Take a Byte

A local company (with its fresh website) serves up recipes and trends for foodies around the globe.

Photo Edward Biamonte

A three-story fork marks the spot for the latest in the food realm, but the atmosphere inside the kitchens at The Food Channel is anything but whimsical. Chefs, culinary artists and trend spotters are hard at work digesting lofty culinary concept for the home cook. Foodchannel.com, a Noble & Associates venture, is a one-stop shop for fresh insights, clever cooking techniques and answers the question, “What’s for dinner?”

“We have had this huge shift with people going to restaurants and fast food establishments as our people have aged, but the economy has put a halt to spending,” says David Nehmer, senior vice president and creative director. “There’s a resurgence of turning the kitchen back on, and we are here at the perfect time to help educate, inform and inspire people to enjoy food.”

Fresh food and tantalizing aromas lure visitors to The Food Channel’s professional kitchen, which is a showcase of the latest cooking appliances and acres of stainless steel counter space. Collaboration is the name of the game, as chefs, spiffed up in traditional white garb, gather around a rustic wood table to try the latest snack-food samples and talk strategy. The chefs share opinions and make priorities. They can break complex flavors to five tastes: bitter, salty, sour, sweet and umami. Yet smell often reigns supreme. “If we want to make everybody happy, we just fry bacon,” laughs Kay Logsdon, executive director.

Noble has owned The Food Channel name since 1988 when it started a newsletter for manufacturers and suppliers. In good public relations practice, and with clever foresight, the company purchased the domain name. About four years ago, the executives began posting blog questions on the site and soon realized it was garnering traffic. “That woke everybody up that it was a good name,” Logsdon says.

The site features recipes, articles and videos on food news and trends, and blogs by The Food Channel chefs. The chefs make a point of teaching people how to get value out of their foods and cook smarter. In April, the team launched a community area where food bloggers and other foodies can upload their own recipes and videos to share with the online food community. In the near future, Foodchannel.com will also offer a professional area where chefs can discuss new concepts.

Chef Cari Price is working on a story about salt. “Salt is a trend that has really become mainstream, but people don’t know how to use it, and we’ll show them how,” she says. She arranges a dozen different types in white bowls on the counter next to the packaging and makes notes about the colors, textures and flavors.

Discovering food trends and new ingredients takes a lot of work and travel. “We are always looking for food news,” says Judy Sipe, senior vice-president and chief culinary officer.

The chefs read every food magazine on the shelves and travel to national and international food shows. “You have to know where the trends start and how they trickle down,” Logsdon says. “Also, you have to know what that trend means to Mom versus a trendy restaurant.”

The Food Channel stylists go to great lengths to present food in all of its warm, melty, oozy goodness. “The way we shoot food here, it’s not over-styled or over-processed,” says Nehmer. “These are meals you can actually do and you want to sit down and eat.”

Foodchannel.com uses Twitter, Digg and Yahoo! Blast to its advantage. In one month, the site saw a million visitors. “I always think about how the food will look on my iPhone,” Nehmer says. “We like drippy, messy, good. Food that’s craveable. If you want to lick the screen of your laptop, then that’s a good shot.”

In addition to its online work, Noble has clients across the nation who rely on the chefs’ expertise to help them do business. Food manufacturers who supply major food service companies like Pizza Hut or national brands like Quaker ask The Food Channel chefs to
develop fresh menu ideas and food concepts.

“We brainstorm a menu and develop it on paper, and then we go in the kitchen and bring it to life,” explains Executive Chef Gail Cunningham. Like food news, projects at The Food Channel kitchens materialize quickly, and the team has to develop and present them in a flash.

Often, though, the menus they create appear two to three years after the original concept development. “In that case, we are a very behind-the-scenes kitchen because that business is so proprietary, so we are trained to forget about them,” Sipe adds.

Catch a Culturewave!

Wouldn’t it be great if someone could anticipate what you want before you knew you wanted it?  Andy Ford, chief insights officer and wavemaster for Culturewaves, has made it his mission to find out what consumers want. And
he does it without a crystal ball, psychic abilities or a time travel machine.

Ford leads a team of more than 600 “information farmers” from around the world who collect observations about people and their passions. They scour media and company Web sites, blogs and online social networking sites to find out what people are talking about. These farmers then input their findings into a proprietary software system, called NeeMee, and companies use the data to develop new products and services, launch innovative advertising and marketing strategies, or find a new customer niches.

 “Our customers want us to tell them something they don’t know; something they don’t have the time to investigate themselves,” Ford explains. It all sounds very space age, but Doritos, Taco Bell and Auntie Anne’s are just a few of the brands that have capitalized from Culturewaves’ observations. “We’ll work with major pizza companies, and they can’t afford to make a $15 million mistake in advertising,” Ford says.

Culturewaves was started by Noble Communications five years ago to give its clients a broader perspective on life. “The marketplace today concentrates on surveys, numbers and focus groups, but companies are not taking into account that people are not living in a focus group world,” says CEO Bob Noble.  

Studying people’s actions and passions has become a bit of an obsession for the Culturewaves team. Ford spends most of his time jetting across the country, sporting jeans, trainers and his favorite gadgets (iPhone, MacBook Air, and an audio-recording pen), checking out what trend-setting consumers are up to. On a recent trip to Mexico, he met with a diverse group of clients, including bank presidents, retailers and candy company owners. “You can’t walk up to a consumer and ask them what they want,” he explains. “You have to get into their space and figure it out.”

Noble Communications sells access to its NeeMee software to its customers, but it’s the ad team’s innovative insights that can help companies come up
with the next big thing. Noble and Ford are constantly brainstorming and presenting ideas to their clients, helping them translate consumers’ actions
into marketplace trends.

One of those trends is people’s shift to a 24-hour day. Have you noticed the increase of late-night fast food drive-thrus, 24-hour shopping and on-demand entertainment? People no longer eat and sleep on strict schedules.  Ford calls this movement ‘Clockless,’ which means, “I want what I want when I want it.”

Another trend, called “DVR Lifestyle,” says that age has nothing to do with how people act or feel. Kids want to grow up faster—as noted by toy
maker Mattel, which coined the acronym KAGOY (“kids are growing older younger”). Television is teaming with shows about young musicians, pint-size business moguls and child stars. On the flip side, baby boomers want to be younger. Neemee farmers have noted elderly men walking the fashion catwalks in Paris, more boomers going to nightclubs and bars, and “cougar parties” helping 40-somethings pick up men half their age.

What these trends mean for future product introductions, only time will tell.

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