Taste Radio

From artisanal foods to craft spirits, this episode explores the evolving business landscape for specialty food and distilled beverages. Steven Rannekleiv, the global sector strategist for beverages at global financial services firm Rabobank, has covered the alcoholic beverage industry for over a decade and in our conversation, we explored the emerging market for craft spirits, including parallels to and differences in the development of the craft beer category. Rannekleiv also discussed how the investment community is evaluating craft distilling companies and how growing consumer demand for cannabis products is affecting alcoholic beverage categories. Later in the episode, we sit down with Phil Kafarakis, who is the president of the Specialty Food Association, the industry trade group that the organizes the annual Winter and Summer Fancy Food Shows. In our discussion, Kafarakis spoke about how the term specialty food  has evolved in recent years and the ingredients and formulations that are shaping the futur