It may come as little surprise to those in the meat and poultry industries, but barbecue, and everything that goes with it, is hot right now, with no signs of cooling off.
In the past year, low-and-slow-cooked barbecue such as brisket, pork shoulder and pork ribs along with pulled pork and beef have been trending in restaurants, even appearing in fast-casual barbecue concepts, according to the 2017 Center of the Plate: Beef and Pork Consumer Trend Report from Technomic, a Winsight Company, in Chicago. Barbecue ranked second for the perennial favorites of the 700 professional chefs surveyed for the National Restaurant Association’s What’s Hot 2018 Culinary Forecast. More than a quarter of these chefs (27 percent) even labeled barbecue a hot trend.