trends

According to a recently published study by ACNielsen called What’s Hot Around the World – Insights on Growth in Food & Beverage Products, yogurt (or yoghurt if you're the Queen of England), especially the drinkable kind, was the fastest growing food product worldwide in 2006. "Spoonable" or regular yogurt didn't do too bad either. (Coincidentally, we just bought a very cute R2-D2 shaped yogurt maker. I plan to make yogurt in it of course, but I did buy it for another reason...which shall be revealed later. (Hint: it's very sticky.))

Other findings in the report include: in Europe people wanted more "cooking basics" like oils; North Americans wanted more fresh and/or 'healthy' products like pre-prepared salads (I guess at least before the spinach scare); the best selling alcoholic beverage is beer; and in China and some other countries in Asia, baby formula sales increased dramatically. Link to report (PDF).