Author: Lionsdeal

What’s Hot in Wedding Dessert Trends?

Exciting wedding desserts are trending, replacing the traditional wedding cake.

New in Wedding Dessert Trends

What’s trending in wedding desserts for 2019? If you are planning on catering weddings in the coming year, you have to come to the right place. Our blog last year highlighted the hottest wedding foods for 2018; this guide will give you an updated scoop on what sweet concoctions the experts predict will appear on reception tables everywhere. To cater a memorable event that is guaranteed to make your foodservice memorable, read on for some of the most innovative, wacky, and wonderful wedding dessert ideas your palate has ever imagined.

Wedding Desserts Expected to Be Huge in 2019

What wedding desserts are expected to climb the charts in 2019? Creating a ‘wow’ factor is what it’s all about. From creative confectionary displays in unconventional shapes and sizes to personalized treats in groundbreaking flavors and textures, tomorrow’s wedding desserts are a perfect way to showcase your chef’s culinary talents and to keep your clients wanting more.

While traditional wedding desserts are not entirely out of the picture, new on the horizon are some of the following scrumptious selections, including some rather avant-garde choices:

  • Customized Ice Cream Stations
  • Pie Buffets
  • Mini Pie-Pops
  • Exotic Fruit Trees
  • Donut Towers
  • Piña Colada and Strawberry Daiquiri Donuts
  • Waffle and Cookie Bars
  • Champagne Flutes

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How To Tailor Your Food Truck Service To Cater A Variety of Wedding Styles

Wedding food trucks offer exciting options - way beyond the traditional.

How to Cater a Food Truck Wedding

Food truck wedding catering is all the rage, presenting a lucrative business opportunity for caterers and catering services who know the how’s, what’s, and where’s of the biz and how to sell it. With a growing number of brides and grooms seeking fresh options on their big day that go beyond tradition and that create an unforgettable experience for their guests, food truck wedding catering has become a modern-day phenomenon with no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

Remain Competitive with Your Food Truck

If you have decided to branch into this line of business, you will be competing in what is now a highly sought-after food industry service. To help you stand out from the crowd and gain an edge over the competition, it will be critical to know how to showcase your wedding food truck and what it offers. This guide for foodservice professionals will do just that, providing you with key selling points to present to customers who approach you to plan and host their upcoming nuptials.

Using Food Trucks to Help Tie the Knot

There are multiple reasons why food truck wedding catering is trending strong. Some factors contributing to its popularity include the ability to be mobile, the flexible and customizable menu selection, the relatively cheap price, and the allure of a ‘gourmet meal on wheels.’ Couples wishing to express their individuality or to be creative with their wedding day menus are likewise drawn to this novel alternative to traditional catering.

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How To Adapt Your Menu To Include Plant-Based Foods

How adding plant-based foods to your menu will grow sales as demand increases.

Plant-Based Foods Take the Market by Storm

Plant-based food sales continue to skyrocket as consumers clamor for more nutritious options that protect their health and the health of the environment. With sales of meat declining and the popularity of meat alternatives growing, restaurants big and small, as well as major corporations and leading food brands, are rising to the occasion and adding entire lines of plant-based products to their menus. Read on for practical and tasty ideas on how to satisfy your customers’ cravings and cash in on this lucrative opportunity.

New in Plant-Based Alternatives

While the trend towards vegan, low-calorie, low-fat, non-dairy foods has been around for a while, the plant-based food market has recently picked up steam. On top of being strictly vegetarian, gluten-free, and lactose-free, new additions to this group include protein-friendly alternatives such as grass-fed beef, natural chicken, sustainable salmon, quinoa, non-genetically modified (non-GMO) tofu, and other new products which fall under the categories of meat and dairy alternatives.

Depending on the type of restaurant or food establishment you manage, consider expanding your lunch or dinner offerings with some of the latest plant-based selections appearing in restaurant menus across the industry:

  • Wheat, Rice, and Corn Tortillas
  • Tofu Crepes
  • Black Bean Salad, Chickpea Salad, Corn Salad
  • Sweet Potato Ravioli
  • Cornmeal-Coated Oyster Mushrooms
  • Gluten-Free Zucchini Shepherd’s Pie
  • Chips, Dips, Salsas, and Guacamoles

As for pizza lovers, you can tantalize their taste buds and attract their business with palate-pleasing gluten-free pizza topped with meat-free pepperoni. In doing so, your restaurant will in fact be following in the footsteps of some of the biggest names in the biz who now offer vegan pizza alternatives. These include Dominos, Papa John, Pizza Hut, and more.

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The Growing Popularity of Oat Milk

The growing popularity of oat milk will benefit your business

Oat milk, a plant-based alternative to traditional cow’s milk, is one of the hottest trends in the food industry! If you’re looking for a new beverage to add to your menu, look no further. A popular vegan and dairy free choice gaining widespread consumer popularity, savvy foodservice professionals are jumping on the oat milk fast track and customers are lapping it up.

Maximizing the Potential of Oat Milk

Whether you manage a restaurant, catering service, bakery, café, fast-food chain, take-out service, or food truck, this ‘Oat Milk Guide for Professionals’ will help you learn all about this rising star in the dairy alternatives food market and how you can maximize its potential to grow your business.

If you’ve been following latest trends in the biz, you know that demand for ‘non-dairy’ and ‘dairy free’ foods and beverages has never been higher. What began as a way to cater to lactose intolerant customers, has become a full-blown foodservice phenomenon as a growing public sector is clamoring for healthier menu choices, including plant-based foods and dairy alternatives. Since their debut, the variety of non-dairy products has skyrocketed, with chefs and food manufacturers creating groundbreaking recipes for dairy free ice creams, whipped creams, cream cheeses, cheese cakes, yogurts, pizzas, and more.

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Trending Desserts with a Healthier Twist

The latest desserts are innovative, eye-catching, and healthier than ever before.

What’s New in Desserts

Looking for the latest desserts to die for? Then you’ve come to the right place! This “New in Desserts” guide for bakers, chefs, patisserie owners, and anyone working in the food industry will tickle your taste buds, make your mouth water, and fill your customers’ palate with delectable delights. The latest trends in dessert menus are innovative, creative, outrageous, and simply divine…

The Latest Desserts Reflect Food Industry Trends

So, what makes this year’s sweets and confectionaries such a standout? If you’re been following up-and-coming food industry trends, you already know that demand for healthy, more nutritious foods is on the rise, as is consumer craving for savory and exotic tastes, wholesome non-run-of-the-mill grains, nostalgic comfort foods, and tropical flavors. This year’s hottest desserts reflect these trends, as evidenced in recipes with a ‘better-for-you’ spin and in unprecedented concoctions such as hummus shakes, grain-free granola, Mexican hot-chocolate sauces, passion-fruit whipped creams, gluten-free sandwich cookies (aka alfajores), chocolate-chip avocado doughnuts, and more.

Healthier Sweets

Also new on the menu of nutritious desserts are baked goods featuring less artificial ingredients, more whole grains or no grains at all, low-fat and no-fat alternatives, diabetic recipes, and heart-healthy options which allow customers to have their cake and eat it too!

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How To Increase Your Healthy Food Profile with Honey

The nutritional benefits of substituting honey for sugar in your recipes.

Honey: The Complete Guide for Food Professionals

If you’re looking for the comprehensive buzz on nature’s sweetest nectar, you’ve come to the right place! This complete guide to honey for food professionals will give you info on where honey comes from, varieties of honey, honey’s nutritional value, health benefits of honey, honey hazards, cooking and baking with honey, the difference between raw and store-bought honey, organic honey certification standards, and more. Finally, to top off this delectable menu, you will enjoy a rich helping of little-known facts about this golden syrupy nugget!

All-Natural Honey – in High Demand

In an age where interest in all-natural ingredients, natural lifestyles, avoidance of harmful chemicals, and nutritious foods and beverages is on the rise, it’s no great surprise that restaurant owners, caterers, bakers, and other foodservice professionals are taking note of the virtues of honey –and including its plethora of flavors and colors in their menu offerings. If your restaurant or catering company follows current market trends, then adding honey to your recipes is a natural outgrowth of going “green,” catering to consumer demand, and protecting the environment. It’s also a savvy way to boost your business!

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How to Add Specialized Teas To Your Beverage Menu

Get on board with the hottest trends in the food industry with specialized teas and increase your business and profits.

Specialized Teas: A Rising Trend

If you work in the food industry and you don’t want to miss out on of one the hottest trends in the food-and-beverage market, it’s time to learn the latest about tea. According to reports from World Tea News and market research firm Technomic, the beverage landscape has changed, with tea emerging as the most widely consumed beverage globally next to water.

History of Tea

Did you know that tea is said to have been discovered by Chinese Emperor Shen-Nung in 2737 BC, rendering it almost 5,000 years old? According to this legend, the first tea brew was created when tea leaves by chance flew into the Emperor’s pot of boiling water. A botanical explorer, he subsequently used his new discovery to cure himself from poison 85 times.

During the 1600’s, tea’s popularity reached Europe and the American colonies, while the famous 1773 Boston Tea Party, when American colonists threw 300 chests of tea into the Boston Harbor to protest the British government’s taxation of tea, further put the beverage on the map. And if you ever wondered when afternoon ‘tea time’ or ‘high tea’ began, look no further than 1840 and Anna the Duchess of Bedford, who began drinking tea at 4 p.m. with a light snack to prevent a “sinking feeling.”

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Develop a Shrewd Marketing Strategy to Highlight Your Catering Company

Learn about Five Key Ways to Market Your Catering Business

Five Key Ways to Market Your Catering Business

Let’s start with an understatement – catering is a competitive business. In reality, it’s among the most competitive industries that one can enter. Starting a catering business means going head to head with dozens of other caterers in your area (and many who are farther afield), all of whom are trying to get a slice of the catering pie. As we’ve said before, in order to stand out from the crowd, you have to put in hours of effort not only to make your food and service rise to the top of the crowded field, but to market your business so that your name and reputation will precede you. Here, then, are some ideas that can help you sell your business in the best and most effective way possible.

1. Get Up Close and Personal

A good cater needs to be a people person, and making a personal connection is a vital way to keep your name active and well known. Networking in a hands-on way – and not only through the virtual relationships of social media – is of vital importance. The trick is to stay in touch with everyone who can help you and your business – wedding planners, managers of local country clubs, bridal-shop owners, etc. Putting yourself “out there” is an essential component of your marketing strategy in a business where shyness and reticence is a serious hindrance to success.

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Use the Latest Sweeteners to Appeal to the Health-Conscious Client

Using New-Age Sweeteners Can Attract Clientele to Your Business

The New Age of Sweeteners

It’s a well-known fact that refined white sugar is bad for us; too much sugar can lead to diabetes, obesity, and a host of other ailments. Nonetheless, when our sweet tooth screams for attention, nothing but a little sugar will do. In the past, a craving for sugar could be satisfied to a degree with honey, maple syrup, or the sweetness of dates; today, however, consumers are demanding more, and food manufacturers are continuing to explore the sweet possibilities of new-fangled sugar substitutes. As the reputation of plain, white, refined cane sugar continues to take a beating, you will find that many of your clients are asking difficult questions about how you plan to incorporate sweetness in your menu without an abundance of white sugar. Read on to learn more about new-wave sugars and how they can work for you.

Why Do We Crave Sugar?

Sugar cravings are hard to resist; when the urge comes upon us for something sweet, nothing else will do. The question, however, is why do so many of us have so little resistance to sugar.

Here are a few possible reasons.

When we don’t eat enough calories – if we’re dieting drastically or just not eating properly – our bodies start looking for fuel as a fast way to catch up, and the instinctive search tends to lead to sugar, one of the quickest energy sources around. Our bodies are so stubborn that even when we try to fool ourselves by ingesting artificial sugars, we go right back to looking for the real thing. Only substantial and real food – the actual providers of energy – can break the cycle, and a craving for sugar will often subside when we eat healthy calories.

Sugar intake can also simply be a bad habit; in other words, what seems like a craving may just be a reaction to a habit that’s both automatic and seemingly impossible to break. Break the sweet-treat habit and the craving may diminish as well. Sugar can also serve as an antidote to too much salty food. Unfortunately most processed and restaurant foods these days are heavily salted, and the saltier our food, the bigger our sweet craving. This is especially true when salt is added artificially to foods and not found naturally, like in olives or cheeses. The salt-sugar progression is a hard one to resist, which is why we tend to reach for a luscious dessert right after we finish a great, big portion of fries.

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Promote Smoked Foods on Your Menu to Increase Business

Smoked Food is the Biggest Trend in Catering

Catering Trends: Smoked Food

When it comes to catering and keeping up with the latest trends, there’s no rest for the weary. Just when you thought you had a handle on the latest trend – be it craft butter or Greek cuisine – along comes the next big thing and the cards are in the air. Now it’s time to prepare for the era of smoked food of all kinds. It’s hard to ignore the appeal of smoke-flavored foods; from the distinct taste to the pleasant and distinctive aroma, smoked foods are definitely rising in popularity.

Smoke is Not Just for Meat

We spent some time in a recent blog discussing how you can incorporate barbecue into your catering menu, in particular Korean barbecue. But smoke is not just for brisket or other cuts of meat and, in fact, nearly any food or dish can be smoked. The Smoke restaurant in Dallas, Texas, serves a cedar-wood infused tequila cocktail and they are not alone – smoky cocktails are all the rage. All you need in order to cook up original and delicious smoked foods are some wood chips (such as hickory, maple, cherry, mesquite, etc.), a grill or smoker, a variety of herbs and seasonings, and your own instinct, imagination, and creativity and voila, a smoked food is born.

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