CALIFORNIAN DREAM

I am writing this just at the end of my trip to the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco.  Off to the airport in an hour. My reflections at this point are as much about the lifestyle here as the Fancy Food Show and staying with my brother (who lives here) allowed me to get inside the culture a bit more than merely staying in a hotel.  Incidentally I had a rather bizarre last evening at a quirky comedy gig in Mill Valley, with various stand-up comedians performing  - I had to get some of the jokes translated and Robin Williams was in the tiny audience.  Apparently he sometimes wanders up onto stage and performs ‘off the cuff’.

As with any society it is very polarised between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ and my impression is that the ‘haves’ have a lot more here than they do in the UK.  That said there is a veritable glut of independent food shops here selling high quality products at much higher prices than the UK.  It seems that people here, being far more health conscious, are spending more of their money on what goes into their mouths. To give an example of say a standard jar of pickle or jam.  It was not too difficult to find several retailing at $7-8 which is at or around the £5 mark.  Even the best products in the UK would be retailed around £1 lower.  Having said that, if anything, it is less expensive to eat out than in the UK, so the difference between cooking good food at home and eating out at a restaurant is much less - that’s why they do it more than we do!

Onto the show.  As well as picking up some interesting new lines that may well feature in future Cotswold Fayre ranges, this show is as much picking up trends and developments which tend to filter into our market in the future.  I am not going to give away too much on that front to our competitors, but I remember coming 3 years ago and seeing countless companies producing gourmet savoury popcorn, when there was no-one in the UK making such products.  There are now several here and more in the pipeline.

Speciality producers here have two factors in their favour.  1) The market is less dominated by the national supermarkets (even Wholefoods is organised regionally to some extent) and 2) the population is so vast companies can grow to a really significant size before they even need to think about export.  Don’t get me wrong there are still loads of tiny producers here and always will be, but for those with more ambitious plans, it is possible slightly easier.  That said, seeing the market here makes me even more determined to see the speciality food sector continue to grow in the UK.  Hopefully you can join with me in furthering that dream!

Talk to you next week.