While you’re waiting for the turkey to finish its hours-long roast, the potatoes to get to that perfect combination of fluffy and crispy, and the brussels sprouts to be scraped into the bin, there is a Christmas food you could be eating. You buy it frozen and could be scoffing it for Christmas Day breakfast within 10 minutes of shoving it in the oven: party food. It may not feature on YouGov’s investigation into Britain’s favourite Christmas food, but for retailers, party food is an integral part of bringing in the cash for the season.
While the cuisine that encompasses the wide-range of party food may not be seem incredibly Christmassy, every year supermarkets will double down on the nibbles they offer and consumers go mad for it. At Tesco you have 99 options for party food to choose from, both chilled and frozen: a pork pie selection, sticky chilli cauliflower bites and Thai green chicken baskets. Asda is offering frozen party bundles and an 80 piece snack collection.
At frozen food specialists Iceland, there are 72 different canapés on offer, not including the other various meats, sides and desserts that make up the Christmas meal. Some items, such as the spring rolls and the prawn ring are familiar party favourites. Others, such as the tempura vegetables and chicken noodles on a stick seem to be more creative creations.
Supermarkets use their Christmas party food range every year to gun for the ultimate goal – for customers to do their entire Christmas shop with them. But winning the canapé clash requires a lot of forward planning. Behind the scenes, product developers have been working on this year’s selection since last Christmas to create the store's 2019 range. “We strive and challenge ourselves every year to make sure that at least half of the range is completely new,” says Lauren Metcalfe, who works in the frozen food division of Iceland.
New and innovative food draws customers in, as well as get headlines for them in the press. Tempura brussels sprouts earned a coveted slot in the Daily Mail. Last year the big ticket item was marmite brussels sprouts, which may have been slightly less well received, but they are still talked about as a big win when we visit Iceland's test kitchen in North Wales.
Some of the items on offer seem so bizarre you would think it’s a case of throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. There are at least six different kinds of prawns, one of which is bacon-wrapped, and duck has been substituted for the prawn toast.
In fact, it is a carefully curated collection based on trends throughout the year. “We only react to what our customers want,” says David Lennox, Iceland's head of product development. Food trends can spring forth, or build for years before coming to the surface. Lennox and his team will look at these trends and create Christmassy food that links in.
This year sees the biggest amount of vegetarian and vegan food Iceland has ever served at Christmas. A few years ago, Lennox was going from store to store, collecting feedback from staff about what customers are saying they want. More than ever, customers were asking for vegan and vegetarian food, but Lennox found it strange, as in 2016 in the UK only 0.46 per cent of the population was vegan – a figure that has more than doubled for 2019 at 1.16 per cent.
“No one thought it would go anywhere and now all of a sudden it's just getting bigger,” he says. As the world wises up to the benefits of reducing meat intakes, it has made it easier to get suppliers and buyers on board to get consumers the meat-free products they want.
Iceland found huge success with its ‘no bull burgers’ when they were released in May 2018. This Christmas these vegan burgers have been miniaturised for ‘no bull sliders’, which taste unbelievably like meat and even ‘bleed’ like real beef as they have been coloured with beetroot and paprika.
Not everything works out, though. There are several products that didn’t make the cut. This year, Lennox has been looking into Britain’s love of Nando's and peri-peri flavours, and came up with a peri-peri turkey. It ticked all the boxes: it built on a current trend with a Christmas twist, and could potentially get Iceland some media attention. He even cooked up a sample in the test kitchen. But before it was allowed to see the light of day, the team decided that the spicy peri-peri flavour probably wouldn’t appeal too much to families with children who can’t handle the heat. Besides, customers don’t tend to like big changes to the classic elements of the Christmas meal.
Iceland and several other retailers are told what to look out for by The Food People, a company that provides a report on emerging trends for the next two years. Its main prediction for 2020-21 is that people will be looking to the future – consumers will be more mindful of their health and the planet when making choices.
“The biggest thing within Christmas that we expect to see more of is the sustainability agenda,” says Charles Banks, co-founder of The Food People. He believes that we will continue to see efforts being made to reduce meat intake. This is why fish has been a big trend for 2019 – consumers are choosing meat alternatives with a smaller carbon footprint.
There are some items on the party food roster that can’t be messed with too much as Iceland needs to give customers the food they expect: in one year on average Iceland sells over 64 million spring rolls, and the most popular finger food is the mozzarella sticks sold throughout the year. The new products aren’t performing too badly either – an Iceland buyer says the sales of the duck toast has been “unbelievable”.
Everything Iceland makes has to be two things: delicious and convenient. The frozen nature of the party food means that not only the customer will be able to buy it in advance of the holidays, but also the buyers for the shop. They will be able to order products from the suppliers months in advance, then “press nature’s pause button” to keep them ready for Christmas. While some supermarkets aim to have all of their food cook for the same amount of time at the same temperature, Iceland will vary these instructions slightly for each dish to make sure its cooked to a high standard.
Even with the Christmas madness surrounding this year’s line of party food, at the test kitchen chefs are already busy working on next year’s range. Richard Young, a development chef, shows off his lucky sixpence – a chocolate coin that will go in the centre of next year’s showstopper dessert. For 2019 Young crafted the ‘five gold rings’ chocolate centrepiece, and this time last year he was creating sample moulds from clay and silicone in order to workshop his idea with buyers.
It’s unlikely that Christmas party food in one iteration or another will go out of style. It’s all part of the excess in consumption we have grown to expect at this time of year, says food writer Paul Levy. “The reason for that is the descent of Christmas from the pagan festivals held at the time of the dimming of the year – the winter solstice,” he says. “Christmas was always a feast.”
But even with this feast, Iceland has noticed that consumers want to see less waste when it comes to food and packaging. In next year’s range, there are plans for reducing the amount of plastic used to pack Christmas items and continuing to provide vegetarian and vegan party food, suitable for all.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
