Dawn Foods brought home the idea of talking to customers’ relevance from a seasonal perspective and bringing an element of newness to the customer in terms of quality and freshness.

Sarah Hickey, vice president of North America marketing at Dawn Foods Global, explains that “you can talk about a Christmas donut along with the ripeness of the fruit inside – the feelings of fruit fillings that are in the donut. You have an individual donut that feels like a treat.”

Dawn is focusing on creative flavor profiles and colors. According to Dawn, 56% of consumers say they like foods with bright and intense colors.

“We are focusing on embracing seasonality and LTOs (limited-time offers),” Hickey says.

Additionally, Dawn Foods introduced its frozen line with 24 frozen donut offerings.

The ABCs of new flavors are Apple Crisp, Birthday Cake, and Cherry. And you can explore more with different flavors.

Melissa Trimmer, Dawn’s corporate executive chef and senior director culinary, points out the advantage of the frozen line means that “bakers take 12 hours in production time down to 1 hour, which is a really big deal. And there’s a depth of flavor in every bite.”

Decorative additions

Melinda Rasmussen at DecoPac showcased new SugarStyle® Edible Decorations, which add dimension to your cake with a pop of color.

DecoPac featured decorations for smaller cupcake formats, as well as focusing on their licensed and seasonal products.

“Decorators don’t have a lot of time,” she explains, pointing to SugarStyle® Edible Decorations. “This really creates that elevated cake look with minimal effort. This is going to be a new fun product.”

As for key trends influencing the marketplace, Rasmussen says they are seeing a lot of smaller formats. “Everybody wants that personalization. Even coming into weddings,” she says.

Satin Ice featured a wide variety of decorating tools for cake artists and decorators. Innovations included fondant and gum paste in new flavors and packaging sizes, modeling chocolate, food color gel, food color markers, edible pain and luster brushes, and cake drip and glitter glaze.

The Satin Ice ready-to-use Edible Paint will add a creative finish to your treats without compromising on taste. Use colors straight from the bottle or mix any together to create new exciting. The Primary Kit includes red, yellow, green, blue and black.

Cake artists can use on Dried icings, fondant, crusted buttercream, macaroons, gum paste, marshmallows, and so much more. The 100% edible paint product delivers a smooth, opaque finish. And once dry, the flavor is tasteless.

In addition, Satin Ice Food Color Markers make decorating easy in a variety of sets. These markers are perfect for use on cookies, cakes, or cupcake toppers that have a hardened surface. The Brush Tip works for all applications and can even be used on candy, chocolate and other oil-based products.

One 5-count box includes red, yellow, green, blue and black. It is 100% Edible Ink. The arkers are saturated with bold color and long-lasting ink. The tasteless ink will not compromise flavor of finished creation.

Also, say goodbye to tempering isomalt crystals. Satin Ice Isomelts™ are pre-cooked nibs made from high quality 100% pure isomalt and are ready to use! Isomalt is a sugar substitute that does not crystallize and sets crystal clear. Simply melt in the microwave and you are ready to create fun candies and decorations for your desserts.

Use Isomelts to make hard candies, lollipops, cake toppers, fun shapes and special effects. Isomelts come in small pillow-shaped nibs that are ready to melt. Create custom flavors by mixing in desired oil-based flavor to the melted isomalt. Satin Ice recommends using oil-based flavors because it will not evaporate.

Create custom colors by carefully mixing in Satin Ice water-based food color gel to the melted isomalt while it is still bubbling. This way the extra moisture from the food color gel burns off to prevent stickiness.