Indian street food is the source of the latest inspiration for Wixon Innovates – the company’s trendspotting product development initiative. Nearly 40% of Americans are interested in trying international street foods, according to Mintel. And India, one of the most populous places in the world, has a bustling street food scene woven throughout its vast countryside. The streets of New Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata are particularly fertile grounds for sampling varied roadside foods – especially savory snacks known as chaat. An omnipresent street food, chaat comes in several formats, all with the commonality of crunchy texture and sweet, salty, sour, spicy flavor profiles.
“Our focus on chaat grew out of a couple of parallel trends impacting the U.S. food scene,” says Wixon Marketing Manager, Becca Henrickson. “There’s the obvious snacking trend – which just continues to grow and evolve – and the steadily increasing interest in Indian flavors among consumers over the past three years. The flavor inspiration we found in chaat melds with these trends along with the consumer desire for authentic, ethnic flavors.”