Culinary Inspiration for food & drink industry

Personalised dishes, tapping trees to flavour water and multi-sensory experiences are just some of the innovations being undertaken by the world’s leading chefs and restaurants according to a new Culinary Inspiration magazine launched by Bord Bia recently.

Michelin star chefs and high-end restaurateurs from London and Rio de Janeiro to Cape Town, Tokyo and New York participated in the Bord Bia research which aims to better inform Ireland’s food industry on the latest flavours, ingredients and cooking techniques at the leading edge of the culinary world.

Some of the unusual innovations include the use of dream weavers, psychologists and flavour chemists to personalise diners’ meals, a menu containing emojis that impacts the lighting and music selection in the restaurant, edible candles made from beef dripping and tapping birch trees for water to add freshness to dishes.

The Thinking House, Bord Bia’s Insight Centre, will work with food producers to translate these trends into commercially successful innovations.

“This type of research helps Ireland’s food and drink industry to look forward and acts as a catalyst for new thoughts and ideas, providing inspiration for new product development and commercial growth,” stated David Deeley of Bord Bia’s Insight Team commenting on the study, “In Bord Bia, we use consumer trends to inform our thinking whether that be for new product design, commercial strategy or creating new brands. It’s all about being relevant amongst consumers – to quote US Army General, Eric Shinseki – ‘If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less’.

“We’re exploring culinary trends in cooking style, food preparation, ingredients, flavours, fusion and presentation amongst leading chefs and restaurants around the world to get inspiration for the next big trend,” David added, “For example, pulled pork emerged onto menus in Austin, Texas, in 2008, emerging from the global trend towards smoked and BBQ’d and then went onto grow to global dominance in 2015 where it was on virtually every menu you saw and now today, on most supermarket shelves too.

“If we jump back to the early 00s, you’d see that fine dining was all about Molecular Gastronomy with foams, emulsions and science. Fast forward 10 years and we see organic farming, foraging and less cooking starting to emerge with fine dining now seen as accessible to everyone. The Maitre D’ culture is also regressing in place of more engaging, personalised and social experiences.”

Bord Bia recently presented the findings to some 100 food and drink brands. Through a series of quarterly reports, Bord Bia’s first Culinary Inspiration study identifies four themes at play in the high-end culinary world – all natural, storytelling, adaptive cuisine and beyond taste.

To access the first of the reports themed All Natural, visit www.BordBia.ie/CulinaryInspiration