FNCE® 2020 Food Trends

Every year thousands of RDNs gather for the Food & Nutrition Conference & Exhibition (FNCE®), the largest annual meeting of food and nutrition professions.  The FNCE® exhibit hall is a great spot to see what’s trending in the world of healthy food.  Here are a few trends from this year’s virtual exhibit hall that we spotted.

Virtual!

Probably not surprising, virtual events and activities were a huge part of the exhibit all.  Virtual chats, collaborations, demo, webinars and our very own Teaching Kitchen are a few events that went on over 4 days.  A couple of popular booths included The California Strawberry Council® with their Strawberry Snackdown on Instagram Live. This was a two round Snackdown featuring snacks made from strawberries.  They also hosted a virtual Strawberry Farm Tour.  Check out @castrawberries for the snackdown and information on their farmers.

Our very own Compass Group team Deanne Brandstetter and Chef Mike Panfil hosted an exciting and informative Teaching Kitchen featuring sorghum and sustainable salmon. Check out the video here along with the recipe so you can make at home.

Immune Health

Optimizing the immune system was another popular theme.  Danone Super Danimals® launched Super Danimals, a low-fat yogurt option to support the immune system.  Nature Made has a new ImmuneMax powder that mixes with water. The Mushroom Council presented information on the immune supporting nutrients that mushrooms offer.

Sugar and beyond

Sugar, sugar replacements and sugar reduction continue to be a hot topic so it wasn’t surprising to see a number of new products showcased.  Cargill® featured their sugar reduction initiative with EverSweet™ stevia sweetener.  EverSweet™ delivers up to 100% sugar replacement with the same sweetness found in the stevia leaf, but made by fermentation.

Sunsweet® highlighted 2 new products- Ones™ Berry Essence Prunes & Ones™ Cocoa Dusted Prunes.  Both products have no added sugar.  They also featured PlumSmart® Light prune juice with 7g of sugar per serving which is 60% less than regular PlumSmart prune juice.

Quest® featured their Peanut Butter Cups with less than 1g of sugar to satisfy your sweet tooth.

If you have seen interesting food trends popping up in your virtual travels, share them with us in the comments.

Related:
Diabetes: More Than Just Sugar // Ask our Chefs & RDs // FNCE® 2019 Food Trends