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J. COUSMINER, Firmenich Incorporated, Research Chefs Association, 250 Plainsboro Road, Plainsboro, NJ 08536

Getting ahead of the culinary trends....what a topic! If we could regularly and reliably predict what the next big food rave was going to be, we'd all be rich and retired by now. For most of us it's tough enough just recognizing that a trend is in progress, let alone being ahead of the curve.

Yet trend awareness is crucial to competitive success in today's ever-changing food marketplace. Consumers are more worldly, better educated, more ethnically diverse, and have greater access to a wider range of specialty foods and ingredients. They eat out more often in a variety of restaurants showcasing an astonishing number of different cuisines and cooking styles. And today's consumer has an incredibly short attention span.

This can be a good thing, if you recognize it and are able to take advantage of the seemingly never-ending desire for new eating experiences. The 'good old days' when you could develop a new product that took the market by storm and then became part of our everyday vocabulary are pretty well over. Snapple is no Coca Cola; Boston Chicken has fallen to the Big Mac.

Someone once said that you could tell when a new food item had reached trend status when it showed up at the 7-11. I'd say that by the time it gets to the 7-11, it's no longer a trend. It's either become mainstream (gourmet coffee)or it's a has-been on the way out (flavored coffee creamers).

So if you have difficulty spotting culinary trends in progress, let alone being able to predict them, what can you and your company do to at least stay neck and neck with them? Well, there are dozens of ways to stay 'au courant' in the food biz. I am going to share a few of the methods that I use to maintain my edge and keep my company competitive in the food market of the new millennium.