Chocolate Croissant For a society whose staple food is rice, the consumption of bread has grown exponentially in the last 25 years. The leading bakery corporation, the SPC group has seen their Paris Baguette franchises grow from 3 in 1988 to 1400 in 2005 to 3316 in 2015 (Hankyung News 2015). The per person consumption of flour foods has dramatically increased from 11.5 kg per person per year in 1965 to 33.7 kg per person per year in 2015 (avg. 32.8 kg). While in the past flour was mainly used for noodles, batters and dumplings; these days bread and pastries have become increasingly popular. In 2015-2016, it has been all about the full-fat, cream filled breads. This started from the “kopan” bread which is a red bean and cream filled sweet roll. This style of rich cream has since moved to choux, donuts and rolled cakes. Koreans tend to like more of a less-sweet, milk-taste cream but currently green tea flavor has come back into fad. Also, the cream craze has since grown to includ...

Bruworks Coffee: Photo Credit Bruworks Here is my most recent article for Host Milano event about the recent trends in Korean food. Read it here http://host.fieramilano.it/en/after-mers-korean-food-scene-heats The MERS incident has not been kind to Korea. It has affected the tourism industry which has experienced more than 100,000 cancelations and it has hurt local businesses as most people have canceled social excursions. For example the Seoul Grand Park which normal has crowds of 79,000 over a weekend has been only averaging 35,000 (Korea Times: http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2015/06/116_179972.html ). With no new cases in the last 2 weeks, life is beginning to return to normalcy. Restaurants, bars and cafes are hoping that they will be able to recover their business. Nitrogen Coffee Bars and cafes are looking for the next hit coffee drink and many think it is a tall, frosty, milky pint of nitrogen coffee. Startup Bru-works was one of the first to the market, b...