The food trends say kale is over. That it was a novelty and bound to be replaced by newer sexier greens like beet greens, chard and turnip greens, not to mention veggie noodles and cauliflower crumbles. I decided to take a look at Google Trends and see if kale was still king or the new court jester.
Google Trends – Kale
Google Trends confirmed that kale isn’t over, as much as its popularity has stabilized. Like any trending product, it will either find a baseline of normal or gradually fade back into obscurity having made a blip as a fad, but never having experienced a breakthrough moment.
But how did all happen and how did kale rise in popularity so rapidly. As early as 1996, The Los Angeles Times published a poem dedicated the leafy green entitled, “Oh Kale.” In 2008, Whole Living deemed kale a powerfood and over 500 babies in the U.S. were named Kale. But 2009 and beyond would be a turning point for kale when Brad’s Raw Foods launched kale chips and in 2010 a kale salad at NYC’s Northern Spy inspired a popular recipe for a kale salad feature in the New York Times. By 2012 the foodie culture was taking notice and Bon Appétit declared it the year of kale and 2013 ushered in the best-selling cookbook 50 Shades of Kale and the first annual National Kale Day. And finally, by 2013, kale was showing up in pop culture highlights with shout outs on popular sitcoms like Modern Family. 2014 and beyond sealed the deal and the story was well told when kale started appearing on menus at fast food locations like McDonald’s and Chick-Fil-A, was featured on merchandise at Target and touted by celebrities in photos and memes.
It was this kind of good PR that helped kale ride the media wave past fad to mainstream and not only make a place for itself but raise the bar for other leafy greens to receive their share of attention including collars, turnip greens, beet greens and mustard greens. In fact, during the past 20 years collard greens have grown in consumption usage form .8 pounds per person per year to 1.3 pounds.
Today we see kale finding a home on restaurant menus from fast-casual to white table cloth and even continuing to have popular appeal to home cooks. But like any good product or trend, it too evolves with current trends. As we dug into trend correlations associated with kale we realized the popularity of the kale chip is in decline, but the emergence of new ideas associated with kale bowls, kale lasagna, kale Caesar salads, gluten free, paleo and even pure barre are taking hold in their association with kale.
What these trends and correlations tell us is that kale is still considered a health food that appeals to a certain type of consumer and those consumers are adapting kale not just to menus, but their lifestyles. For example, it might seem odd to wonder why a fitness movement like pure barre is associated with kale, but it makes perfect sense when you consider healthy living and food recommendations that include focusing on more fruits and vegetables including kale and featured recipes for meal bowls.
By the same token – two of the top food trends heading into 2017 include the above mentioned meal bowls and vegetable based comfort foods, so it should come as no surprise that a search of kale lasagna yielded nearly 500,000 results and a top performing recipe on Pinterest for kale lasagna had over 61,000 pins while Google Trends tell us that searches of kale bowls are on the rise and most often associated with correlations for rice (400%) and quinoa (140%).
Google Trends – Kale Bowls
It’s clear that kale marketing continues to have a strong place in the leafy green category and consumer interest in kale has not minimized. It may no longer be a sexy buzzword making headlines but the good news is consumers are interested in new kale products that actually have the potential for longevity and sales growth for the leafy greens category.
Written by Melinda Goodman
Managing Partner
Melinda@FullTiltMarketing.net
