There are folks who love the football, and then there are folks who love the food.
The Super Bowl has become as much about the appetizers on the table as the game on the field. And like so much else these days, this year’s showdown between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will look a little different as a result of COVID-19. The pandemic is impacting how people plan to watch the game – and what they’ll eat.
More than 186 million people say they’ll watch the big game this year, but fewer people than ever will do so at a party or public place.
Only 28 percent of people will host or attend a Super Bowl party or watch the game at a bar or restaurant, according to a survey from the National Retail Federation. That’s the lowest percentage in the survey’s history. Still, watchers plan to spend about $75 on preparing for the game, and a vast majority of that will go toward food and drinks.
Despite the shift to smaller gatherings, many of the most iconic Super Bowl snacks will still be on the menu. Yet all those pizza slices, wings, dips and more are more likely to be consumed – and prepared – at home this year. That means flavor powders and concentrates are poised to play an even bigger role in delivering the flavors consumers love to dip, smother, crunch and munch on game day.
People eat a lot of wings on Super Bowl Sunday – more than 100 million pounds worth. Wings are one of those classic bar foods lots of folks will undoubtedly try to recreate at home. Whether they realize it or not – they’ll be relying on flavor powders to help them do it.
In fact, flavor powders are often used as shelf-stable ingredients in many of the flavors that make up that traditional buffalo experience. It starts with the buttery hot sauce. Butter powders can add a rich texture and flavor to liquid sauces, or the butter powder can be incorporated into buffalo sauce powder, which can be used as a dry rub or added to other foods like popcorn. When it comes to counteracting some of that heat, blue cheese and sour cream powders deliver that cool, tangy taste.
Nachos can be surprisingly personal – people have strong opinions about what belongs on top of their chips. However, most agree that cheese is essential. Cheese powders and concentrates are integral to the taste and texture of many cheese sauces. While cheddar remains the dominant variety, new cheese flavor trends include a broader range of flavors, like Monterey Jack, American, and even Gouda as popular ingredients in many cheese sauces available in the snack aisle.
Sour cream powder is a key ingredient in blue cheese dressing, and it has its place on top of nachos, but that’s just scratching the surface of the applications in countless other dips and dressings. Store-bought versions of French onion dip, Rotel dip, spinach dip and more rely on sour cream powder and cream cheese powder as foundational ingredients. Food manufacturers continue to innovate new flavors and textures for what’s getting dipped, too. Cheese powders, sour cream powders and others are creating exciting new chip and cracker flavors.
Super Bowl snacks are undoubtedly seeing the same plant-based shift affecting many corners of the food manufacturing world. Flavor powders are helping organizations navigate this pivot, offering clean-label, shelf-stable ingredients that consumers feel good about. From buffalo cauliflower bites to nondairy nacho cheese, vegan sour cream dips and more, flavor powders are closing the gap between traditional snacks and plant-based diets.
Bluegrass is committed to collaborating with food manufacturers to stay ahead of trends impacting what consumers will eat as they watch Super Bowl LV on February 7 and into the future. Our Agile Ingredient Innovation model is rooted in staying one step ahead of what consumers want, then creating flavor powders that give manufacturers the tastes and textures they need to satisfy those cravings with new and enhanced products. From matching the exact taste and texture of an existing product to innovating a brand new application, Bluegrass has spent the last quarter century inventing and improving the future of food.
