Swine Flu, Hand Dryers of the Future and Local Booze: Chicagoist at the NRA
By Anthony Todd in Food on May 19, 2009 3:40PM
This past weekend, Chicagoist visited the trade show of the National Restaurant Association and its sister convention, the International Wine, Beer and Spirits Event. Despite the downturn in the economy, the convention was still hopping, filled with new products, new packaging, extravagant pavilions and thousands of companies hoping to sell the “next big thing” in food service. You’ll be seeing products and companies that we met up with at NRA featured over the next several months but for now, here are a few notes from a first-time attendee.
To a natural-foods lover, the sheer amount of processed and pre-made food was overwhelming. Think about all of those frozen onion rings and chicken wings we all love to chow down on - all of them have to be sold somewhere, and we are willing to believe every last one of them was in that room. We saw everything from frozen, pre-made savory crepes to frozen, pre-made churros, with just about everything in between. At the other end of the spectrum, the selection of organic and natural food was huge, if stuck in a back corner. Indeed, the trend at this year’s NRA seemed to be “going green” - either in reality or in image. There were a ton of companies selling the new faux-plastic takeout utensils, made of cornstarch, as well as others selling energy efficient appliances, special water filters and green cleaning supplies. In the final category, Swine Flu (or the threat of it) made several appearances, including one memorable sign of which we managed to catch a picture.
For the nerds at heart, gadgets were everywhere in evidence. We were particularly entranced by the new Dyson Airblade hand dryer, which dried our hands in 2 seconds flat without any annoying shaking. Also mesmerizing was a complete, self-contained system for juicing oranges - dump a bushel of whole oranges in the top and out comes perfect, fresh, pulp-free juice at the bottom. We’ll post a video as soon as possible - it’s worth seeing.
Don’t think that the NRA show is all about glamorous gadgets. The most surprising thing, for a new visitor, was all of the things needed to make a restaurant work that the public never cares about. Entire restaurant-related retail areas exist that we hadn’t even considered - for instance, there were several companies selling menu covers! Chef’s clogs! Restaurant non-skid carpeting! Employee lockers! Infrared outdoor heaters!
The International Wine, Beer and Spirits Event produced a small treasure trove of local, artisan companies. American craft distilleries were well represented. One of our favorites here at Chicagoist, North Shore Distillery, was showing off their extensive product line - and we got a tip that they’ll soon be trying out some entirely new types of liquor. We also met regional producers of fruit liqueur (some of the best we’ve ever had) and limoncello (absolutely the best we’ve ever tried), which we’ll be profiling in the coming months.