Saturday 11 October 2014

HEALTH & WELLNESS GLOBAL SALES UPDATE

Trending Foods examines the latest news, market trends, surveys and stats that are helping shape the food industry. 

Global Health & Wellness Sales Hit $774 Billion
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Rising awareness among consumers toward health benefits of foods and beverages for potential disease prevention and overall wellness are key factors driving growth in the global health-and-wellness market. According to data from Euromonitor International, the sector will witness sales of approximately $774 billion in 2014.

“Healthy food and beverages are once again outperforming their non-health and wellness counterparts," said Ewa Hudson, global head of health and wellness research at Euromonitor International. “Healthy soft drinks will account for half of global soft drink retail sales in 2014 and over the next five years, healthy packaged food will account for one-third of total packaged food retail sales."

In terms of sales, milk formula is the world’s fastest-growing health-and-wellness category, reaching $4.3 billion in 2014. Gluten-free bakery products are the third-fastest growing health-and-wellness category with sales up by 16 percent in 2014. Naturally healthy ready-to-drink tea is projected to grow by $14.5 billion, which is nearly $2 billion more than energy drinks between 2014-2019.

Emerging markets also are driving growth in health and wellness are, adding 87 percent of absolute growth between 2009-2014. Despite this, developed markets still account for 60 percent of total global health-and-wellness retail sales.

“These markets should not be overlooked and instead should be considered an innovation hotspot promoting a more personalized approach to nutrition, with a focus on areas such as brain and vision health or food intolerance," Hudson said.

So as the global market for heath-and-wellness products matures, product designers searching for successful introductions have to carefully position their products to make sure they meet consumer expectations for efficacy and match the flavor of their conventional counterparts. Food Product Design’s free “Functional Foods and Beverages"Digital Issue delves into the market growth for the functional foods and beverage category, formulating functional beverages, protein's role in functionality, as well as demographic cohorts that should be considered when developing functional foods and beverages.

Sunday 5 October 2014

Formulating Foods explores the latest health and nutrition news and research—as well as the latest ingredient and food application innovations—to determine what consumers want (and need) from the food and beverage products they consume, and how industry can make it happen. 

Resveratrol in Wine, Grapes Hampers Acne
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Got grapes? UCLA researchers have demonstrated how resveratrol, an antioxidant derived from grapes and found in wine, works to inhibit growth of the bacteria that causes acne.

Millions suffer from acne, and it has a significant psychosocial effect on patients, but limited progress has been made in developing new strategies for treating it. According to researchers, antibiotic resistance and side effects limit the efficacy of the current treatments, which include benzoyl peroxide, retinoids, antibiotics and Accutane (isotretinonin).
The new research shows combining resveratrol with a common acne medication, benzoyl peroxide, may enhance the drug’s ability to kill the bacteria and could translate into new treatments. Benzoyl peroxide is an oxidant that works by creating free radicals that kill the acne bacteria.

Resveratrol has received a lot of positive attention from the medical community in recent years. The antioxidant is the substance that has prompted some doctors to recommend that adults drink red wine for its heart-health properties. It stops the formation of free radicals, which cause cell and tissue damage.

These benefits resonate well with consumers, who are increasingly seeking products that emphasis wellness and provide benefits beyond basic nutrition. In the Digital Issue, Focus on Wellness, Food Product Design takes a close look at how product designers can incorporate healthful ingredients—including vitamins, minerals, fiber and omega-3s—into food and beverages.

The present study, in early lab findings, demonstrated that resveratrol and benzoyl peroxide attack the acne bacteria, called Propionibacterium acnes, in different ways.

“We initially thought that since actions of the two compounds are opposing, the combination should cancel the other out, but they didn’t," said Emma Taylor, Ph.D., and the study’s first author and assistant clinical professor of medicine in the division of dermatology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “This study demonstrates that combining an oxidant and an antioxidant may enhance each other and help sustain bacteria-fighting activity over a longer period of time."

The team grew colonies of the bacteria that causes acne and then added various concentrations of resveratrol and benzoyl peroxide both alone and together. The researchers monitored the cultures for bacterial growth or killing for 10 days.

They found that benzoyl peroxide was able to initially kill the bacteria at all concentration levels, but the effect was short lived and didn’t last beyond the first 24 hours.

On the other hand, resveratrol didn’t have a strong killing capability, but it inhibited bacterial growth for a longer period of time. Surprisingly, the two compounds together proved the most effective in reducing bacteria counts.
“It was like combining the best of both worlds and offering a two-pronged attack on the bacteria," said senior author Jenny Kim, Ph.D., professor of clinical medicine in the division of dermatology at the Geffen School.

Scientists have understood for years how benzoyl peroxide works to treat acne, but less has been known about what makes resveratrol effective—even though it has been the subject of previous studies. Using a high-powered microscope, the UCLA researchers observed that bacteria cells lost some of the structure and definition of their outer membranes, which indicated that resveratrol may work by altering and possibly weakening the structure of the bacteria.

The researchers also cultured human skin cells and blood cells with the two compounds to test their toxicity. They found that benzoyl peroxide was much more toxic than resveratrol, which could help explain what causes skin to become red and irritated when it’s used as a topical treatment in high dose or concentration.

Taylor noted that combining the two compounds allowed for prolonged antibacterial effects on the acne bacteria while minimizing its toxicity to other skin cells. The finding could lead to a more effective and less irritating topical acne therapy.

“We hope that our findings lead to a new class of acne therapies that center on antioxidants such as resveratrol," Taylor said.
Trending Foods examines the latest news, market trends, surveys and stats that are helping shape the food industry. 

Bottled Water, Tea Driving Global Beverage Growth
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Drink up, there’s good news for the beverage industry. New data from Zenith International reveals bottled water and tea are driving growth in the global beverage market, contributing a whopping 55 percent to the market growth over the past five years.

According to Zenith’s globaldrinks.com online database, tea is by far the largest of the 24 drinks categories in the 72 country database and saw consumption growth of 62 billion liters between 2008 and 2013. Bottled water, the second-largest market by volume, increased sales by an even higher 83 billion liters over the five years. Milk gained the third-biggest volume growth of 20 billion liters, followed by coffee on 16 billion liters.

Five other categories all achieved growth of between 10 billion and 12 billion liters—still drinks with a low fruit content, carbonated soft drinks, beer, fruit drinks with a fruit content between 5 percent and 25 percent and iced tea. Spirits were the last of the top 10 volume growth categories, which is a very strong performance, given their far higher value.

“When you look in more detail at how the category rankings have altered in the last five years, two changes jump out," said Zenith Chairman Richard Hall. “The first is that carbonates have slipped behind milk, which has now risen to third place. The second is that coffee has overtaken beer. The other observation to highlight is a huge increase in the variety of choice available to consumers today, with many more flavors and blends as well as packs and sweeteners, outlets and delivery options."

This latest data supports previous market data supporting growth in the water category. In November 2013, data from the NPD Group found water represents nearly half of all beverages consumed by adults, making it their top beverage pick. Kids, however, drink significantly less, replaced by milk, soft drinks and fruit beverages.

According to the “Bottled Water in the U.S." report from Packaged Facts, as consumers continue to reject carbonated soft drinks and embrace bottled water, many beverage industry analysts and marketers are convinced that the category will soon become the dominant non-alcoholic beverage. Healthy living and the obesity epidemic have been driving factors in making bottled water the zero-calorie/ultra-low calorie beverage of choice for millions of consumers.
Marketers are launching new bottled water products with bold colors, exotic flavoring and fashion-forward packaging. They are also bringing to market a wider range of water enhancers, a category that didn’t exist until 2011 when Kraft Foods launched its MiO brand of water enhancers.

Friday 3 October 2014

Trending Foods examines the latest news, market trends, surveys and stats that are helping shape the food industry. 

Global Snack Food Sales Hit $374 Billion in 2014
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The competitive landscape in the snacking industry is fierce with annual global snack food sales increasing 2 percent to $374 billion in 2014, according to the just-released “Nielsen Global Survey of Snacking" report.

“Demand is driven primarily by taste and health considerations and consumers are not willing to compromise on either. The right balance is ultimately decided by the consumer at the point of purchase. Understanding the ‘why before the buy’ provides the foresight necessary to deliver the right product to the right consumer at the right time," said Susan Dunn, executive vice president, Global Professional Services, Nielsen.

According to the report, while Europe and North America make up the majority of global snack sales—$167 billion and $124 billion, respectively—annual snack sales are growing faster in the largely developing regions, including Asia-Pacific ($46 billion), Latin America ($30 billion) and Middle East/Africa ($7 billion).

For the report, more than 30,000 online consumers in 60 countries were polled to identify which snacks are most popular around the world and which health, taste and texture attributes are most important in the selection criteria. Here’s what they found.

Confectionery comprises the biggest sales contribution to the overall snacks category in Europe ($46.5 billion) and the Middle East/Africa ($1.9B). Salty snacks contribute more than one-fifth of snack sales in North America ($27.7B), refrigerated snacks comprise almost one-third of snacks in Asia-Pacific ($13.7 billion), and cookies and snack cakes make up more than one-fourth of total snacks in Latin America ($8.6B).

But what are the fastest-growing snack categories? Sales of savory snacks increased 21 percent in the last year in Latin America. Meat snacks grew 25 percent in the Middle East/Africa and 15 percent in North America. Refrigerated snacks rose 6.4 percent in Asia-Pacific, while dips and spreads increased 6.8 percent in Europe.

“Non-sugary snacks closely aligned with meal-replacement foods are showing strong growth, which signals a shift in a consumer mindset to one focused on health," Dunn said. “While conventional cookies, cakes and confections categories still hold the majority of snack sales, more innovation in the healthy snacking and portable food space is necessary to adjust to this changing dynamic."

With that brings a massive untapped opportunity to gain market share in the nutritious, portable and easy-to-eat meal alternative market that snack manufacturers could fill. Seventy-six percent of global respondents eat snacks often or sometimes to satisfy their hunger between meals or to satisfy a craving, and 45 percent consume snacks as a meal alternative—52 percent for breakfast, 43 percent for lunch and 40 percent for dinner.

When it comes to overall favorite snacks, fresh fruit and chocolate reign supreme. According to the report, global respondents say that fresh fruit (18 percent) is the one snack they would choose above all others from a list of 47 different snacking options, followed by chocolate (15 percent). Over a span of 30 days, however, global respondents say they ate a wide variety of snacks, including chocolate (64 percent), fresh fruit (62 percent), vegetables (52 percent), cookies (51 percent), bread/sandwich (50 percent) and yogurt (50 percent). Forty-six percent consumed cheese, potato chips/tortilla chips/crisps (44 percent) and nuts/seeds (41 percent). One-third chewed gum (33 percent) and ate ice cream/gelato (33 percent), while about one-fourth consumed popcorn (29 percent), crackers (28 percent) and cereal (27 percent). Softer offerings like dumplings (26 percent) and instant noodles (26 percent) were also popular with a quarter of global respondents.

Taste preferences for snack options are noticeably different around the world. Exceeding the global averages, large percentages of respondents snack on vegetables in Asia-Pacific (57 percent), cheese in Europe (58 percent), ice cream/gelato in Latin America (63 percent) and potato chips/tortilla chips in North America (63 percent).

“In the dichotomy of snacking, consumers want healthy, but yet indulgent options are still going strong," Dunn said. “A better understanding of consumer demand and the need states that drive demographic profile preferences will help manufacturers crack the code on the right portfolio balance between indulgence and healthy. It will also increase the odds of success in this ultra-competitive landscape."

In May, thousands of new confectionery and snack foods debuted this week during the 2014 Sweets & Snacks Expo in Chicago that featured the hottest new products and innovations from 650 companies. Broader food industry trends, including ancient grains, power foods, herbs and spices, and a resurgence of classic flavors like peanut butter and coconut abound in the candy and snack industries this year. Click here to find out more about the 2014 Sweets & Snack Trends from the National Confectioner’s Association.

Tuesday 30 September 2014

Trending Foods examines the latest news, market trends, surveys and stats that are helping shape the food industry. 

Courting the Specialty Foods Customer
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U.S. consumers spend approximately $760 billion food and beverages each year, so understanding your target market is critical to any new product launch. This means food and beverage marketers have to know what consumers want, whether it be organic, sustainable, nutritious or indulgent.

Just look at the organic industry—what began as a niche industry a decade ago, accounted for more than $32 billion in retail sales in 2013. The same can be said for the specialty foods sector that has experienced a rebound as the economy picked up and consumers are willing to spend a little extra money on something indulgent.

According to the “Today’s Specialty Food Consumer Report 2014" from the Specialty Food Association and Mintel International, the specialty foods sector is thriving, experiencing nearly an 8-percent jump in annual sales over last year. In 2014, 145 million people—59 percent of U.S. consumers—purchased specialty foods.

Consumer engagement in specialty foods is broad. Overall, specialty food shoppers are spending 1 in 4 of their food dollars on specialty food, up from 1 in 5 in 2013. At least 1 in 5 specialty food consumers have recently purchased products in each of the total 34 specialty food categories included in the 2014 survey.

Core specialty food consumers are ages 18 to 44 years, earning more than $75,000 annually. Of those consumers, 42 percent said they try new foods in order to eat healthier; 71 percent support companies that practice sustainability; and women are more likely than men to purchase specialty food products. Younger adults report spending more on specialty food than baby boomers and those older, and older consumers buy specialty foods more for everyday cooking at home versus snacking.

Chocolate, olive oil and other specialty oils, and cheese remain the top three categories purchased, with more than half of specialty food consumers buying these products. Tea is a new entrant to the top 10 categories purchased this year, up from No. 15 in 2013.

According to the survey, supermarkets remain the prime location for specialty food consumers to buy specialty foods, largely due to convenience. About one-third of consumers frequent natural food stores and mass merchandisers, while one-quarter of specialty food consumers shop at farmers markets and specialty stores.

“Overall, specialty food consumers have these foods and beverages on hand for regular usage, whether as an everyday snack or meal or as a treat," said Denise Purcell, senior director, content development for the Specialty Food Association. “This daily engagement bodes well for the market as a whole."

The top 10 categories for specialty food sales include chocolate, olive oil/other specialty oils, cheese, coffee, salty snacks, frozen desserts/ice cream, meat/poultry/seafood, non-alcoholic beverages, bread/baked goods and tea. Food and beverage makers have a tremendous opportunity to grow the specialty foods sector with creative new product launches targeting the right demographic. What's more, retailers have a tremendous opportunity to promote specialty food products in a creative and eye-catching manner to attract more consumer interest.

Monday 22 September 2014

The Food Law Blogger explores food litigation, including cases involving foodborne illness and labeling disputes, as well as key regulatory developments at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture. Ping Josh Long with story ideas at jlong@vpico.com.

Consumer Group Seeks to Eviscerate New USDA Poultry Inspection System
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A consumer rights group wants a federal court to vacate a new poultry inspection system adopted by an agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The regulations, finalized this summer by the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) and taking effect on Oct. 20, would give chicken and turkey slaughterhouses the green light to “dramatically increase their slaughter line speeds, while threatening public health and introducing unwholesome poultry into interstate commerce," Food & Water Watch contends in the lawsuit.

The new inspection system violates the Poultry Products Inspection Act because it eliminates mandatory inspection requirements and the regulations were finalized before the opportunity for public comment, according to the suit, which was filed on Sept. 11 in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. The lawsuit also contends the regulations are arbitrary and capricious.

FSIS did not immediately respond on Thursday, Sept. 19, to a request for comment.

On July 31, the food-safety agency announced a new poultry inspection system that it said imposes new requirements to control Salmonella and Campylobacter and would prevent up to 5,000 foodborne illnesses annually. Under the inspection system, poultry companies will review carcasses for defects, a move FSIS said will free up its inspectors to focus on food-safety examinations.

The poultry industry expressed support for the new inspection system before the regulations were finalized. Rather than being confined to examining the dead birds for physical defects such as bumps and bruises, FSIS inspectors will have flexibility to search for causes of foodborne illnesses such as Salmonella, said Keith Williams, vice president of communications and marketing with the National Turkey Federation, in a phone interview earlier this year. According to a powerpoint presentation from FSIS, such sorting activities largely relate to the marketability of the carcasses rather than food safety.

Consumer and labor groups argued the proposal would compromise food safety and exacerbate the burden on inspectors who already suffer carpel tunnel syndrome and other ailments. Responding to public comments on its proposal, FSIS said the finalized regulations would cap at 140 birds per minute maximum line speeds, remaining consistent with current programs. FSIS had proposed increasing the number of inspections to 175 chickens per minute with one FSIS inspector on the line and one FSIS inspector off the line.

Before FSIS adopted the new regulations, government inspectors examined every carcass, according to Food & Water Watch. The lawsuit estimates the new system will lead to a reduction of as many as 770 federal inspectors.
“USDA’s new system will harm consumers and reverse 100 years of effective government regulation of the meat industry," said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, in a statement. “It’s essentially a return to Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. It’s a huge step backwards for our food safety system."

But USDA said it has learned a great deal about managing pathogens such as Salmonella since it began inspecting poultry more than a half century ago, requiring a more modern approach. FSIS has refuted criticism that fewer inspectors will compromise food safety, citing data from a pilot program showing “greater compliance with sanitation and HACCP regulations, carcasses with lower levels of visible fecal contamination, and equivalent or lower levels ofSalmonella contamination."

“These positive results were able to be achieved with fewer inspectors overall, but more inspectors deployed to more meaningful food safety-based activities," FSIS said in a Q&A on “Poultry Slaughter Modernization."

Under the new system, all poultry facilities must conduct microbiological testing at two points in their production process to demonstrate that they are controlling two common pathogens, Salmonella and Campylobacter. FSIS said it is the first time such requirements have been imposed.

Sunday 21 September 2014

FOOD PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: Effectively Incorporating Color Rachel Adams

Formulating Foods explores the latest health and nutrition news and research—as well as the latest ingredient and food application innovations—to determine what consumers want (and need) from the food and beverage products they consume, and how industry can make it happen. 

Effectively Incorporating Color
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How a food looks can be a major deciding factor as to whether a consumer will try the product. In order to increase visual appeal, food and beverage designers turn to a toolbox of colors options—synthetic or natural—to keep foods looking fresh and appetizing.

In today’s clean-label word, consumers are increasingly seeking products free from artificial colors and dyes, causing a shift away from FD&C-certified colors toward more “natural" alternatives. In terms of revenues, the global market for natural colors was estimated to be worth approximately $732.1 million in 2011 and is expected to reach $1.3 billion by 2017, according to the MarketsandMarkets report, “Food Colors Market by Type, Application & Geography—Global Trends & Forecast to 2019."

Food is the largest application segment for natural colorants with more than 32 percent market share, followed by soft drinks and alcoholic beverages. The market for natural colors is likely to become competitive as manufacturers have begun using natural colors in many products.

Of course, the “natural" landscape can be challenging to navigate, as FDA does not define colors as natural or artificial. In fact, FDA considers any product with added color—with the exception of those that receive the color from the food itself—to be artificially colored.

From a consumer perspective, the color’s natural-versus-artificial status is often determined the ingredient’s labeling. Colors derived from carotenoids or anthocyanins, for example, often carry names representing their fruit, vegetable or spice origins. Other colors considered “natural" include Spirulina extract, caramel colors, carmine and cochineal extract.

Natural colorants, like synthetics, can present challenges during formulation. Careful consideration of the application, processing parameters, intended shelf life, and other considerations, can ensure the colors will perform as intended.
For example, in bakery applications, high temperature or extreme pH can have negative effects on color ingredients—whether natural or synthetic. Understanding where the color will be added during processing along with what other conditions the color will be exposed to is critical when adding colors to baked goods.

Coloring beverages, on the other hand, will present a different set of challenges. Ingredients interaction, shelf life, packaging and storage conditions must all be considered when selecting colors for beverages.

For a closer look at colors—including how to effectively formulate with both naturals and synthetics in bakery, dairy, beverages and fortified foods—download the free Digital Issue, “Colors Formulation Strategies," from Food Product Design.

The world’s most dangerous flavour: How bitter is making a comeback

But as Chris Nuttall-Smith discovers while prepping a particularly complex and tart meal with cookbook author Jennifer McLagan, that’s undeserved – in fact, it’s perhaps the most sophisticated of tastes

Jennifer McLagan’s Campari Granita

Campari and orange juice is an excellent aperitif, and a good introduction to bitter. The same combination, though in different proportions to the cocktail, can be frozen into a granita. The advantage of this kind of ice is that you don’t need any fancy machines; you simply need to stir the mixture during the freezing process to break up the ice crystals. The result is a granular ice. If you prefer more bitterness, try the grapefruit variation below.
Serves 4 to 6.
  • 1 cup strained freshly squeezed orange juice
  • 1/2 cup Campari
  • 1⁄2 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
Stir the orange juice, Campari, and lemon juice together, then pour into an 8-inch square metal pan. Place in the freezer. Stir the mixture with a spoon every hour or so, to break it up into large ice crystals. If you forget to stir the mixture and it freezes solid, don’t panic. To return the granita it to its granular texture, break it into chunks and pulse briefly in the food processor. To serve, spoon the granita into chilled glasses.
Variation: Replace the orange juice with freshly squeezed grapefruit juice and add 2 tablespoons superfine (caster) sugar.

Cookbook author Jennifer McLagan enjoys a homemade cocktail in her kitchen in Toronto. (Photos by Kevin Van Paassen for The Globe and Mail)
At 9:40 a.m. one recent Monday, Jennifer McLagan handed me a shot glass and a bottle of Fernet-Branca. Fernet, as the Italian digestive liquor’s advocates call it, is flavoured with a secret blend of a few dozen herbs, roots, oils and flowers, including gentian. Gentian, according to Fernet’s manufacturer, contains “one of the most bitter substances known.”
I’d tried it before, years ago, and still remember the taste – like dandelion sap mixed with cigarette ash and stale-dated cough syrup. My eyes began watering in anticipation. I quickly took a slug and coughed. McLagan didn’t speak. She didn’t look entirely impressed.
McLagan is 60 and speaks with a soft Australian accent. She keeps her hair in a tidy bob and wears subtly red-framed metal glasses. You’d never peg her as one of the most prescient thinkers and authors in the hard-living world of professional cooking.
Now she pulled a tall, brown clay bottle from a cupboard, this one containing another, more bitter liquor, from Latvia, and poured out a splash. “Even a lot of people who like Fernet can’t stand it,” she said. It was as good as a dare. I grabbed the edge of the counter and took a sip. “Not bad,” I lied.
McLagan had promised to take me on a taste tour through the world of bitter this morning. She calls it the world’s most dangerous flavour. And the booze was only the beginning. I drained a glass of water, swishing it around my mouth as discreetly as I could.

Jennifer McLagan’s Grapefruit Tart

I made this tart for my husband early in our marriage, and then like many things I forgot about it. He requested it several times, but I could never find the recipe – it was lost for a decade or more. Then several years ago I found it tucked inside another cookbook. It is one of those typically vague French recipes, a list of ingredients in no particular order with no real instructions. Since I rediscovered it I’ve been playing with it or, as I think of it, improving it. For the pastry, you can also buy a premade shell from the store.
Grapefruit Tart
Serves 8
  • 1/2 recipe Sweet Butter Pastry
  • 3 eggs
  • Fine sea salt
  • 2 small grapefruit
  • 6 tablespoons (90 g) unsalted butter
  • 1/2 cup (100 g) superfine (caster) sugar
  • 3/4 cup (150 g) granulated sugar
  • 3/4 cup / 175 ml water
Roll out the pastry on a floured surface and line a 9-inch /23-cm tart pan. Prick the base of the tart with a fork, right through to the metal, then refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Place a heavy baking sheet or pizza stone in the oven and preheat it to 375°F .
Separate 1 of the eggs, and add the yolk to the other 2 eggs. Whisk the egg white with a pinch of salt.
Line the tart with parchment paper and fill it with dried beans. Place it on the hot baking sheet and bake until the pastry is set, about 15 minutes. Remove the paper and beans and continue to bake for another 5 minutes or until the base is lightly coloured. Remove the tart shell from the oven on the baking sheet and lower the oven temperature to 325 F .
Meanwhile, finely grate the zest from 1 grapefruit and squeeze the juice. Pour the juice into a measuring cup, you should have 2/3 to 3/4 cup . Pour the juice into a small saucepan, add the zest, and bring to a boil over medium heat. Boil until reduced to 1/2 cup , about 4 minutes. Let cool, then strain through a fine-mesh sieve, pushing on the zest to extract all the juice. Place the butter in a small saucepan and melt over low heat; set aside to cool.
In a bowl, whisk the eggs and yolk, then whisk in the superfine sugar. Continue to whisk until the sugar is well blended, then whisk in the juice, melted butter, and a pinch of salt.
Brush the base of the tart shell with the beaten egg white, making sure it goes into all the holes. Return it to the oven, on a baking sheet, for 4 minutes.
Pour the filling into the tart shell, and bake until barely set, 15 to 18 minutes; the filling should still be wobbly, but not runny, in the centre. Transfer the tart to a wire rack and allow to cool completely.
Cut the remaining grapefruit in half from top to bottom. Cut each half into thin half-moon slices, about 1/8 inch. You need about 20 slices. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place a large wire rack on top.
Put the granulated sugar in a saucepan and add the water. Place over low heat and stir until the sugar dissolves, then bring to a boil and boil for 1 minute. Add only enough grapefruit slices to make a single layer of fruit in the syrup. Cover, and simmer gently until the pith is translucent, 5 to 6 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, remove the slices, drain, and transfer them to the rack on the baking sheet. Add the remaining slices in batches and continue simmering, covered, until they are all cooked. You’ll need 16 slices for the tart, so if 1 or 2 fall apart don’t worry, you can eat them.
Mentally divide the tart into 8 portions. On each portion, place 2 slices of cooked grapefruit, overlapping them so the rind edge is to the outside and they make a stylized fish shape. You can, of course, cover the tart in cooked grapefruit slices, and while this looks very pretty, it makes the tart very difficult to cut. I prefer practicality to looks in this recipe.
McLagan’s first book, called Bones, was published in 2005 as a reaction to the rise of the boneless, skinless chicken breast; in our rush for convenience we’d abandoned the tastes and the textures of cooking and eating bone-in meats. Within a few years of Bones’ publication you could scarcely go to a restaurant without seeing whole roasted marrow bones on the tables. Fat, McLagan’s ode to the deliciousness and, yes, the healthfulness of animal fat, came out three years later. (“That one was about six years ahead of its time,” she says.)
2011’s Odd Bits celebrated animal hearts, livers, kidneys, hooves, lungs, tripe and other offal, lending not just momentum, but also many of the techniques and recipes that propelled the rise of North American nose-to-tail cooking.
Bitter, which will be released this week in Canada and the U.S., is perhaps her most difficult subject yet. “Bitter is a negative to most people,” she told me. “It’s a bad word in North America.” But it’s also the most complex and sophisticated of the tastes, the book argues – or as McLagan’s friend, the cook and author Naomi Duguid puts it in Bitter’s epigraph, “Bitter is the gatekeeper of adult taste.”
So maybe my response to the Fernet and that Latvian rotgut were a little childish. I had time to redeem myself. McLagan had laid out a pair of knobbly green bitter melons on her kitchen counter, as well as celery leaves, orange zest, walnuts, prunes marinated in black tea, a package of ground pork and a bottle of homemade tonic water. We were about to make a very bitter lunch.
Prunes marinated in black tea and orange peel.
Bitter was borne from McLagan’s remembrance of the grapefruit she used to eat for breakfast growing up in Melbourne, Australia. The grapefruit of McLagan’s childhood was white-fleshed and bitter – her mother used to sprinkle it with sugar to temper the taste. Bitter is a learned taste. You come to love it by experience.
“My experience with grapefruit gave me a positive attitude to bitter, and it became an important part of my flavour palate,” she writes.
Today most grapefruit is pink and sweet-tasting – the bitterness has been bred out of many popular varieties. In North America especially, we’ve forgotten how complex and interesting bitter foods can be.
McLagan studied politics and economics at university in Melbourne before moving to Paris and London in her early 20s, where she worked as a cook. She moved to Toronto in the early 1980s; she and her husband, a prop and special effects maker named Haralds Gaikis, have lived here for 33 winters, she says. McLagan worked as one of the city’s top food stylists until Bones’ publication. She’s been a full-time cookbook writer ever since.
The pair spend winters and summers in Ontario, spring and fall in Europe (they keep a small apartment in Paris). In Europe, bitterness never disappeared. In Italy, she’d drink Campari with soda and an orange slice, and the gently bitter digestives called amari. In France she’d eat bitter frisée salads with a poached egg and nubs of fatty bacon sprinkled on top.
She built bitter into her cooking. “Citrus zests, turnips, rapini, chicories and cardoons became some of my favourite tastes, and I found myself craving them,” she writes. When McLagan made caramel she’d cook the sugar until it began smoking – the heat breaks down sugar’s simple sweetness into a few hundred new molecules that taste sour, buttery, alcoholic, fruity, toasty, nutty and with enough cooking, complexly bitter. In North America, caramel was almost always one-note sweet.
That complexity is perhaps bitter’s greatest drawing power: Unlike sweet, sour or salty, which are simple, easily describable sensations, bitter comes in myriad flavours and textures, from astringent to burnt-tasting to herbal-medicinal, and nearly every person experiences them in a different way. “Thousands of different compounds in foods elicit a bitter response,” McLagan writes.
In her kitchen that morning, we started with something simple, a bowl of prunes chilled in a bath of strong black tea and orange peel. The sweetness of the fruit, the tannins and astringency of the tea and the bitter-floral oils of the orange played off each other, so that no one flavour spun out of balance.
McLagan roasted celery stalks until they were crisp and caramelized, subtly bitter and sweet at the same time, with tarragon thrown in for a layer of anise.
Before lunch, she handed me another glass. She’d mixed some gin with an orange-coloured tonic she’d made the week earlier. Her recipe calls for allspice, star anise, lemongrass, citrus zest and juice, peppercorns, powdered cinchona bark from the tropics, salt … The sensation of drinking homemade tonic water after a lifetime of the store stuff was like seeing a full-colour movie for the first time after being stuck all my life with black and white.
“In the kitchen, eschewing bitter is like cooking without salt, or eating without looking,” McLagan writes. I’d hardly been a bitter-avoider until then – I’d even begun seeking it out in green vegetables and chocolate, especially – but clearly I hadn’t also fully embraced its possibilities.
Bitter is filled with recipes for arugula and prosciutto pizza, caramel ice cream, pumpkin-radicchio risotto and a pretty spectacular looking grapefruit tart – hardly what you’d call double-dare dishes.

Rony’s Brussels Sprouts and Chickpeas

Serves 4 to 6
  • 1 cup (180 g) dried chickpeas, soaked overnight in water, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 shallot, finely chopped
  • 3/4 cup chicken stock, preferably homemade
  • 500 g Brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved
  • 2 tablespoons dry sherry
Drain the chickpeas and place in a saucepan. Cover them with cold water by two inches and bring to a boil. Lower the heat, cover, and simmer until cooked. This can take from 30 minutes to over an hour, so you need to keep an eye on them. When they are cooked, remove from the heat, uncover, stir in 1 teaspoon of salt, and leave to cool for 30 minutes. Then drain them and spread them on a baking sheet lined with a towel to dry.
Pour 2 tablespoons of the olive oil into a large heavy frying pan with a lid, and place over medium heat. When hot, add the shallot and cook until soft. Add the chickpeas, season with salt and pepper, and sauté until lightly browned. Add 1/4 cup of the chicken stock and bring to a boil, stirring to deglaze the pan by scraping up any browned bits from the bottom. Tip the contents of the pan into a bowl.
Wipe out the pan and then add the remaining 2 tablespoons oil. Place over high heat, and when hot, add the Brussels sprouts. Try and get as many of the sprouts cut side down as you can. Cook the sprouts until dark brown on one side, then add the remaining chicken stock, season with salt and pepper, lower the heat, cover, and cook until the Brussels sprouts are tender but still crisp.
Add the chickpeas, shallots, and any liquid and cook until warmed through. Check the seasoning and pour in the sherry. Serve hot or at room temperature.
Recipe adapted from Bitter © 2014 by Jennifer McLagan. Photography by Aya Brackett. Published by HarperCollins Canada. All rights reserved.
She uses bitterness as a team player, as a way to temper salt, spice or sweetness, or to mellow the decadence of fat. “As soon as you put fat with bitter – maybe that’s why I did this book. You put bacon dressing on some bitter greens, it’s just delicious. Or braise some endive in butter and it caramelizes and it just retains a tiny bit of its bitterness.”
McLagan cautions that you’d never make a meal of only bitter dishes, just as you’d never make a meal of only sour or salty or sweet.
Except for at her house that morning. Bitterness was the entire point. The last savoury course she made was Asian bitter melon seared with pork, chiles, garlic and onions. As she served it, she cautioned that it was the most intensely bitter recipe in the book.
I hope she’s right. Even against the sweetness of the onions and garlic and the seared pork’s savoury voluptuousness, that bitter melon was what you’d call pungent. Still, I liked it.
I even had a second helping.
McLagan makes a dish featuring Asian bitter melon.

BITTER SWEET