Trends come and go. But when a trend goes bust, how can you keep your premium food sales up?
One recent trend is bacon, which took off in 2008. Since then, bacon has moved beyond breakfast and into every part of the menu, even drinks and dessert.
But according to the Wall Street Journal, the bacon backlash has begun:
Chef John Currence, owner of four restaurants in Oxford, Miss., adores bacon and proudly wears a pig tattoo on his arm. But even he says that the bacon craze has gone a bit far. Strike that: The man recently received a gift of bacon-flavored lip balm. It’s gone way too far.
“It’s like cussing,” Mr. Currence says of today’s over-use of bacon in restaurants. “It’s easy, it’s effective, it always gets a cocked eyebrow, but it just doesn’t belong in church.” Bacon is a staple of the Southern cuisine he specializes in, but it shouldn’t become a crutch—it’s facile and everything ends up tasting the same, Mr. Currence says – The Wall Street Journal
Food trends can be a food marketing boon, a way to promote new products or gain attention. Just be prepared that if you jump on a particular bandwagon, your audience might get much smaller once the trendinistas move to a new song. It doesn’t mean a core audience won’t still be there—check out this list of 40 years of food trends from the New York Times. After all, people still eat goat cheese, cilantro and kiwi fruit and drink California wines.
To keep going with our musical analogy, it’s like a popular song on the radio. When it’s played too much, people tire of hearing it. But come out with another song (or product) and you can build a loyal audience for your brand, not just a product. And people will eventually remember why they loved the original song in the first place—even if they don’t want to hear it all the time.
Personally, while I might not need a bacon-salt rimmed Bloody Mary, I’m sure going to keep bacon in my repertoire of foods I love.
