Selfridges: How To Spot A Trend

We use anything and everything to predict trends, from sales information – it’s a big clue when you see a jump in sales in a particular category – to looking around, talking to people and seeing what’s happening in the bar and restaurant industry. For example, pickles are a currently a big trend in the bar scene, so I expect that to appear in food retail soon.

You can see what people are getting interested in by looking at Instagram and on blogs – as well as actually going out to other countries to see what’s happening elsewhere. We visit the States quite regularly to see the lay of the land, as a lot of trends originate from there – they always have lots of interesting things on the go. Last time we went, I went into a lot of delis and spotted a number of products I was interested in stocking myself, so got in contact with the producers directly to see what we could do. Also, my gut plays a large part in the stocking decisions I make!

Almond butters and nut butters are key trends for us at the moment, as are luxury patisserie – we sell the exclusive Marc Pattiserie, which have been created by incredible chefs delivering epicurean excellence. One of the biggest off-beat and quirky elements to our food hall is the Chocolate Library – it has new things coming in all the time, so is refreshed every three months with new brands joining the old favourites. Coffee’s another trend we’ve really seen spiking, especially cold brew recently. Alcohol has also been huge so far this year… People were talking about how vermouth is going to be big this year, but we were on top of it six months before the hype started. We’ve launched two new vermouth brands into the UK in recent months. We now stock Cambridge Gin, which is incredible – they’ve launched a truffle gin which is just amazing and even the exclusive ANTY gin which was made for Noma in Copenhagen is now available to buy – it’s made by distilling ants! We’re constantly on the lookout for the new, the latest; it’s not so much about what’s trending now, but setting the trends for the future.

We have also started selling the UK’s first packaged foraged produce. We have seen first class restaurants use foraged ingredients on their menu and it felt right to introduce our customers to a range that they can incorporate into their cooking at home. We try to make it accessible to all. In order to help customers on the journey, we are introducing recipe cards and a series of dinners in our Corner Restaurant to elevate this incredible story.