Visit IFE London ( Intenational Food Exhibition)

Nduja

kimchi chip

Kimchi chip

Bamboo roasted Korean sea salt



Olive Ascolana

Air dried hummus chips

Selection of fruit crisps

Korean Pavilion

Healthy sea weed snack

9times roasted Korean sea salt

kimchi flavoured seaweed  snack

Chilli paste( gochujang) with blueberry
and Korean plum

Sugar free hazel nut and chocolate spread

Spreadable Nduja

This year's IFE was held at Excel London from 22nd of March to 25th. I was at 22nd and 25th.
It was very nice to see huge presence Korean foods and Italian ,they are my favourite food along with British.

This year IFE  trend was definitely Healthy Food (snack?), a lots of fruits sugar free non fried, low temperature oven dried crisps,  from all over the world.
Loved a few from here and Turkey but my favourite was from Korea, Hephzibah.
CEO, Kim ( also founder) got it right, thin and right bite size, not too thick and clumsy shape and not too crunch like others, slightly chewy and original fruit's flavour was not lost with low temperature  oven drying.
Unfortunately they are not available in U K yet. they would be an ideal snack for the children's lunch box.

Kim's new product, kimchi chip. what an idea!, tasted but it may too spicy for some. Not fermented, just freshly made and dried in the oven. I bet they are very popular in Korean specially with Muguli and beer drinkers.

Found another kimchi flavoured snack, seaweed with kimchi powder coated onto the seaweeds, but too spicy my liking. I can see they are selling as a healthy snack , combination with seaweed and kimchi, who can argue among Asians, but to the Westerners ? Perhaps they have to use less chilli for the Western market . Still I loved wrapped with rice.

Having seen all kind of healthy crisps I do wonder potato crisps are end of life in our food culture, but certainly in many Asian countries seemed so, as they do not have  the potato food culture as such as Western world.

Chocolate, hazel nut spread from Turkey ( Sarelle) was very good, no sugar version and bitter chocolate are very good, less sweet than Nutella.

Vegan foods are big at IFE but difficult find  tasty one for me , but bean pastas from Sweden ( a la eco) caught my eyes, specially black bean pasta,  just looked like squid ink pasta which I love , sadly I could not get any sample or buy to cook at home, they would be ideal for my daughter, 20 something generation.
Recent years all young lady seemed eating spiral courgette pasta, I think these bean pasta would be a good substitute .

Young Korean company called Woomtree made chilli paste ( gochujang) with blueberry and Korean green plum. they are so good adding fruits makes vitamin C rich Korean condiments, what a good idea. They will be must have items for poor students or singles.

Korean has a kind of obsession about Korean mineral rich sea salt, the company called Korean sea salt made roasted in bamboo case , 3time and 9times roasted bamboo salt.
Founder & CEO, Si-Woo Park told me 9 times roast salt has medicinal quality and drinks salt solution ( water) like daily medicine.
Very expensive,  $70 for 100g, no wonder it used as medicine.
I tried with steak , 9 times salt bring out beef flavour and got very clean salty taste but would I pay for it, No way!
Rich Koreans may use for the cooking, it may attract rich Chinese or Russians but I can not help thinking, all these minerals I can have through other food from sea ,like sea weeds, sea lettuce, kelp so on.

Sea lettuce powder was here too from Israel, China but for me sea lettuce powder is too small packet to use as I am a sea lettuce soup ( Korean) lover, sure it will be good with salad or just in the sauce.
I will think something better than just adding to the salad.

Loved organic  cultured milk drink , from grass fed cow's milk from Devon, tasty to drink and packed with live culture ( beneficial microorganism, you know this is good for your body) by Biotiful Dairy.


Delighted to see my favourite Italian foods were big here, cured ham, and ready made snacks for the drinks, like mini ravioli, olive Ascolana ( I was longing for tasting this since I saw BBC 2, food and art , Italy ) , take out olive seed and stuffed with meat and bread crumbed, fried. So dainty and so tasty.
Hope these are in our shops in Britain soon.

Finally Nduja ( Spicy, fermented pork and chilli kind of  huge sausage) now new Nduja is spreadable.
Loved it. I often make pasta with Nduja, onion and olive oil but this slightly runny Nduya on the thinly cut, toasted bread or bisquit was good for the drinks.

This year's IFE was full of small company with  good ideas and health minded products. I had a quite inspired by all these. looking forward to cook with  these new products.
Already a few ideas in my head when I left IFE with a few samples .