Since Monday, I’ve been at FMI 2010, the Food Marketing Institute Show in Las Vegas. As with every industry, the economy has impacted grocery shopping, but unlike most other retail segments, we can’t stop eating. We’re just spending less.

In seminars, speakers focused on private label, defined value (not just by price) and demonstrated the importance of making an emotional connection with the consumer. Retailers and manufacturers are recognizing the need to deliver information using technology to reach target audiences with information they want, when they want it and in the way the want it. This includes mobile platforms to deliver recipes, online couponing, and presence on Twitter and Facebook. [more…]

Recently, I went to a fabulous trends conference. I had always meant to join the Association of Consumer Trends and attend the annual Consumer Trends Forum. But I belong to so many organizations and attend so many conferences that it was just one too many.

This year, the conference was held in San Francisco so there was no excuse. No hotel, no airfare, just a quick trip to the Kabuki Hotel. I was glad I made the commitment. From the upbeat, high-energy keynote speech, Unlocking Cool and Exploiting Chaos, by Jeremy Gutche of TrendHunter.com; to the thoughtful talk from Slow Food USA’s president Josh Viertel; to the data-rich presentation by Lee Boyland of DYG Inc.; and the insightful look at Gen Y by Kara Nielsen, trendologist for the Center of Culinary Development; there was a lot to mull over and process following the two-day event. [more…]

Recently, I attended the International Association of Culinary Professionals’ conference in Denver. Attendance this year numbered 700, just half the usual expected for this major conference. The economy is taking its toll.

I was especially interested in a session called The Changing Food Section. With competition from blogs and Web sites, some newspaper food editors are going multi-media — producing their own videos, writing blogs and tweeting as a means of branding themselves. Imprinting a personality onto the community in multiple ways helps to make an editor a bit more indispensible to the newspaper. Imagine the uproar if the food editor who visibly and actively supports all community activities — even participating in a pancake eating contest (Flip videoed and linked to the newspaper’s Web site, of course) — is dismissed. Today’s food editors are covering the news and making themselves part of the story, 24/7. Good strategy for holding on to your job. [more…]

I just returned from Honolulu Tuesday night, after a week away for the Les Dames d’Escoffier annual conference and a few days of vacation. Les Dames is an organization of women leaders in the food, beverage and hospitality industries and membership is by invitation. The Hawaii chapter staged a brilliant conference that included a luau at the Bishop Museum and a trip to Kualoa Ranch, where we toured the gardens, learned all about poi, and boated in the ancient native Hawaiian fish ponds. This is land familiar to fans of Jurassic Park, LOST and other productions.

During any downtime, I was busy getting my fix of local foods — saimin, shave ice, plate lunch, malasadas, laulau and a Hawaiian breakfast — Portuguese sausage, eggs and rice drizzled with soy sauce. I also needed to fit in breakfast on the veranda of the historic Moana Hotel, tropical drinks with paper umbrellas, dinner at Alan Wong and 3660 on the Rise, and time for family and Honolulu friends.

But this isn’t a story about my trip. It’s really about a thoughtful presentation by the conference’s keynote speaker, Rachel Laudan, a culinary historian and author of The Food of Paradise, a book that had been recommended to me 12 years ago by Zanne Stewart, who was then executive food editor of Gourmet magazine. Laudan’s speech aligned perfectly with my craving for the local foods of my Hawaiian culinary heritage. [more…]

The San Francisco Bay Area is fortunate to have a diverse group of very talented chefs specializing in Asian and Pan-Asian cuisines. But getting recognition for their talents isn’t always so easy. Like food products and everything else, there’s active competition for media attention and it’s tough to stand out from the crowd.

It’s all the harder for those who grew up in an Asian culture where calling attention to yourself and promoting your achievements are considered inappropriate. So, as an Asian person in public relations, I recommended and volunteered to orchestrate a media session for the Asian Chefs Association. [more…]

People are usually surprised to find that I wasn’t born with a wooden spoon in my hand. That I was not interested in cooking — no I actually detested cooking — until I became food editor of Co-Ed, a now-defunct teenage magazine for students in home economics, published by Scholastic in New York City.

It just goes to show, anybody can become a foodie. [more…]