Cold pressed garlic sprays, culinary foams and vanilla bean pastes were amongst the 1000 exciting new products to be showcased at this year's IFE exhibition.
The three day international food and drink event (15-18 March), with 1,200 exhibitors from 45 countries, attracted around 24,000 visitors and the rush showed: the isles of the two great halls were bustling and there was enough food and drink to sustain a small army.
The best of the new products were highlighted at the Innovation Live platform, a new feature at the show launched in association with Mintel, where visitors could see, touch and taste winning products from the show's Fresh Ideas Awards, which recognises innovative products.
Winners of the Fresh Ideas Awards included Urban Fresh Fruit's soft bake golden kiwis, the Amazing Food Company's cold pressed garlic spray, RH Amar and Co Cooks & Co French brandy cooking gel and Aconbury Sprouts' Golden snow pea shoots.
Product Junkie took the opportunity to nip around some of the most alluring stands with a camera to catch some of the action. The video (attached below) starts with a shot of a selection of olives, artichokes, stuffed tomatoes and other divine Mediterranean products from the Fresh Olive Company - as far as Product Junkie is concerned, the artichokes deserved an award in their own right.
Imaginative Cuisine's Airspuma Culinary Foam is the next award-winning product on the video, looking rather like it belongs on a hairdresser's table and yet each bottle delivers 40-70 portions of varying-textured sweet and savoury foams including vanilla, mushroom, strawberry and truffle flavours. Each foam holds for five to 10 minutes, or in the case of vanilla, 30 minutes.
You wouldn't normally put bread with ice cream but this is exactly what Irish company Mullin's Ice cream has done with its Irish Brown Bread ice cream and it works. Made to a traditional Irish recipe, Irish wheaten bread is toasted, crumbled, sprinkled with Demerara sugar and swirled into vanilla ice cream. Caterer & Hotelkeeper's products and suppliers editor Diane Lane can be seen sampling the company's Turkish Delight-flavoured ice cream.
And finally, mashed potato does not have to be boring, as From our Farm Mighty Mash demonstrates with its selection of mash with vegetable products. Not that you need Product Junkie to explain its value, the spokesman at the company made a fine job of getting the message across, see the video below.
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