Has Christmas food gone mad?
The Food Chain
BBC
4.7 • 545 Ratings
🗓️ 19 December 2024
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Prosecco flavoured crisps? Eggnog chicken? Sticky toffee pudding trifle?
The innovation for novelty Christmas products seems endless, but is there the appetite?
Ruth Alexander lifts the lid on an industry churning out festive food hits, and flops, in the race for Christmas tastebuds.
She visits the Good Housekeeping Institute in London to take part in an opulent dessert testing event, deciding which puddings are the best on the shelves this year.
Eric Nummelin and Mike Vahabi from Hela Spice in Toronto, Canada, reveal the wacky inventions they have come up with for this year, and how inspiration can strike at any time.
A former buyer for a large European supermarket chain talks about how to “win” Christmas with headline-grabbing products, and what happens when shoppers try things once and don’t go back for more.
If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email: thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk
Presenter: Ruth Alexander
Producer: Hannah Bewley
(Image: Colourful Christmas treats and biscuits. Credit: Getty Images/BBC)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm no longer ravenous. I'll no longer eat until I fall asleep. The Hunger Game, |
| 0:05.9 | a new five-part series exploring the meteoric rise of weight loss drugs. It's been an incredible |
| 0:10.7 | story with these drugs. The uptake, the amount of product that's been sold, the amounts of money |
| 0:15.1 | is cost. What the drugs do, how they work, and the knock-on effects of their widespread use. |
| 0:20.5 | We'll be sitting here in three years' time going, oh, it caused problems that we're now going to have to fix. |
| 0:26.2 | The Hunger Game with me, Professor Gilesio. |
| 0:29.1 | Listen first on BBC Sounds. Cranberry chutney topped pork pies. |
| 0:42.0 | Chicken gingerbread shaped people. |
| 0:47.3 | Turkey gravy flavoured crisps. |
| 0:50.3 | Sticky toffee pudding. |
| 0:52.8 | Trifle. |
| 0:53.9 | Every year it feels like I can fill my shopping basket |
| 0:56.8 | with ever more weird and wonderful festive foods. |
| 1:00.4 | Salted caramel cream? |
| 1:03.1 | Chocolate pine cones. |
| 1:05.5 | Christmas gone mad? |
| 1:07.0 | Oh, welcome innovation. |
| 1:09.4 | No, not for me. |
| 1:12.3 | I will buy the take-flavor crisps and the sticky-toffee pudding flavored beer. |
| 1:18.8 | I think it's Christmas gone mad. I think it tends to a lot of waste. |
| 1:23.7 | Maybe like a strawberry lip coop or something like that, I would try. |
| 1:27.8 | This is the food chain from the BBC World Service with me, Ruth Alexander. |
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