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St Patrick's Day is a sea of Emerald green!

I tell my foodpreneur clients to keep up with all of the great inspirational food ideas from the flavor mavens at McCormick. So here is a fun fact: according a spokes person "...enough green food color was sold to tint more than 26.2 million cake pops emerald green!"

Crowdsourcing your New Product Development

The McCormick's Flavor Forecast 2013 points to early food trends that can give you a heads up in your new product development and their research is FREE! So why aren't you using it? Besides their web site check out the McCormicks Pinterest Boards and check out the pictures with the most pins... one example is Chilled Chinese Dumplings with Creamy Dukkah Sauce.  They descrilbe it as "...a light starter... chilled dumplings filled with Chinese broccoli, ground pork and shrimp".  Dukkah is one of the flavors revealed in the food trend Empowered Eating.

Hey are you a restaurant looking for menu ideas? Well how easy is this to borrow great ideas from McCormick's.

So if you a food entrepreneur that is a "baker-preneur"... it may be too late to do anything for St. Patrick's Day in 2013, , the 17th of March but put this into your plans for next year... and start crowdsourcing your new product ideas so you can tell the retail grocery buyer..."Hey... I want to show you something you DON'T have" which is music to a a retailer buyers ears!

Green With Envy Ideas From McCormick

This St. Patrick's Day, the McCormick Kitchens experts are tinting St. Paddy's treats every shade of green.  Festive minty-flavored, green recipe creations, Green Food Color and Peppermint Extract, are sure to add color and flavor to your holiday celebrations. See below for some of my favorite recipes full of St. Paddy's spirit:

Green Ombre Cake: Take the latest fashion trend to the kitchen by varying the drops of food color in three layers of cake.

Luck o' the Irish Cake Pops: Give crowd-pleasing cake pops some St. Patrick's Day spirit with green food color.

Green with Envy Cheesecake Bars: The name says it all! Contrasting layers of green, white and chocolaty brown get a hint of sophistication with invigorating Pure Peppermint Extract.