At this time of the year, I look forward to hosting a holiday party. A fresh evergreen wreath at the door, the tree decorated with hundreds of ornaments, mouthwatering aromas emanating from the kitchen, a blazing fire in the fireplace, friends coming in from the cold…our annual party is the highlight of the season for my family.

According to an American Demographics survey, I can expect that guests will spend 2 hours and 36 minutes at my party, as they will at each of the 2.7 parties they attend during the holiday season. I like guests to linger, so I should hope for more Hispanic friends since the survey says they will outlast the average non-Hispanic by 36 minutes. Or more friends from the Northeast who will stay even longer — four hours or more. The ones to avoid are Southerners, evidently; eight percent won’t even stick around for 60 minutes. [more…]

People are usually surprised to find that I wasn’t born with a wooden spoon in my hand. That I was not interested in cooking — no I actually detested cooking — until I became food editor of Co-Ed, a now-defunct teenage magazine for students in home economics, published by Scholastic in New York City.

It just goes to show, anybody can become a foodie. [more…]

Busy, busy, busy. Last week was so jam-packed with work that there was no time to blog. Most of the work I was doing involved food influencers.

Who are food influencers? They are the cookbook authors, freelance food writers, chefs, cooking teachers and others who shape America’s appetites about food. Getting to know these influencers — what they think and more importantly, how they think — is key to being successful in my field. [more…]

Any marketer of a food ingredient product who isn’t thinking about recipes is ignoring a critical marketing tool. Every product you purchase of any complexity — your iPod, pda and cell phone — comes with an instruction manual. So why shouldn’t your carrots, your cooking oil and your can of tomatoes come with one, too?

Like technology, some food uses are intuitive, so you can get started easily enough. We can all peel a carrot and crunch it raw. But then what? Just as I want to learn to download podcasts, not just listen to music; or get e-mails wirelessly, not just have a pocket electronic calendar; I will enjoy my carrot more if I can cook it in other ways. We are so familiar with food that we forget that we need to promote usage with smart thinking. [more…]

Everybody eats. But not everyone is a food marketing expert. Not by a long shot.

To recognize food trends, for example, experience and knowledge count. It’s hard to get a fix on what’s really happening in the food world if you’ve just stepped into it. Every aberrant behavioral blip screams “mega trend.” But most turn out to be short-term fads. It takes context and insight to separate the one from the other. [more…]