Grocers talk new products at trade show coming to Vancouver

What if you could peer into the future?

News1130’s Mike Lloyd can, but instead of bringing us back lotto numbers, election results or an accurate Vancouver weather forecast, he decided to tell us about… groceries.

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Attention shoppers!

Grocery Showcase West comes to Vancouver April 14-15; it’s a trade show and conference featuring the latest innovations in grocery. John Scott, CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers, says there many new products being introduced that shoppers will soon see at their local supermarket.

“It will be quite a year [for West Coast shoppers] because you’ve got so much more square footage coming on the market. It will be a far more competitive market than it’s been, even up to now, and you folks have such great operators in Vancouver so it will be very interesting,” he tells News1130.

“In terms of products, one trend that is really fascinating is the whole area of prepared foods. There was a time when you’d go to a supermarket and basically buy a barbecued chicken and that was it. Today, consumers are going into a supermarket looking for a restaurant-quality meal, so supermarkets have had to step up their game in that particular area, to the point of even retaining chefs.”

While Scott doesn’t list specific items you’ll be able to pick up, he says there is certainly a trend in the type of cuisine people want.

“Any packaged ethnic foods are hot — huge — and just about every company is going to come out with something this year because, you see, while we’ve embraced these foods, we don’t know how to cook them. So any packaged food that has that ethnic flavour or ethnic tone is going to be big.”

Grocery Showcase West will be at the Vancouver Convention Centre for two days, starting Sunday. It is closed to the public but is attended by key industry players looking to tap into the latest consumer trends.