Influx

Sometimes opportunities come along where you can do the predictable or you can take a radical approach and do something different and breakthrough. Black Squid Design in Australia faced this challenge when they were given a brief to design a package for pre-packed cauliflowers, surely one of the...

It would easy to report that America’s food tastes are leaning towards the organic, healthy, natural and pure, but while this is true, there’s a new desire for “man food” that tastes great, but does you more harm than good and there in lies its appeal A great example is the recently...

UK retailer Marks and Spencer is a strange hybrid; it sells both food, homewares and clothes which means it faces tough competition from a number of different players. Keeping the brand relevant and differentiated is critical and to do this the company recently announced a plan costing close to $1...

Food magazines have traditionally followed a fairly predictable formula and target; lots of well-shot images, recipies and a few feature articles on a destination, all targeted and focused firmly and squarely at the female reader. David Chang is one of America’s most innovative chefs and...

If you're a food manufacturer, a restaurant chain or just an average consumer in the US and especially the developing world, the above graph has to have you worried. Not only does it show the recent rapid increase in the costs of both food and oil, but it shows the closeness of the relationship...

Restaurant experiences can be amazing, but you are often just one of quite a few "covers" being served that night, you have very little connection and feedback from the chef and you are distanced and not interacting with any of the other guests.As people increasingly crave special and unique...

Ikea isn't a grocery store, so the idea of a cook book seems absurd, but when it's called "Homemade is Best", the idea makes a lot of sense. Great brands don't just tell people what they do, they elevate themselves onto a higher plane that transcends the rational world. In this case, Ikea isn't...

Nestle's announcement that it's expanding rapid fire into the new world of Health Sciences is evidence that it there's a massive opportunity for food to get closer to the world of pharma and possibly provide an alternative. Nestle obviously has a head start in this space as it's been part of its...

The people behind High Fructose Corn Syrup are sick of the name and they want to change. Apparently, consumption of the "foodstuff" is at an all time low and the media have been doing a hatchet job on the substance to such a point where it's something that's become a staple of peoples "Do Not Shop"...

It seems that being local and organic is no longer good enough. In the escalating arms race for goodness claims, it now appears farmers have to pick and deliver their produce using bio-diesel vehicles.  Spotted at Rainbow in San Francisco.Posted by Ed Cotton

Having written a post about what brands can learn from San Francisco's Mission Street Food, I decided to track down the founder, Anthony Myint and ask him a few questions.1. Tell us a brief history of how Mission Street Food came into being?The current incarnation of MSF came about in a rather...

Nice work here from Mucca Design for eatery and grocery store, Brooklyn Faire. Mucca uses packaging as an opportunity to provide and attitude and tone for the store and use each piece as an ad in its own right. The overall impact is to give a you a good feel for the place and an understanding of...

The challenging thing about all this sustainability stuff is that it's never done. As soon as you think it is a competitor will come along and find a way to trump you, to do something that's more sustainable than your offering. It's a no-brainer, we buy billions of pre-packaged salads every year...

TCHO is a San Francisco start-up, but it's not in the tech space, instead TCHO is a chocolate company, but one with a difference. It's trying to create a new model for the category and business.Here's what it's doing. 1. It's bringing real science to food2. It's selling beta product to be tested in...

Marketing is a really a game of trying anything you can to create some form of differentiation for your brand. The beauty of it being that this innovation can from anywhere and impact anything. The flavor of the moment is packaging because it can materially impact the product experience. Denny's is...