Trends, Foresights, & Insights for the food + related industries 503-880-4682 info@culinarytides.com

Culinary Tides, Inc. Think Tank

Culinary Tides, Inc. acts as a side-along Think Tank to industry partners to help accelerate marketing and product innovation by getting new products to market faster and more successfully. We offer a multi-tiered approach to fit your budget and requirements.

We’re a creative, collaborative and innovative team that thrives on brainstorming with clients about their challenges and inventing the best way to get them the answers and insights they need. We work within all food industry segments including food service, retail, packaging, and ingredient suppliers.

We work with clients on a continuous basis throughout the year to aid with entrance, navigation, and exit strategies to trends. We effectively break down silos as we work cross-functionally with a client’s own divisions including their:

  • Strategy Teams
  • Sales & Marketing
  • Research & Development
  • Consumer Insights

Services

Engage a yearly contract to support offensive strategy decisions.  Services include:

  • Baseline Report: Created at the beginning of a Client relationship to establish playing field.
  • Monthly Reports: Information captured is quantitative and specific to Client’s needs.
  • Quarterly Reports: Include a 6-month & 2-year forecast for each of the report sections.
  • Micro-Reports: Focused trend specific reports created from Client’s report history.
  • Boardwalk Talks: Short, informal conversations on any trend topic available as needed through the year – when just a quick update or top line information is needed to focus business strategy.

*For those not engaged in a yearly contract we offer:
Shifting Sands Reports: Ad hoc research provides companies with focused, comprehensive, and tailored research specific to areas of interest. Research can cover single or multiple overlapping topics to build a three-dimensional picture to aid strategy decisions.

Partnering Options

Flexible partnering options allow your company to choose any combination of areas below.  All areas are tracked globally and a sampling of commonly covered topics follows:

  • Government: marketing, labeling, health claims, food safety, sustainability
  • Technology: salt, sweetener, GMO, protein, vegetable, dairy, food safety, packaging, e-commerce
  • Competitors: sales & acquisitions, strategy, new products, expansions, promotions, alliances
  • Adversary & Ally: groups peripheral to food industry powerful enough to alter trend’s path, lifecycle
  • Research: clinical health, behavioral, consumer, food, beverage, food safety, retail, food service
  • Flavor & Cuisine trends: travel, food, beverage, cuisine

Methodology

Trends forecasting is a critical element for strategic planning and focuses on the birth, lifecycle, and death of trends.  It allows for successful entrance, navigation, and exit strategies and safeguards corporate stability.  Culinary Tides, Inc. tracks the movement of 8 neighboring industries to forecast upcoming influencers on food industry trends. Influencers may include clinical health, consumer research, technology, economic, environmental, and political factors.

Predictive Modeling – Data and Analytics

Culinary Tides, Inc. practices Chaos Forecasting and uses Military Intelligence analytics.

Characteristics of Chaos Forecasting:

  • Research is based on quantitative data
  • Similar to a Meta-Analysis – number of sources in a report = 100+
    • Created by cross-analyzing government, technology, competitor, adversary & ally, clinical health, consumer, industry, food, and beverage research
  • Focus can encompass single or multiple overlapping topics
  • Forecast is 3-dimensional – considers future influencers
  • Can be used for present or future strategy decisions: forecast holds even if influencers shift

*A Note On Tracking Bloggers – Bloggers neither create nor birth trends … they covet trends.  Bloggers see what is around them, capitalize on it, and repeat via social media what they have seen/experienced.  Blogger posts can mistakenly be credited with birthing a trend.

Tracking bloggers is useful for evidentiary proof of trend trajectory and penetration after birth. Therefore, the information is used for trend tracking, not forecasting.

Schedule a Capabilities Webinar

Each month we host a capabilities webinar to demonstrate how Culinary Tides, Inc. can benefit your Company.

Sign up for our monthly newsletter