Ethnic food or recipe from my grandmother?
This report is segmented based on offline food chains and online food chains. The outbreak of COVID-19 had a dual impact on these segments. That includes the offline food chains that are restaurants, coffee shops and bars that are entirely shut down in some regions, whereas take-away shops and online food deliveries are available. Also, packaged food and beverage industries are witnessing an upsurge in demand, such as shelf-stable foods and beverages, including milk products, as consumers rush to stock their pantries. Read more about the impact and outlook downloading the report which includes the following country focus:
Every country has its own culinary specialties, inherited from a long tradition and an often-unique know-how. Many of these specialties are often inseparable from their native region, whose name they often bear (Champagne, Parmesan, etc.). They have nevertheless conquered the entire world by seducing a “foreign” customer base fond of food coming from abroad.
In some cases, consumers from one country have even taken ownership of a dish native to another: for instance, ask an American about the origin of the pizza and there is a good chance he or she will say it was invented in Chicago!
In other cases, marketing underlines the “exotic” nature of a product to enhance its appeal, such as Spanish paella, Turkish lukum, Canadian poutine or Vietnamese nem.
The catering sector has taken over ethnic food in order to expand through specialty restaurants, a key driver of the sector’s growth, with sushi bars, pizzerias and Chinese restaurants delighting customers all around the globe.
A few families of culinary products form a true feeding mode. The “Dieta Mediterranea” and its inseparable olive oil produced in Mediterranean rim countries (including some very interesting varieties coming from Croatia), Tex-Mex, Japanese sushi and Spanish tapas have gained significant market shares in several countries.
In the case of pasta, for example, 2 million tons are shipped every year from Italy to around 200 countries. Others are niche products, almost exclusively produced in a unique country or in a single region. Take foie gras, for example, with half of the 25 000 tons of global production coming from south-west France; or Romanian salami, with total output of 2000 tons produced exclusively by six accredited companies. Some others make up a significant national industry. For example, cheese represents a 4 billion Euro revenue stream for the Netherlands (to the extent that French people call the Netherlands “the other cheese country”!) while Australia produces 230 000 tons of seafood products. (What did you expect? Kangaroo meat?) This extends as far as bread, an almost universal foodstuff that nevertheless includes varieties linked to specific countries: for instance, Germans and Lithuanians cannot live without dark bread. A solid food meal is incomplete without a tasty beverage to go with it. Once again, national specialties are exported on a large scale; good illustrations of this are Malbec produced by Argentinian wine-makers and some 9 billion Euro of Danish beer.
Among hundreds of examples that can be found in tourist guides, we introduce you in this report to a few market elements related to typical culinary specialties from around a dozen of countries that belong to the M&A Worldwide organization, while always keeping in mind that a dish that is ethnic food for some is often a recipe from their grandmother for others!