Frieda's Specialty Produce and Karen Caplan Featured in the Wall Street Journal
LOS ALAMITOS, CA – As consumers and buyers alike try to ride the wave of the latest food fads, and look to those that will stay as lasting trends, Frieda’s Specialty Produce was recently featured in a Wall Street Journal article on the matter. The article, “Forecasting the Next Food Fad: Are ‘Kohlrabi’ and ‘Yacon’ the Next Kale” was published last month, exploring what makes produce trend.
Karen Caplan, President and CEO of Frieda’s, was featured in the piece, alongside top-trending chefs and farmers. The article, published July 27, explored the urgency of fruit and vegetable trends, and the increasing demand for the latest items at restaurants, grocery stores, and home delivery services.
“…Caplan has never seen anything like the current scramble for marquee produce. ‘Information travels at the speed of light’ in the Instagram era, she said. The next big thing gets a lot more exposure, and faces a lot more competition,” said the article, written by author Karen Stabiner.
The article discusses the collaboration and cooperation between farmers and chefs with exclusive new vegetables, on both a small and large scale. This includes hot items like kohlrabi, broccolini, escarole, and tropical root yacon.
For Frieda’s, the article illuminates that the national distributor takes a more strategic approach to trend-building. The company stated in the piece that it requires its products to have “volume and a decent shelf-life.”
“For example, yacon was brought to our attention a few years ago,” added Caplan. “But the volume was limited and shelf-life was just not viable for retail.”
Other items mentioned in the piece include jackfruit and Frieda’s exclusive Stokes Purple® sweet potatoes. Each of these items offers good shelf-life, great volume, and stable supply to be available anywhere and almost year-round.
The full Wall Street Journal article is available here through subscription. To get more of Karen’s take on produce trends, watch her video at Bitten LA.
Congratulations on the feature, Frieda’s!
