What's Hot in Restaurants in 2014? The Same Suspects

Here's the latest (kind of) news from the National Restaurant Association.  What's Hot in 2014.  Hudson Riehle states in the article - "Today's consumers are more interested than ever in what they eat and where their food comes from."  "Local" is not going away.  It's been at the top of the What's Hot list since before we started the MarketReady training back in 2010.  It's worth looking hard at this as a structural shift in food preferences in the U.S. rather than a flaring fad. 

"Local" hits the top of a list of 258 potential food concepts.

Farm/estate branded products is also now in the top 10.  It's been rising steadily each year since I've been tracking this survey. 

We have so many great restuarant, catering, state park, and school options for our producers here in Kentucky.  I applaud the investments made by the KY Ag Development Fund and the KY Department of Ag supporting the Restaurant Rewards program.  This has a huge impact for our local food system development.  Have a skim over the participating restaurants and schools and dining services.  This list has grown to over 250 from the two dozen that started back in 2008.