Stacking up for the Sandwich Revival?
The sandwich, the essential fast-grab lunch offering central to every household, is making an ecstatic comeback throughout the food industry.
Elevated to new heights, versatile and endlessly variable, the classic sandwich has been infused with the creative juices from a host of rock and roll star status chefs and has become a featured menu category bursting with possibilities.
The sandwich is everywhere - not only has it infiltrated our common language (sandwich generation, knuckle sandwich, etc.), but blogger and food trendologist Kara Neilson says the sandwich now also extends and reflects our culture. Every culture has a version of this clasped goodness - and thanks to our globalized markets, this pervasiveness has allowed the consumer to experience and develop a vast and diverse appreciation for the different cultural flavours of the sandwich.
According to Kimberly Egan, CEO of the Centre for Culinary Developments and co-publisher of ‘Sandwiches: Culinary Trend Mapping Report’ released August 2010: "The role of sandwiches in people’s lives is huge. It makes sense that redefined sandwiches reflect the same values consumers are embracing in their lives."
That’s why sandwich trends revolve both around our natural inclination for the familiar or nostalgic (think ‘ham sand’, PBJ, hoagie, grilled cheese) and also our yearning for the unknown, exotic, or just completely zany (see below).
One person to notice this sandwich trend is Dave Brandow, director of sales and marketing for Pillers. After recently returning from the Protein Innovation Summit in Chicago, Dave enthusiastically claims that ‘the sandwich’ is one of the fastest-growing categories of restaurant innovation. This provides every food service provider across the industry with creative opportunities and an attractive price-point.
Brandow reminds restaurants not to underestimate another trend tracking group: teenage ‘Food Network’ fans. Trend-watchers describe this consumer group as having a penchant for a dining experience that provides ‘try plates’ (sliders and curious combos) and ‘sharing platters’ (extreme hoagies, apartment-height grilled cheese).
I experienced the peculiar tastes of this group first-hand, during a weekend hockey tournament in Cleveland. Heavily lobbied by a car of relentless teenage boys to track the food escapades of Adam Richman, host of Food Network’s ‘Man vs. Food’, I joined the one-hour sand-fan (abbreviation for a sandwich fan) line-up to sample a gyro. Later, we toured a smoke house for a robust po’ boy; deep fried polish sausage topped with French fries, coleslaw and their house BBQ sauce. An obvious plating variation; stacked instead of staged, but warranted celebrity status just the same.
Another emerging sandwich trend is the return to the authentic. Any restaurant can easily upscale a classic combo to attract a consumer that values healthy, sustainable, artisanal, regional and exotic foods - these flavour pairings and selections can be achieved with a few select ingredient tweakings (alternate bread selections, adding some new greens or vegetables, a sprinkle of seeds).
Equally popular is the recession-busting, large portion, outrageously-suitable-for-robust-appetites sandwich that creates new architectural heights in form and filling. A deli in New Jersey, for example serves a jaw dropping 12-inch high pastrami sandwich for 12 people.
The sandwich varietal explosion is limitless. Within your current sandwich offerings, and with the ingenuity of your staff, a twist to the sandwich formula of ‘form, filling and flavour’ may launch a signature product equal in acclaim to past trend setters such as the ‘Dagwood’, the ‘Reuben’, or the ‘Sloppy Joe’.
The next generation of ‘the sandwich’? Well, the innovation may just as well be concocted within your own kitchen - and, no doubt, may exceed the reach of ‘it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread’ legacy; the original benchmark to which all other inventions are compared.
