New Culinary Trend Report Highlights Booming Specialty Cafés Market

New York, May 2007 — Led by the example of casual, healthy smoothie bars that turned into a $1.6 billion café industry and created a significant refrigerated juice beverage category, specialty cafés are increasingly becoming the place to spot emerging food and beverage trends that could turn the next big product or menu item, according to new market research in Specialty Cafés: Culinary Trend Mapping Report.

A collaborative effort of market research firm Packaged Facts, and San Francisco’s Center for Culinary Development (CCD), the latest issue of the bimonthly Culinary Trend Mapping Report chronicles the growing development of niche cafés, like coffee roasteries and dessert cafés, offering unique food items, specialty beverages and enhanced consumer experiences that could one day impact the entire food and beverage industry, just as Starbucks has.

Profiles of trend setting cafés include cereal bars, with their all-day breakfasts, and chocolate cafés, offering chocolate in a multitude of forms in chic environments. Bright and cheerful bubble tea shops, exotic tea lounges and quick noodle bars, all reflecting Asian cuisine trends, join emerging churro shops and mainstream smoothie bars on CCD’s proprietary trend map, providing businesses with an insider’s view of today’s hottest—and emerging—food and beverage trends.

“While charting nine café trends, we’ve tapped into not only the food products but the unique settings of the cafés themselves which tell us a lot about today’s consumers and their desires,” notes Kimberly Egan, Principal/Client Services Director at CCD. “For chefs, restauranteurs and food developers, these findings offer a wealth of new product opportunities that could revitalize their businesses.”

Culinary Trend Mapping Report: A Bimonthly Journal of Food and Ingredient Insight is available both by individual bimonthly issue and annual subscription from Packaged Facts by visiting: http://www.packagedfacts.com/Specialty-Cafes-Culinary-1282396. It is also available at MarketResearch.com.

About Packaged Facts
Packaged Facts, a division of MarketResearch.com, publishes research reports on consumer industries including consumer goods, foods and beverages, and demographics. For more information visit www.PackagedFacts.com, or contact Tom Ehart at 240-747-3014, or tehart@marketresearch.com.

About the Center for Culinary Development
The Center for Culinary Development is a food and beverage development company that blends culinary creativity with strategic marketing expertise to help clients create food product solutions that satisfy consumer expectations. For more information, visit www.ccdsf.com, or contact Kimberly Egan at 415-693-8900, or kegan@ccdsf.com