Trend Toward Multicultural Foods

The stepping stones to widespread desires for new multicultural tastes have been well established, and the spread of ethnic foods among the general population has followed both a dining path and a packaged goods route, reports HartBeat from The Hartman Group. In American supermarkets, "specialty food" products such as Greek olives, taco shells, kosher matza and Thai canned curry are no longer isolated in sections unto themselves; instead, they can be found integrated with their commercial counterparts on grocery store shelves. The globalization of food preferences is a trend which is normal to today's youth who speak a food language reminiscent of spice traders from the 18th century. Desires for new tastes are also compounded by what is now everyday exposure, via portals like the Food Network and the Travel channel, to a wide range of cuisines and cultures.