The iPod of food

Every week it’s part of my business to keep abreast of what’s hot in the world of the consumer. Essentially this means reading MediaGuardian and getting a weekly email from this service called trendwatching.com. As far as I can see their sole raison d’etre seems to consist of creating horrific neologisms and unleashing them onto the marketing industry for a laugh. So they have words like Massclusivity – it’s exclusive but it’s also Mass, Transumers – consumers who worship the temporary and the transient and Tryvertising – which in their own words is “all about consumers becoming familiar with new products by actually trying them out”. Personally I thought that was called “sampling”.

When I was a kid I spent some time unsuccessfully trying to “seed” a new catchphrase. You know, like “sick” is good or “book” equals “cool”. I remember the term was “craters!” but can’t for the life of me recall whether this was a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe it was meant to signify that this was something massive eg: in reply to the ground-shaking news that “Atari have just brought out Frogger II” I would exclaim “Wow! That is craters!”

Obviously this was in the pre-internet days when I was forced to rely solely on the archaic method of peer-to-peer viral word of mouth activity. At the time the peer response was overwhelmingly underwhelming despite my numerous efforts to seamlessly integrate it into my everyday conversations. In this exciting brand new Web 2.0 era though I think its time has come.

But I digress.

So these trendwatching.com types come up with these terms and then show examples of innovative brands and retail concepts which seem to substantiate the burgeoning activity related to their latest –ism. And I’m not even sure which term it comes under but I have become utterly obsessed with their championing of the Crispy Cones fast-food concept http://www.crispycones.com/ that’s currently doing great guns in California’s Santa Anita shopping mall. It has a strapline “Conestructing Revolution” that could have come straight from Alan Partridge. Most of all it has the all-important killer proposition – “The food you love in a cone.” The accompanying blurb reads: “Take your favourite foods: Pizza. Asian Beef. BLT Sandwich. Teriyaki Chicken. Place them inside a tasty spill-free Crispy Cone. What do you have? A healthy, delicious meal on the go.”

Best thing of all is the menu. You can choose from such delights as Chicone Teriyaki – so far so good. Margarita Pizzacone – ok. Bit Ronseal but sounds alright. But then they clearly got bored. Options such as Meatballscone and the nonsensical Porcone (ie a cone with pork) don’t exactly get those Pavlovian salivations going.

The founder of Crispy Cones is culinary entrepreneur Nir Adar. He confidently declared in a 2005 Time article "Food should be as portable as a phone. Cone pizza will be the iPod of food this year." Exhaustive desk research by myself found the solitary piece of feedback on the cone revolution from "Jason" on the strangenewproducts blog. He says, "The meat tasted okay, but the cone tastes odd. And all the oils drip to the bottom of the cone for a rather gross surprise at the last bite.." He's not exactly selling it to me. Further investigative sleuthing reveals that their self-proclaimed flagship store in Santa Anita is actually their only store to date.

Anyway there are global franchising opportunities available and I think it's a winning concept all the way. With some inventive naming input and some proper photography, I think this is the new sushi. If you’re interested in a CrispyCones London joint venture then get in touch.