When Baskin Robbins first came out with its stores that offered 31 flavors, people thought it was nirvana. My how times have changed. While vanilla is still by far the most popular (preferred by 29% of those surveyed*), the ice cream market is exploding with more eclectic flavors every day.
While in Boston, I visited FoMu (translated: faux milk), a little stand that carries no dairy products, but nonetheless delivers tasty treats that seem like ice cream even though they are made with coconut or soy milk. FoMu has flavors I have never considered for ice cream: avocado, mango habanero, Thai Chili peanut, rosewater saffron and lemon & olive oil. (I was not adventurous enough to try them, but can highly recommend the cherry amaretto!)
Even those who are using real dairy are experimenting with crazy flavors: Pear and Blue Cheese, Bacon Peanut, Whiskey and Pecans, Moonshine and Carmel Corn, Roasted Beets and Fresh Mint, Sweet Avocado and Cayenne.**
And those wild combinations didn't even make Time's list of the 15 funkiest Ice Cream Flavors on Earth***. That list included Garlic, Bone Marrow with Smoked Cherries, Sweet Sticky Black Rice, Mustard, Foie Gras (duck liver), and the Asian "stinky fruit" Durian.
Just like the ice cream industry can't rest on its laurels and provide only the flavors that have been popular for a century, neither can your organization just deliver the same things that it has. What tried and true product is on your menu that needs a revitalization? Can you mix together a new combination of ingredients or services to satisfy consumer's hunger for new? There's a niche out there waiting for your special ingredient.
-- beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com
*International Ice Cream Association, 2012
** In Dashrecipies.com July 2013
*** Time, May 24, 2013
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