dubai. Dubai Chocolate, in case you didn’t care up until now, is a thick milk chocolate bar stuffed with high-end pistachio cream, also called kunafa, a popular snack and spread in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. It is also the perfect sweet tooth snack fix for the dystopian, oil-money saturated sliver of Persian Gulf real estate that maxxes out wealth inequality, migrant worker exploitation, endless air conditioned glass and steel skyscrapers and soccer team sponsorships. But… Dubai Chocolate is actually really good, especially when the kunafa oozes out.

I did a piece on pistachios and pistachio trends with Food Print a while back, so I kind of saw this one coming. But I was unprepared for the tsunami of Dubai Chocolate and spin-offs at the show. It was unreal. I counted at least 30 booths with some version, in nearly every aisle and section, and I am sure I missed a few. Somehow, CNBC’s recap only saw 5 booths. #MSM Fail

Only one booth had Dubai Chocolate actually made in Dubai, owned by a Dubai-based company, although the chocolate was from Ecuador and processed into couverture by Barry Callebaut, one of the world’s largest chocolate makers, a French-Belgian conglomerate based in Switzerland. So not really Dubai Chocolate either, actually. Sums up Dubai Chocolate.

I also found a cool company making premium chocolate bars in Dubai that was not Dubai-style chocolate, just tasty bean to bar chocolates sourced from all over the chocolate producing latitudes, made in Dubai, wrapped in beautiful Arabic designs, called Mirzam, the packaging looking like illustrations from an Arabian Knights graphic novel by way of a Black Sabbath Planet Caravan acid trip.

Otherwise, there was Dubai chocolate from companies all over the world, like lemmings flocking over the trend-cliff, with Dubai Chocolate cookies, baklava, cakes, ice cream, croissants, bird’s nests, disaggregated Dubai Chocolate broken down into its commodity ingredients, each at a reasonable wholesale markup, and then the inimitable grocer Stew Leonard’s hawking Dubai Chocolate milkshakes, brilliantly. For now, I need a moratorium on Dubai Chocolate and a time-out on pistachio cream (but I’ll still sneak a bar once and again when I find them in stores).

Best Canned Fish (tie).

I am a huge fan of tinned fish. I grew up on cheap canned tuna and am probably still carrying quite a bit of bioaccumulated mercury in my system. But I also lived on plenty of less metallic accumulating canned salmon, sardines and herring. I especially love those latter tinned “bait fish”, the high fat, high protein, little snack size critters that I would even occasionally eat when I was vegan and I needed some fatty acids.

There is a lot of good stuff in the category now and I would give my team at Whole Foods credit for starting the category reinvention 20 years again when we met the Wild Planet folks at a Tree of Life show (I am dating myself here) and launched Wild Planet as a Whole Foods Market short term exclusive. Ancient history. These days, that brand is everywhere, and now a new generation of tinned fish is winning the hearts, minds and palates of younger consumers as well as jaded optimists like myself.

First among equals here is Fishwife. This brand has re-envisioned canned fish with gorgeous packaging illustrations and design elements, delicious recipes and high quality ingredients. As a former illustrator and graphic designer (that part of my brain is mostly dormant these days, alas), I love the packaging and they really stand out on shelf. My fave sku is the smoked rainbow trout. I hope these folks survive the nightmare of the modern wholesale and retail gauntlet and become a fixture in natural and specialty shops for the long haul.

Next up is Patagonia Provisions. Full disclosure, I consulted for them before the pandemic but they nixed my contract when the economy shut down in March 2020. All good, I got over it. I still love their canned fish. As much as Yvon Chouinard can be a bit of egomaniacal blowhard, like any CEO and founder of a billion dollar high end consumer goods company “in business to save the planet”, he was right on when it came to tinned fish, especially mussels. His team really nailed the recipes. Like Fishwife, they have high quality ingredients, but are all wild caught and taste like the product development folks really put the time in. The packaging design is simpler and more austere and lived in, very Patagonia, like the classic Worn Wear wool sweater I am obsessed with that makes me look like a hardcore punk rock Mr. Rogers.

And finally, this little outfit out of Alaska, Wildfish Cannery, blew me away. I think I tried every item twice, my friend who I was walking the show with fled the scene in horror and the staff member was so appreciative he gave me a sample of a secret, un-displayed item he had hidden behind the table for just such an obsessive customer as myself. This stuff was off the charts, especially the cod and the birch smoked coho. Like unreal quality. Fully traceable, canned right after being caught. Not cheap stuff, but a nice treat when you need that tinned fish fix.

Wildfish, Fishwife and Provisions reminded me of the higher end Spanish and Portugese canned seafood I saw in Europe, and at some of their respective trade association booths at the show. They take that stuff seriously over there, this ain’t the Biggie Smalls rhyming about being so poor he was eating sardines for dinner-canned fish deal. The Iberians have surely influenced the American makers. That is a good thing.

Best Chili Crunch.

I love chili crunch, except for Momofuku, because they threatened to sue their competitors. But otherwise, I love chili crunch, mostly because I love Szechuan food and the full range of sensory experiences involved in eating that cuisine, unlike anything else I have ever had. But I have a new obsession, and that is Tasting India’s Bombay Chili Crunch. Chili crunch, but seasoned like the Indian subcontinent meets the street vendors of Chengdu. I love Indian food, especially northwestern Punjabi, Gujarati-style that I grew up with (half my high school was South Asian). This was a really memorable and pungent condiment and I spent the rest of the show craving it, so I will be ordering some online shortly.

Best Chikka Chikka.

Once again, getting back to my roots. I would always grab a spoonful of fennel seeds when exiting an Indian restaurant. Well now, we can all take the joy home. Chikka Chikka is in a class by itself, with warm, glowing packaging design and delicious digestive seed crunches, especially the mint. I kept eating the samples. So rude. I hope these folks get picked up across the country by a lot of stores, nothing else like it, unless you frequent Patel Brothers or other South Asian markets. But these tasted higher quality, brighter and fresh and quite eye catching. Chikka chikka.

Best Spice.

Big shoutout to my fellow Non GMO Project board member and saffron maven Mohammad Salehi, founder of Heray Spice. Mohammad is from Herat, Afghanistan and has built a supply chain to support saffron growers in the war torn country who are growing some of the highest quality spices in the world. The packaging is beautiful and the saffron practically glows, deeply red and earthy like a Georgia O’Keefe painting of the mountains above Herat. Heray Spice is your new saffron fix.

Grocery Nerd meets Saffron Nerd.

Best Backpack Product.

My friend and colleague Sarah Nathan was wearing one of those transparent plastic backpacks that have become mainstays in our country as a way of supposedly preventing gun violence. But instead of schoolbooks, Sarah was hustling goodies, stuffing the bag with mockup samples of her “ready to roll” instant matzo ball soup cups, Nooish. Easily the coolest diasporic Jewish product of the show, and a unique, creative take on the Ashkenazi household comfort food, with graphics even more eye catching than Manischewitz’s tasteful Matzo Ball Soup mix rebrand. Hope to see Nooish in market soon.

Best Plant-based Meat.

The one-two-UPF punch of Impossible and Beyond has really tanked the plant-based meat category, with sales and consumption volumes down again this year. It doesn’t help that advocacy groups like Good Food Institute took their eyes off the ball and pivoted to weird-ass V.C.-funded food tech B.S. like cultivated meats that didn’t yet have scale or consumer understanding, were negligent on risk assessments and are now being banned by 26 MAGA-led states. *Facepalm*.

But that is ok, because we still have Prime Roots for the rest of us. Previously featured in The Checkout, Prime Roots makes delicious meat-free deli slices of turkey, roast beef, ham and salami, that look and taste like the real thing but are made from koji mycoproteins, and not ultra processed meat that has been linked to every noncommunicable disease ever or ultraprocessed cattle feed analogues sprinkled with genetically modified special sauce to make plant-based meat taste impossibly meaty. Prime Roots fill the cravings for mystery meats without the mystery, or the meat. Without the Listeria too, no thank you Boar’s Head. Also, founders Kim and Josh are sweethearts and their booth staff was wonderful.

Best French Fry.

Folkland is making organic fried potatoes, grown and processed from farms in Western Pennsylvania, fried in organic olive oil, and not beef tallow, praise the heavens. Literally the best packaged fries I have ever had, and I am a connoisseur of all things processed potato. Considering the top four processed potato makers own 90% of the market, hiked prices 65% in two years and are being sued for price gouging after sharing Circana data with each other to allegedly coordinate price hikes, retailers should all be stocking Folkland fries. And not fried in tallow, tallow is so gross, sorry not sorry RFK. I did try some beef tallow potato chips at another booth that everyone was gushing about and were even mentioned by CNBC, made by Beefy’s Own, manned by two beefy bros enthusiastically talking up their seed oil free chips. They were fine, I guess. I just don’t like the aftertaste of tallow. No thanks, RFK.

Best Beverage.

Once again with the South Asian subcontinent disrupting flavors-as-usual, Bollygood took sparkling lemonades and kicked them up a few notches with cumin, cardamon, ginger and turmeric. The effect was shockingly awesome, kind of like Zohran Mamdani, aka, Kid Cardamon, winning the mayoral primary on a platform of New Deal-style economic justice. Bollygood sparklers also for the win, amazing stuff.

Best Potato Chips.

Keya’s took boring old potato chips (actually, I still love all potato products, even boring ones), and did a similar trick as Bollygood and added potent South Asian flavor combinations and Hindi-inspired design elements for a memorable masala potato chip. And “goddess powered” too. Love it.

Best Lentil Seasonings and Lentils.

Yes, seasonings made with lentils. Podi Life is also making easy to prepare one pot meals, fully plant-based, with just lentils, millet and seasonings. Their graphics were adorable and told a story, and reminded me of an updated, Global South, millenial version of Celestial Seasonings’ Sleepytime graphics. Once again, the South Asian theme winning, and bringing the southern Indian culture of “podi” to the American masses.

Best Overall Snack.

Mamame Tempeh Chips. I couldn’t stop eating these, and I usually have a lot of self-control at trade shows. Chips made with tempeh made from black eyed peas, not soy, no gurgle-gut for soy-averse Grocery Nerd. High protein, 11g per serving, and crunchy and satiating. I would eat these in place of a protein bar after a workout, with some guac and salsa. Brillant product. I even took a bag of the Chili-flavored home.

Next Best Snack, and Best Tsampa.

While Patagonia Provisions did a decent job with bringing the Tibetan staple tsampa to the masses, Amza Superfoods has reclaimed tsampa as its own with these little snack bites made with chocolate, cacao nibs, hazelnuts, dates and purple karma barley. Sweet, savory, toasty and comforting, a unique product getting back to its Tibetan roots.

Best Canned Fish That Wasn’t Fish.

Bixby Chocolates, of the awesome state of Maine, selling chocolate sardines in a sardine can, with roll-top lid. Adorable. And great quality chocolate. Enough to bring a smile to my jaded face.

Best Unexpected Fair Trade Product: Honest Bowl curry pastes.

I was stoked to see curry pastes made with fair trade certified ingredients. Most curry pastes have no such traceability or ethical component to their supply chains. The company was founded by Watcharee Limanon, who also makes authentic Thai curry pastes under the Watcharee’s brand. They are based in Maine, and Maine is also awesome, so big win all around.

Best Medicinal Tea: Pixie Doodle Farm.

This little booth in the Startup CPG area had some really comforting and delicious herbal teas, a nice break from all the richly seasoned, overly sweetened everything else all around it.

Best Olive Oil from Palestine: Huwa

While I will always be a Canaan Fair Trade loyalist, Huwa is a close second when it comes to ethically sourced, organic, indigenously grown olive oil from the West Bank. The company is family owned and farmer operated and the oil was bright and pungent, real fresh. The label designs were also really cool, very hip and Levantine.

Best Mystery As To Why People Like This Product.

Bro, I ate a David bar sample. I survived. It was ok. But I just don’t get it. Maybe I am not fixated enough on my macros, bro. Bro?

Best Brand Name.

A small importer in the Peru section called Megabusiness Corporation. No further comments.

So that’s a wrap for Fancy Food Show 2025, and a huge appreciation to Specialty Food Association for the show, for sponsoring my travel to it and underwriting this newsletter, and for staying cooler than the Javits Center on a sweaty bong juice New York summer day.

peace.

(Views expressed are 100% our own and do not reflect sponsors’.)