Natural Products Expo West was terrifyingly crowded. It was a welcome sign for the food industry, but I’ll be honest, it had me worried. After two years of either no trade shows or poorly attended trade shows, being shoulder to shoulder with so many strangers from around the world gave
I’ve completely changed the way I work based on two books I read from Cal Newport: Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload In the span of about a month, I consumed these books, threw
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but are they correct? I recently attended the Future Food-Tech virtual conference, and there was a lot of talk about fake meat — whether it was coming from plant-based ingredients or grown in a petri dish. During one roundtable I participated
I just hit the one-year anniversary of my last business trip. On Jan. 30, 2020, I arrived back in St. Louis from Portland, Ore., at 11:50 p.m. I checked bags because it was a long trip on the West Coast. I left the prior Monday and spent a great couple
Everyone has a post-mortem on 2020, and so do I. It stunk. For Brightly Creative, the stench was less than for others, and we count ourselves as very fortunate compared to many of our friends and colleagues in the food and beverage industry. But I don’t want to end the
At the end of every year, I eagerly await the mountain of trend reports to hit my inbox, predicting what ingredients and diets will be impacting food and beverage new product development in the coming year. It’s like Christmas morning for someone like me who spends their days making decisions
I’ve eaten a lot of weird things in my life: chicken liver ice cream, cricket tacos, fish eyes and 12 Jack In The Box tacos (no lettuce). I love food; I love weird food and I’ll try anything at least once. However, I’m struggling with the concept of lab grown
I just finished reading the book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari. It’s a great book that forces you to think about humans’ existence on earth and how we’ve evolved over time. One passage in the beginning of the book had a particularly profound impact on
When the dust settles from the current new product development mania around plant-based “meats,” which products will survive and which will join New Coke and the McDLT in the halls of failed product launches? Seems like a challenging question, but I think the answer is pretty simple to come by,
I’m an unabashed fan of tasting menus. Give me 12 courses of small bites over a massive plate of fried “food” any day of the week. It’s not only that I enjoy tasting multiple things during a meal, it’s also that food waste gives me anxiety. Yes, of all the
If you read this blog regularly, you know I’m a foodie. I write about food extensively, love to cook and I get paid to talk about the food industry. I spend a better part of my personal and professional life thinking about food. So, when the family decided to vacation
When Jonathan and I decided to step away from the growing agency we founded and start all over again, the idea was to: Stop being business people and return to being creative people Only work with clients, products or services we truly believed in We also wanted to focus as
Working in the food industry, we love a good food holiday. Taco and pizza day…we’re all in and have lunch plans settled early. Cupcake day? Let’s have them for breakfast. Even healthy foods like Kale will receive our dedication to finding foods or making a meal as long as it’s
This is a short blog, but hopefully an educational one. I spend quite a bit of time on the road, and have for the last 15 years. With a wife and two young kids at home, this can sometimes be a tough gig. However, here are five bits of advice
Finally, the food bar category has some excitement outside of the countless new entries that seem to appear daily. Here’s the scoop. Clif Bar uses organic ingredients, KIND Snacks does not. In a clever marketing ploy designed to appear as a “let’s do better together” moment, Clif Bar took a
I’d normally welcome two consecutive weeks in Denver, but after experiencing the bomb cyclone snow storm, I was dreading heading back to the Mile High City just three days after said snowstorm forced me to drive home 13 hours from Denver to St. Louis. But, the American Distiller’s Institute was
There are two types of packaging innovations. The first: gimmicks designed to increase product sales. Think Coca-Cola putting people’s names on cans. Super cheesy, but also super effective. The second: structural or graphical enhancements designed to improve the flavor, freshness or experience of a product. Think tuna being sold in
Let’s talk about cannabis and food product development. It’s inevitable and already happening, so no need to debate whether it’s a good or bad thing. It’s going to happen. The conversation now needs to move to formulation challenges and obstacles. I recently read a really smart Q&A on BakingBusiness.com with
In the December issue of Prepared Foods magazine, “botanicals” were pegged as a top trend. It makes sense. Consumers are trying to eat healthier, and for years, healthy food has been branded, rightly or wrongly, as flavorless. Unlike sugar, botanicals have the ability to bring flavor to food while still
What do 50+ agency people from all over the world have in common? Hellacious travel tales, nightmare client stories and thankfully, a shared language, which fortunately is my native tongue. However, once you got past the awkward introductions, expected conversation topics and shared experience of a singular client, I discovered
It’s next to impossible to narrow down the food and beverage industry to three trends. I could have easily listed 15 things that will influence what you eat next year. In paring my first large list to three items, I eliminated quite a few sure things. However, the list below
If I had the money to invest in a brewery, distillery or winery, I would throw all-in on the distillery. The craft spirits market is still in its infancy and all demographics point positively toward spirits being the preferred alcoholic beverage for the generations that matter most. I took a
Winter is stout season. Big, barrel-aged monsters with high ABVs, syrupy viscosities and hints of chocolate, cinnamon, vanilla and chilis. I’m a seasonal beer drinking, shifting styles as the weather turns. I’m knee-deep in stout season and loving it, but duty calls and I’m obliged to set my stout aside
This isn’t a humblebrag. I promise I’m making a point here. I’m an ultramarathoner. In fact, I just completed a 50-mile race a couple weeks ago and was the fifth fastest male at doing so. I also eat really healthy. I read labels, avoid processed foods where possible and am
2018 was a banner year for Brightly Creative. We’re fortunate to be blessed with great clients, great partners and interesting, rewarding and fun work. Our jobs take us to all pockets of the United States and even around the world. Here’s my list of my favorite things from 2018. Favorite Beer:
Featured image courtesy of cleanmeat.org. In my role at Brightly Creative, I have the pleasure of attending and speaking at quite a few food industry conferences every year. The Food Evolution Summit in San Diego was one of my favorite events this year. Why? First, I had the opportunity to
What did you do for your summer vacation? I used to hate writing those essays in school. Now, I’m kind of excited to write this blog post detailing what the Brightly Creative team has been up to this summer. It was packed to say the least. We had meetings, conferences,
Beards, bees, brewing science and a lot of honey. Those elements are standard of any Honey Beer Summit. But what was unique about our recent Austin event, the sixth Honey Beer Summit we have hosted? Barrel-aging honey, honey sours, hops and honey, increased honey usage, goats, and countless chigger bites.
Dates: February 20-22, 2018 Purpose: Client meetings I go to Denver quite a bit. My business partner and creative director lives in the Mile High City, as well as some of our key clients. It’s a city I’ve grown to love. Great food, great breweries, great distilleries, close to mountains and
I’m exhausted. Long show hours plus less than accommodating accommodations have left me empty and headed to the airport early Saturday. Before a long day of travel ahead and a much needed break on Sunday, I leave you with a final report of a few of my favorite products from
No, this isn’t a blog post about what you’re thinking. Shows like the Natural Products Expo West are too tiring to go out much at night. In fact, since I’ve been in Anaheim, I’ve had to patiently wait until the noise dies down from the 9pm Disney extravaganza before I
The Brightly Creative Team is on the scene at Natural Products Expo West, and Keith will be filing reports about what he’s seen, ate and drank. For the first report, Keith analyzes the two snacks in the bag given to each attendee at registration. The show hasn’t even started and
I love food. I love cooking it, reading about it and eating it. When I moved back to St. Louis from Chicago, I was terrified of the culinary situation I was entering into. I hadn’t lived in St. Louis for 10 years and knew nothing about the food scene. So,
As expected, Boston Beer Company’s 2017 financial results failed to impress analysts and continued to spotlight some fundamental flaws in the beer industry. In my opinion, the most foreboding number from the company’s 2017 results: 3.8 million barrels shipped. That may seem like a lot of beer, but it’s actually
One of the best parts about my job is the daily interaction I have with true artisans of the food and beverage industry. From chefs to bakers to brewers, I’m fortunate to have met, and in some cases, worked with, people that inspire me. Many of these people were recently
An interesting segment ran on the Today Show recently naming the top 50 healthy foods and snacks. The website, Eat This, Not That!, was responsible for the list, and they did a great job. Not necessarily in determining the 50 snacks and beverages, but in setting the criteria for what
I took my kids to McDonald’s for breakfast before school yesterday. It’s a rare occurrence, as I love providing my family with three home-cooked meals a day when possible, and I’m a bit of a health nut. However, the girls were being sweet, mom had an early morning conference call
Keurig Dr Pepper. The name just rolls off your tongue, right? Not really, but those three words were uttered or printed by thousands of newscasters, newspapers and bloggers analyzing the latest mega merger in the food and beverage industry. But before we get into that, did you know that there
Client: National Honey Board Breaking into a new market is always a challenge, regardless of the product or service. In 2017, Brightly Creative was tasked with breaking the National Honey Board into the craft spirits market. The goal was to replicate the success we had three years earlier breaking honey