But I will forgive myself because I just had a terrible time.

No, I am not saying that unintentionally. My past two weeks were murky and stifling, the kind of feeling when you are doing so many things, but nothing you expected shows up. I scratch my head, and wince, and type, and delete what I just typed. Until I can’t bear this anymore: I need to get out, walk around, and…just see the world outside my desk. Alex, my extremely kind roommate, offers to be my company for a therapy stroll.

So here we are, on a random street with no itinerary in any sense. We walk from a buzzing high street to a tranquil residential area studded with quirky houses, hit two dead-end paths, then back to the high street. Two hours have passed, and we start to feel pekish.

“Shall we have pizza? You like that place.” “Sounds not bad… But how about that Turkish place?”

“Nah, kinda too heavy.” “Then the cafe over there?… Oh, never mind, it’s vegan.”

We wander back and forth on the street, slowly. This is a typical situation between two indecisive people. We walk past the same shops for the third time around the pizza place. There is a wine bar called “No Name”, a bustling Portuguese cafe, a trendy bakery whose seats are full and shelves empty, and there is a small shop with a peculiar signboard.

It is a swirling black-line emblem formed by three dancing legs orbiting a center that looks sort of like a faceless head, sort of a flower. It’s ancient and eccentric, as if it symbolizes something*. But I have no idea.

The shop is so small that I could’ve ignored it completely if not for the signboard.

The fourth time we walk past it, we are heading to the pizza place - an indecisive one will always go back to the first idea.

Until Alex stops, abruptly and firmly, in front of the small shop. Only then do we realize that there is a pale menu stuck on its window. The food options are simplistic: arancini and panini with housemade focaccia.

“Panini could be good. Lighter than a pizza.” Alex whispers while peering at the pistachio mortadella. But it’s the arancini that is calling me.

Is it a bit embarrassing to admit that I have never had arancini before?

It takes three seconds before we decide to head in.

The shop is indeed small. There are maybe three or four tables and some chairs clustered. Behind the compact salad bar are a panini press, an espresso machine, and a transparent box (cabinet?) that keeps the arancini warm. And in between all these, there is an energetic young woman, greeting us with a voice like sunshine from a southern Enroupe coast.

“Here we have the spinach and mozzarella, the ham and cheese, the aubergine, and the bolognese. But we can make anyone on the menu if you’d like. Oh, my favorite is the bolognese.”

She knows that I want arancini even before I decide to give up panini. Alex points at the menu, “The red wine sausage sounds good?” I look at the spinach one, feeling the pressure that I always have when ordering food, and make the choice: “…Can I have the aubergine and mozzarella one please?”

Ugh, indecisiveness.

But I am content. Because there aren’t many things that please me the way oily, mellow aubergine in fried food does.

Our food takes no time to show up on our table. The arancini sits on a blue-and-white-patterned plate; a few leaves of salad nestle aside. The arancini looks more vibrant than it is in the box. The fine breadcrumbs are so perfectly and evenly golden. The warm color of the arancini contrasts with the blue on the plate and the green and purple of the salad. This sense somehow makes me very happy, so even though Alex’s pistachio mortadella panini looks generous and glistening and alluring, I secretly hurrah that I’ve made a great choice.

I cut the arancini into quarters, so each bite gets a consistent ratio of every layer. The crust is crispy but not tough or gummy, so the knife goes in easily. The inside is soft and tender, as I expect. (I have never eaten an arancini, but I know how it’s made: it’s essentially a fried rice ball.) The center is molten with cheese and aubergine that almost melds into oblivion.

I don’t know what technique is working magic in the crumb, but I certainly want to steal it. The crumb is crispy in a way that shatters when you bite; the fine breadcrumb creates the structure that is almost like that of a puff pastry with the light flakiness, just more pleasant with the additional crunch.

The filling gives a completely different texture. It’s creamy, tender, but not as heavy as some starchy foods. You can taste a little onion and tomato, but everything is so subtly sweet, from the vegetables, from the rice, and from the milky, fresh cheese. Everything is cohesive, to the point where you can barely identify the aubergine (except for the fact that I find a pat of aubergine the size of half the point of my pinky finger), but that is the point - the beauty of aubergine appears when it’s cooked down to a sweet, creamy substance.

When the crust and the filling are savoured together, that’s the full picture of arancini. The flavours complement, and the textures contrast. And I start pondering and appreciating the size of the arancini: the size determines the ratio of the crust and the filling, it’s the geometry fondation of the balance of this crunchy-creamy-flavourful treat.

And the side salad, it’s so thoughtful and supportive, but also a little mischievous. When you deep fry something stuffed with cheese, the grease will start to challenge your appetite at some point. And that is the perfect time for a bite of the juicy, slightly bitter leaves (radicchio is the best) to refresh the palate. It’s dangerous, though, because somehow, when you add an abstinent component to an indulgent one, the combination becomes more addictive than its parts. Humans love contrast.

I save my last bite for the indulgent arancini - the crust is still sturdy and crisp - then wash it down with a sip of soda stolen from Alex.

“Shall we go?” I nudge the empty plates aside and am about to stand up.

“Hold on, I am going to get a coffee and a pastry.”

I look at him with my eyebrows raised just a tiny bit, and he detects my disapproval immediately.

“Come on, don’t they look amazing?” He means the cannolis and sfogliatellas displayed proudly at the front door. “What’s to rush for?”

I lay my body back in the chair. I don’t think the arancini has saved me from my chaotic life, and I don’t think I am magically fully recharged with optimism. But I am satisfied, and a bit more peaceful.

What’s to rush? I don’t have an answer. Yet I am so restless and hurried towards somewhere, somewhere that I don’t even know. So why do I turn it into such an urgency? What if I just slow down a little bit to sense the journey at the moment, and eat an arancini?

Sometimes I need a mindless stroll and an arancini.

* I looked up the pattern on the signboard when I was writing this article. Turned out, it’s a stylized version of the Trinacria, a historic symbol strongly associated with Sicily. Truthfully, the place is called “Made in Sicily”.

It’s niche enough to feel novel, but not popular enough to own a dedicated shelf space, at least, not always.”

More importantly, when you hear the word “kombucha”, you don’t associate it with a single, clear vibe: who are you when you drink kombucha?

I looked at the widest range of kombucha I could find, and came away convinced that the kombucha drinkers can be grouped into four distinct types.

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The grown-up soda drinker

You come to kombucha sideways - probably bored with soft drinks, or looking for something interesting to drink that isn’t alcohol. You like the sweet fizziness that wakes up your senses, like a puff of crisp air when you step out of a stifling room. But you also feel you have outgrown soda.

At the first sip, kombucha is very similar to soda. It’s fizzy, sweet, fruity, and gives you that refreshing breeze. But it’s so much more complex. The sweetness is more demure and less overpowering, which gives other flavours room to come through, extending the flavour. There’s a complex tartness that comes from microorganisms’ hard work. There might be tannins thanks to the tea. The floral and fruity scents are intact. And even the bubbles feel more special because it doesn’t come from carbonation (which sounds a bit mechanical) but from fermentation (sounds more pastoral).

That said, the grown-up soda drinker drinks kombucha like a different version of soda. The great taste and the exciting bubbles are what you are after, not the ingredient or process per se.

For a grown-up soda drinker, the kombucha doesn’t need to shout about the fermentation technique or the live cultures; it just needs to taste like soda, and get better than that.

For you, a grown-up soda drinker, these kombuchas may be your vibe.

GENIE Kombucha

The candy-bright colours and chunky retro font make the cans feel energetic, like a drink you share with friends between laughter.

The founders, Alex and Bill, actually say that GENIE is the answer to their desire for a grown-up drink.

GENIE comes with three flavours: blueberry and raspberry, dry apple, and fiery ginger.

Counter Culture Organic Kombucha Soda

The slim cans are in eye-catching pop colours. What’s more eye-catching is the illustrations on it: fun, chaotic, and reminiscent of my fever dream.

As the name suggests, and according to their website, their Kombucha Soda has bubbles added after fermentation.

Counter Culture Kombucha Soda comes with five flavours: mango + ginger, rhubarb + hibiscus, raspberry + elderflower, citrus yuzu, and lemongrass + ginger.

HIP POP Kombucha

The flat art style fruits seem to be dancing on the package front, celebrating the claim of using real fruit. HIP POP has an emphasis on health benefits, but it refuses to make the drink look like a prescription.

HIP POP provides four flavours in its kombucha range: ginger & yuzu, apple & elderflower, blueberry & ginger, and strawberry & pineapple.

It also has a CBD kombucha collection, with 15mg CBD added in each can. The flavour options are passionfruit & guava, and cherry & blackberry.

The gut health obsessive

“Surely kombucha is a health drink, right? Or you can go check Waitrose’s categorization.”

As a gut health obsessive, you see kombucha as a functional drink. You’re here all for the live cultures, the prebiotics, and other gut benefits. Kombucha sits amongst the gut-friendly food checklist, and stocking it in the fridge makes you feel secure. A glass of kombucha is a nice pairing with the whole-grain bowl with leafy greens, sauerkraut/kimchi, tempeh, and a miso dressing.

A clean ingredient list isn’t a pleasant surprise, but a “duh-you-don’t-need-to-ask”. Are there live cultures? Are artificial additives non-existent? Are there tons of asterisks marking organic ingredients? Check, check, check.

Taste is never a concern - a gut health obsessive has a strongly adaptable palate. Kombucha is hard to taste bad anyway, and if it’s delicious, bonus!

If this is your world, these brands will speak your language:

Equinox Kombucha

If you care about organic and raw ingredients, vegan and gluten-free, gut-friendly, and other functional benefits, well, Equinox has checked all these boxes on its product page.

It has a wide range of flavours to choose from, and some of the lesser-known ingredients (like rosehip and honeybush) seem like a hint of the deliberation of the flavours.

It offers eleven(!) flavours: ginger, raspberry & elderflower, pink grapefruit & guava, Sicilian lemon, wild berry, Sicilian orange & yuzu, original(tea), white peach & strawberry, pineapple & mango, cola & lime, and turmeric, lemon & ginger.

HOLOS Organic Kombucha and Organic Sparkling Tea

Another organic brand whose visual design is closer to coffee/tea rather than soft drinks, and fits better in a health food shop. You can get a kombucha brewing kit from them to start your own fermentation at home.

HOLOS has an interesting category called sparking tea, which it describes as a fizzy tea soft drink containing kombucha.

In its kombucha range, HOLOS offers four flavours: raspberry & elderflower, citra hops, basil & mint, and ginger & hibiscus.

Its sparkling tea range includes jasmine hops, cucumber mint, and rooibos ginger.

You + I Kombucha

The dark amber Boston round-ish bottles are similar to HOLOS’s (can we see the pattern now?), with delicate single coloured line art illustration. It’s really trying to make you feel like you’re drinking something GOOD for you.

The website not only notes that its kombucha is raw and organic, but also gives you consumption tips like how much you should drink (start from 100-150ml, then move to a typical serving of 330ml). I suppose you won’t find this kind of instruction for soda.

You + I gives you five flavours: original, lime sea salt, lemon lavender, ginger, and black cherry.

The craft connoisseur

You drink kombucha the way others drink natural wine or a fine loose-leaf tea. You won’t be satisfied just by how the drink manifests itself in the glass; you need to know how it got there, and you want the packaging to feel premium (glass bottle over metal can).

The fermentation process is, to you, something close to sacred. It brings the funk, the depth, and the terroir-adjacent weirdness. You don’t just know kombucha is fermented, but also know exactly how, from the essential ingredient tea, to the rubbery, pancake-like SCOBY - a bustling colony of bacteria and yeast. (Maybe you keep a slab of SCOBY at home!) So naturally, you are partial to those makers who know and care about what they are doing.

Kombucha is something you want to take to a picnic with your best friends, or a dinner party with a food pairing plan in mind. And you (and hopefully your friends as well) taste kombucha with intention: the dark, fruity Darjeeling goes well with cheese, and the ethereal Sencha is the best for a spring picnic, and if you want something bolder, you pick the Oak Lore.

What sets you apart from someone else who likes the taste of kombucha is that you find it palatable, yes, but also interesting.

A craft connoisseur sees kombucha as a completely different category from soft drinks, so as these brands:

Old Tree Brewery Kombucha

The intricate botanical illustrations on the glass bottle make Old Tree Brewery’s kombucha meant to be placed in a farm market in the English countryside. You know it’s small-batch and handcrafted when you see the warning that the products change with seasons and often have limited stock. In fact, even the bottling, capping, and labeling are done manually.

On its website, it mentions that the carbonating happens after bottling, not unlike some sparkling wines.

At the time of writing this article, it offers three flavours: oak lore, foragers garden, and ancient futures.

(If you can’t tell what these flavours are, worry not, I can’t either. Click the names and check them out on their pages.)

L.A Brewery Sparkling Non-Alcoholic

The bottles look like those for wine, the name doesn’t suggest kombucha, and the suggestion on the website reads: “Aperitifs ∙ Paired with food ∙ Gifts & celebrations ∙ As a mixer for cocktails”.

A careful examination of the product page finally proves that it is kombucha. But apparently that’s not the point for L.A Brewery. What it wants to bring to you is an experience that rivals wine-drinking.

Its beautiful bottles come with two options: sparkling non-alcoholic white rose and sparkling non-alcoholic English blush. The cans give you two more flavours: citrus hops and ginger.

Left Field Kombucha

Among the many brands, Left Field is one of those that really emphasises tea. While all kombuchas are made with tea, Left Field has a separate range that makes tea the star.

If you want to experience the distinct tastes of teas, its kombucha tea range gives you four varieties: Yunnan black, sencha green, oolong, and Darjeeling. The descriptions for these teas are quite accurate and helpful.

It also has four other flavours presented in cans: rose & elderflower, ginger, Sicilian lemon & mint, and sea salt & hops.

The disciplined substitute-er

You don’t really care about kombucha specifically, but you care about what it isn’t. It’s not alcohol, not sugar, not empty.

You stumbled upon kombucha in the drink aisle and discovered, almost by accident, that it ticked most of your boxes. It’s (mostly) non-alcoholic, it contains low sugar, low calories, usually not much nasty stuff, and usually many good keywords. Although you are not seeking health benefits, kombucha seems like a good substitute for whatever drinks you are concerned about (alcohol, sugary soda, caffeine, milkshake, bla-bla-bla). You gave it a try and quite liked it. And now you’re happy to have a benign option for the occasion you want some flavoured water.

As for which brand? You probably have found a few that have a high overall rating and have decided to stick to them. Kombucha is a solved problem. No further exploration required.

For you, the disciplined substitute-er, I believe you know how to read the ingredient list/product description to spot the substitute for your specific requirements. If I am going to bring up one thing, that would be…

Not all kombucha is non-alcoholic

Technically, all kombucha is a little boozy, because fermentation produces ethanol (same as in bread). But most of the kombucha products contain less then 0.5% alcohol, hence are put under NA drinks.

But there’s hard kombucha, which usually contains 4%–8% alcohol. Its making process differs from that of standard kombucha in a few ways: it’s fermented for longer; it uses brewers’ or Champagne yeast in addition to SCOBY; it uses a secondary anaerobic (oxygen-free) fermentation.

So, worth checking the ABV if alcohol content matters to you

If you are here for the boozy kombucha, here are some options:

Stiff Tea Brewing Company

It is a rather new brand dedicated to hard kombucha and doesn’t have an online shop yet. They say they are already stocked in some venues across the UK. Go check if you’re lucky enough to find one.

The full range is not on show, but a peek through the photos suggests mango & guava, citra & mosaic, raspberry & lemon, and the very intriguing pickle juice.

Worth keeping an eye on.

Better Sundays

This brand is simple and straightforward: an alcoholic kombucha made for better Sundays, as it says.

There are two flavours: ginger & yuzu and pomegranate & hibiscus.

BUCÏ

Inspired by the hard kombucha bars in California, BUCÏ wants to bring the same feeling to the UK. The simplistic yet stylish design is meant to look good on your table and your hand.

Three flavours are available: ginger & lemon, pear & elderflower, and wild berries.

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What I joke about, though, is that I always tell people that there’s some percentage of soy sauce in my blood. Which is to say that I eat a lot of soy sauce, love it, and have a firm opinion on it.

I must attribute this to the Cantonese cuisine I grew up eating. Soy sauce is the indispensable foundation in East Asian cooking, but for Cantonese, it carries more weight. It can be the leading star in a centrepiece, as in soy sauce chicken (See Yao Gai); it can be the only and universal condiment for any greens (lettuce, choy sim, and Chinese broccoli are classics); and it can be the magic touch to make any unexciting plain carb dizzyingly addictive.

Talking about carbs, I have to introduce what I call the “carb test” as we move to how to taste soy sauce.

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To taste soy sauce (and therefore find out if you like it), dabbing a droplet on the tongue straight may be the most obvious approach, and we will cover that in a second. But my favourite way is actually to eat it with some unseasoned carb, or more specifically, noodles or white rice.

Soy sauce is so concentrated that, when tasted alone, it may confuse the palate before you can capture the nuances. And since we always use soy sauce with other foods, the test should reflect that context.

Well, it sounds well-considered, but the “carb test” actually came from the easiest meal I could put together to tame my hunger at the age of nine. I cooked some white wheat noodles (similar to somen) in boiling water for three minutes, then transferred them to a bowl. I then drizzled some peanut oil on them as quickly as I could, and used chopsticks to mix and loosen the noodles. Finally, I poured soy sauce on top, two circles, before giving it the final stir and flip. The soy sauce dyed the noodles a deep amber. The beauty of this combo is that the mild taste from the wheat softens the salinity in the soy sauce, and brings out the sweetness, making the flavour balanced and rounded. And the starchy noodles give the umami and other more nuanced notes somewhere to land, so they linger on your palate longer.

It was simple enough to feel comforting, yet complex enough to keep you coming back to savour it.

Those soy sauce noodles made me start seeing soy sauce as a magical substance, because I was well aware that I couldn’t cook, yet so impressed by how satisfying my “cooking” was.

Another all-time comfort meal is soy sauce and white rice. Use quality short-grain rice, and you don’t even need any oil. Top it with some fried/scrambled eggs to make it more substantial. For an equally simple but more luxurious experience, pile the soy sauce rice with Katsuobushi, and eat with wasabi - people, it is a treat that I sometimes dream of.

Although I say that the carb test is my ideal way to taste a soy sauce because it reflects the realistic consumption context (i.e., you always eat soy sauce in other foods), I do agree that sometimes tasting the soy sauce alone is necessary to understand the purest version of this condiment.

Pour a teaspoon of soy sauce, but start with a tiny dab on your tongue - soy sauce is strong, you will want to ease your palate into the soy sauce gradually. Once you’ve had a taste of it, try a bigger sip.

These are what you want to pay attention to to understand the soy sauce.

First, the saltiness. Is it pungent and straightforward? Or is it reserved and gentle? You can use the salt content on the label to gauge the saltiness, but trying it straight is always more relevant because the other flavours can affect your sensation of saltiness. Btw, the “dark” and “light” you see on the package are not reliable indicators: they mean different things in different contexts. Generally, for Chinese soy sauce, dark is saltier than the light one; Japanese soy sauce, light is saltier.

Second, the sweetness. Some soy sauces have added sugar, which I almost never buy (not because I am a snob, but I simply consider them another category, like seasoned soy sauce or something). But even those who don’t have some degree of sweet taste. I love the natural sweetness in soy sauce, as it adds complexity and balance.

Third, the other subtler notes. These are what give the soy sauce its distinct personality. There are not many agreed-upon terms to describe soy sauce (unlike wine or coffee), but these are the notes I notice most often:
Malty fermented note: it tastes yeasty and reminiscent of toasted sourdough;
Wine-like fruity note: it’s bright, mellow, and faintly vinous (although there’s no real alcohol);
Oceanic mineral note: it gives you seaweed or even fishy quality like Tuna Akami (the lean red meat).

These don’t cover every note you might find in soy sauce, but they give you a guide to start, and show that soy sauce can be as interesting as wine!

Okay, different soy sauces come with different tastes, but how you use them can add another layer of variation.

Cooking shifts the taste of soy sauce noticeably, and I like to use this property as a tool. For stir-fry, where the heat is high, I pour the soy right onto a hot spot of the pan, so it rapidly caramelizes and the water evaporates, creating vigorous bubbles. The caramelization enhances the toasty note (think any roasted, charred food), and helps you get the iconic “wok hey”.

Long-braising will make soy sauce taste more hefty and savoury, and the fermented note more profound. Think of a slow-cooked beef Guinness stew.

If the cooking is milder (less heat and shorter cooking time), the change in flavour will be milder, too.

Here’s a thing I learned from practice that I don’t hear people talk about much: you can’t alter the cooking stage of soy sauce and expect the same result. In stir-fry, if you add the soy at the end of cooking, the flavour doesn’t come out the same way: it feels disconnected, like cutting a photo of yourself in your bedroom and pasting it onto an image of the Colosseum. Sometimes you need to cook the soy enough to evoke certain effects; sometimes you want to preserve most of the original taste.

Or all of it, so you don’t even cook it.

In no-cook applications like dressing, dip, or the carb test, the characteristics of the soy sauce are best preserved (as you can imagine). This is when you can taste the “raw” soy sauce, and it’s also where you want to be pickier on your choice. Choose a high-quality soy sauce that tastes good, of course, and you also need to consider how it pairs with other foods. Some restaurants have meticulous consideration of the choice of soy sauce for dishes like sushi, noodles, and claypot rice - not necessarily because these are fancy restaurants, but because soy sauce is THAT important in these dishes.

Restaurants have good reasons to source the best soy sauce even when it costs more money, time, and effort. But as home cooks, do we really need to splurge on soy sauce?

Personally, yes, I splurge on soy sauce, but very occasionally. And I buy expensive soy sauce not because it’s better, but because I want diversity and novelty.

Premium soy sauces are expensive because of the ingredients (high-quality whole soybeans), the traditional process (slow fermentation), and artisanal craftsmanship (small-batch, manual labour). I absolutely respect all this, and have tried a few that really impressed. But I still reach for the affordable mid-tier options the most.

I save the expensive soy sauce for no-cook applications or very specific dishes where soy sauce is the star. I find that cooking can produce delicious results, but it kills the subtlety and nuance that set specialty soy sauce apart. And subtlety and nuance are what set specialty soy sauce apart.

Also, I think “good soy sauce” is a vague term. Good for what? A terrific soy sauce for ramen may not work well for dipping dumplings. And there is a watershed separating soy sauces that taste good from those that don’t. In the “taste good” crowd, I think there isn’t a clear ranking anymore: all good soy sauce, but all different. Different flavour profiles, different best applications.

I know what my trusted buddy soy sauce is, and I use it all the time. But I still like to explore new soy sauce, usually it’s a pricier one. As I said, for diversity and novelty.

So this is my philosophy on buying soy sauce, as someone who takes this component as a part of her identity:

Instead of buying the most expensive ones, keep trying new ones. Spend the money on heterogeneity rather than prestige.

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But it was not in a competition; rather, it was around a family dinner table. Dishes were coming out of the kitchen, drinks were being passed around, and conversation was easy. Only Ryan, quietly watching the jar make its way around the table, felt the tension of someone waiting to find out if months of work had been worth it.

The criteria were simple yet crucial: Does this taste good? And does it truly represent the Taiwanese flavour?

The second question was of decisive importance. Ryan had spent months developing these sauces, making small, considered adjustments along the way. But it has to pass this test to be deemed successful. Now his family - parents, grandma, and aunties, all experienced Taiwanese home cooks - were trying them for the first time.

The verdict came back positive. The taste was right.

Whew. Ryan felt relieved. “My parents don’t give praise just to cheer me up,” Ryan said, “So their approval meant a lot.”

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A few years earlier, Ryan had moved to London. In a city as diverse as this one, it’s not hard to find food from around the world, and by then the Asian food scene was well-established: Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Cantonese, and Korean. And yes, there were Taiwanese options, quite trendy actually, boba tea and popcorn chicken had both found their moment. But what was missing was the less visible side of the cuisine: those humble but essential elements that form the foundation of how people cook and eat in Taiwan every day.

With this part missing, London was reading the incomplete picture of Taiwanese food. And for those who love food, how could they sit still, seeing people missing something delicious? Ryan decided to close the gap, and the first two products were created: the scallion & crispy shallot oil and the crispy shallot & garlic oil.

But why those two? Why scallion, shallot, and garlic, in the form of an infused oil?

After hearing Ryan explain the thinking, the answer felt obvious: this combination condensed the flavour backbone of Taiwanese cooking in the most versatile and accessible form.

The inspiration for the scallion and shallot oil came from a specific dish: a traditional Taiwanese oven-roasted chicken, cooked in a large clay pot and served with a fat-based sauce built around alliums: scallion oil, garlic dripping, for example. (Find out more about this dish here and here. They look stunning.) The aromatics are what give it its identity. Roast chicken exists in dozens of cultures; it’s the specific alliums that make this one Taiwanese.

And scallion is not just in the roast chicken. It runs through the entire cuisine. It’s the star of scallion pancakes and scallion oil noodles, the topping in classic bakery rolls, and the quiet constant in lu rou fan (Taiwanese braised pork and rice), dumplings, stir-fries, and soups.

It gets sprinkled over rice, noodles, and congee as a finishing touch, so instinctive that it feels like a default. You can even find it in sweet foods. It is indeed ubiquitous. In Taiwanese cooking, scallion functions the way dashi does in Japanese cuisine or mirepoix in French, not a flavour in itself so much as the foundation everything else is built on.

Infused oil is the ideal way to deliver that. The aromatic compounds in alliums are highly fat-soluble, meaning oil carries them exceptionally well. The slow-frying process also draws out moisture, giving you something shelf-stable: a concentrated, ready-to-use flavour enhancer that works across almost any dish. It’s the format saying, “use me everywhere.”

(Worth noting: the chili oil, which might seem like the obvious first product given how popular chili crisp has become, was actually the last to launch. Ryan added it only when customers started asking for it. The brand was built around Taiwanese flavour rather than market trends, after all.)

When Ryan described the development process, two things surprised me.

The first was how long it took. Six months, for a product with six simple ingredients. Turned out, simple things are not easy to get right.

The choice of oil alone required extensive testing: olive oil and avocado oil both altered the flavour profile in ways Ryan didn’t want, while sunflower oil — the one used in Taiwanese home cooking — let the aromatics come through clearly. Getting the ratios right took further iteration. And the most critical variable was oil temperature: too high, and the aromatics burn; too low, and the flavour doesn’t properly extract, and only the right temperature yields the crispy texture. Even when all this reached the sweet spot, consistency across batches had to be maintained. The final jars feel approachably homemade, which is part of their appeal, but the process behind them is far more rigorous than that of home cooking.

The second surprise was the crispiness. It turned out to be an innovation rather than a tradition, as I assumed. Ryan explained this decision by revealing an insight that I never thought about. Consumers in the UK love textures in food, crispiness in particular. This started to make sense when he pointed it out: crackling, fried foods, croutons, crispy rice, bread crumbs, you name it. But in traditional Taiwanese cooking, the crispiness doesn’t receive this craze. So Ryan made a deliberate decision: keep the flavours authentic, but add a textural element calibrated to local palates.

It’s a subtle decision that most shoppers won’t notice. But it represents a real question that any founder bringing an immigrant food culture to a new market has to answer: where does adaptation end and compromise begin?

“Do you think it’s a compromise to add those unconventional crispy bits to a product that is set to be authentic?” I asked during the conversation with Ryan.

And you’ve seen the answer. The answer came from the family dinner table in Taiwan. The flavours were approved. The crispy bits were appreciated as a pleasant addition. The balance, in the end, held.

In this case, authenticity matters, and it matters not because it’s a synonym for quality, but because it carries the true message.

I asked Ryan how he uses his own products. He offered three answers.

The lazy version: scoop some steamed rice into a bowl, stir through the spring onion oil, and eat alongside whatever leftovers are in the fridge.

For something more considered: roast potatoes, finished with the infused oil and a little Parmesan. “I’ve made it a couple of times,” he said. “I’m very happy with it.”

Steak Dressing: Mix the infused oil with soy sauce, sesame seeds, and a touch of sugar to balance the savouriness, then pour it over the steak.

And for a proper occasion: a steak dressing. Infused oil, soy sauce, sesame seeds, and a small amount of sugar to balance the savouriness. Poured over the meat just before serving.

All three sound very good. The potatoes are added to my dinner list.

A huge thank you to Ryan for sharing his story. You can find his infused oils at YENRYANCOOKS.

I’m sure that my face lit up immediately, and my eyes finally opened fully.

“What is this jam?” I took another bite, this time more intentionally and fully awake, trying to understand what I just tasted. It was undoubtedly strawberry, but it was complex: bright and juicy at the beginning, then it became buttery and caramel-y, and ended with a faint hint of grassiness; all burst out from those plump pieces of berries.

It was the sunlight that I desperately needed that morning.

After savouring the strawberry-blessed toast, I pulled out the jar again and read through the lable, attentively this time. It turned out to be the one I bought from a small bakery along with some sourdough loaves. It was so handmade that you couldn’t even find much information, but there was one important piece: Amaou Strawberry.

Amaou (full name: Hakata Amaou or 博多あまおうは in Japanese) is a famed strawberry variety from Kyushu, Japan. Its iconic features are its remarkable size, plump, rounded shape, and rich, balanced sour-sweet flavour. (Fun fact, Amaou is certified by the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s heaviest strawberry.)

Well, the endorsement sounded impressive, but what really lingered in mind was the taste. I ate the rest of the jar in a week, in a paradox of craving it and holding back: it was so good that I didn’t want to miss the freshness, but I didn’t want to empty it too quickly. What made this jam even more magical is the residue in the emptied jar: although thoroughly rinsed and dried, the candied fruitiness and faint grassiness remained; every time I opened the jar, I felt like I was in a strawberry field at the peak season, where the air became nectarous.

This was a revolutionary experience. Jams are nothing novel to me, but I’ve never appreciated them much. For me, they were nice accompaniments to toast or yoghurt, but not memorable. This strawberry jam was special, not because it made me compliment “this was delicious”, but come to realize that “I didn’t know jam could do this!?”

Only then did I remember to text the bakery and make another order. Turned out, it’s a seasonal special with an extremely short window, only a few weeks during late winter and early spring. “When will you bring it back?” “Well, we don’t know. Whenever the strawberries look good next year.”

I have never had their Amaou strawberry jam again, and nothing close to that, as I moved to the UK, where Amaou is not accessible.

But what that Amaou jam has given to me is profound. As a perennial supermarket jam consumer, I started to question my understanding of jam to date. What I’ve been eating for these years, and what I’ve been missing in the jam universe?

Mass-produced jam, which we can easily get from supermarkets, is made for consistency, shelf life, mass palatability, and, of course, margin. None of these is bad, but they decided what the product ends up tasting like. Fruit is the biggest factor. To ensure the high-volume, standardised production all year round, the manufacturers often need to rely on frozen, concentrated, or generally more economic fruits, in exchange for the distinctive aroma, colour, and flavour complexity. Mass palatability shouldn’t be ignored either. To make more sales, the mass-produced brands need to appeal to as many people as possible, so the middle ground becomes the safe choice: sweet enough, familiar flavours, consistency that’s easy to spread, etc. That’s why even the supposedly higher-end mass brands have a hard time surprising one with an outstanding flavour: they are not built for the first place.

I’m by no means against mass-produced jam. In fact, I buy them regularly for the exact characters mentioned (consistency, long shelf-life, crowd-pleasing). The problem is not that mass-produced jam is bad; the problem is that my expectations of jam were fixed to the mass-produced variety: the unexciting predictability. The standard is set, so is the ceiling.

The Amaou jam broke the ceiling, and that’s why it’s so special for me. Not that it’s the best jam in the world, but it’s an enlightenment telling me there’s an entirely different jam universe outside of the supermarket shelves.

Apart from the mass-produced jam, there is the handmade, small-batch (not this Small Batch), artisan jam. The artisan jam pursues different goals than the mass counterpart: it centres on flavour, and oftentimes, personality.

Flavour as the key is deeper than it sounds. “Taste good” is not enough; the ambition is “taste as good as it possibly can”, the endless quest for betterment. “The Amaou jam was only sold for a few weeks, because that was when the strawberries were at their peak,” I was told by the maker from the bakery, “outside the peak season, we could still get the berries, but the jam just didn’t taste as magical. And if it wasn’t something memorable to our customers, we’d rather not sell it. At the end of the day, we started to sell it because the flavour was SO good.”

Seasonality is not something people usually associate with jam, a product designed for long storage. But what’s ignored is that the key ingredients - the fruits - are usually highly seasonal. And the off-season ones can taste so bland that you’d rather not eat them. Frozen fruits, concentrate, and mixing varieties help with consistency at the cost of seasonality, and consequently, the flavour. Another thing people don’t associate with jam is the best quality fruit. Not saying that fruits used in jam are bad, but most of the time, the best ones are for eating, while those slightly damaged, overripe, or underripe ones are for jam-making. But if you want the best-tasting jam, splurging on the ingredients seems necessary. Some makers have very specific standards for the fruit they choose, and they work hard to build relationships with farmers to secure the high-quality supplies.

What I find charming about artisan jam is the personality. Because the jam is usually made by a few makers (sometimes just one), the makers’ thinking and decisions are more tangible in their crafts. How they cut the fruits is an example: some prefer the chunky, textural type, so they dice or slice the fruit; some prefer the jam to be more luxuriously smooth, hence mince or grate the fruit. A playful maker may even add some star-shaped peel in the jam (or marmalade).

And it becomes really fun when the makers play creatively - I’m talking about the flavour combos. Mass brands use fruit blends, too, but mostly classics, like strawberry with rhubarb, mixed berries, or pineapple with passionfruit. They can be great, but not exciting. The artisan makers, however, can be wild. Herbs and spices can add a layer of savouriness, and flowers and teas tend to leave an elegant impression. When asked if they will be worried that some flavours (think black pepper or shiso) may be too novel for the customers, a maker told me: “We sell it because we think it’s delicious, and we believe there will be people with the same taste.” He continued with a smile, as if it was a happy surprise: “And people are more adventurous than we’ve thought.” These bold flavours are not made for everyone, and this is precisely the reason why they are so captivating.

By now, if you start to question if your taste in jam is shaped by the supermarket brands, and start wanting some different jam that may give you the equivalent of my “Amaou moment”, I’d be more than happy. (Yes, mission completed!)

While I’m not going to give you a list of artisan jams as a recommendation, I will share some tips that helped me find great jams. And among the suggestions below, I found an overarching question to think about: how much the maker knows about the jam. You’ll see what I mean. But let’s first talk about where to look.

The many great jams are hidden jams; they are not yelling for attention, rather, they may sit quietly in a local cafe, deli, bakery, and, unsurprisingly, farm market. To be frank, I didn’t conceive these as destinations to jam haunting, and who knows how many great jams I’ve missed. With the help of the internet, you can even shop from a non-local cafe, deli, bakery, or farm market. Also, there are many indie or specialty marketplaces where you can find many artisan jam brands dedicated to high-quality and novel jams.

What to look for is the next step. You want the jam to be made with good fruits, so look for specific descriptions like the variety, condition (is it fresh?), and provenance. The ingredient list should be so simple that there’s not much to look for. Apart from the fruits, sugar is the next main ingredient, and the amount matters: more sugar means less fruit, although a certain percentage of sugar is necessary for both flavour and consistency. I will opt for 40% or lower sugar because I like a more intense fruit flavour and a looser texture, but that may not be what you prefer, so follow your taste. Then what else? You may see a few other ingredients; some are benign additives like pectin and acids like lemon juice, which are also common in homemade jams. But I will avoid additives that wouldn’t appear in a home kitchen.

All this leads to another question: how much does the maker know about the jam? Do they know where the ingredients come from? Why use X amount of sugar? How long to cook for? And how much information can you get? It’s not to test their expertise, but to see the intention and attention that they put into the jam. And the best way to get this information is to ask the maker, which works best for local shops. We aren’t always so lucky to talk to the makers (they may be busy stirring the jam!), but if they give customers those very specific facts, either on the package or on the website, I tend to trust them more.

All this has been said, I’m not a jam snob. Now, I still grab a jar of jam from supermarkets occasionally, and I’m not telling you to stand against the mass-produced jams. But when I walk past Bonne Maman and Tiptree, I have that gentle excitement knowing there is a vast jam universe to explore.

Fun fact: I once (or maybe twice) thought about starting a nut butter brand myself, using all the nuts and seeds and creating the most sophisticated flavours, like Opéra-inspired nut butter, featuring layers of coffee-infused cashew butter and cocoa almond butter.

Will that ever be made? We don’t know. But one thing I can be sure of is that I am quite a nut butter connoisseur now. According to a not-so-rigorous calculation, I have consumed around 22 jars of nut butter a year for the last 2-3 years. And at any given moment, I will have at least 4 different types of nut butter sitting in my pantry (at least 1 jar in my suitcase if travelling).

All this is to show you that I’m pretty confident to be your guide on nut butter.

Before we dive into the nut butter selection guide, let’s address the premise: why nut butter? Why do I care (and so should you)?

I phrase the beauty of nut butter as this: it’s the delightful overlap between healthy functionality and craveable indulgence.

Generally, nuts, seeds, and legumes are considered health food without many pitfalls (unless you’re allergic to them). Eating them straight, however, feels unadorned — nothing wrong with that, but it doesn’t work for every occasion. Turned into a spread and packaged in a glass jar, they are transformed into something more refined, premium, and giftable.

And they are versatile. Apart from spreading them on toast, you can use them in baking/cooking, making drinks, and as a condiment. (I included some of my favourite uses later in the article.)

So, as a true nut butter proponent, I am going to share with you some decision-making essentials when buying nut butters.

What makes each nut butter different?

The nuts/seeds

It goes without saying that these key ingredients (sometimes the only ingredient) make the biggest difference. Each nut/seed brings its unique tone, but some share a similar characteristic, so I’ve grouped them as follows:

Almond, sunflower seed, and pistachio are neutral. They give you that nutty, rich sensation while the taste and scent are subtle.

Cashew is noticeably sweet and creamy. I even find it has a touch of white chocolate.

Hazelnut and peanut have distinct flavour profiles that are unmistakably theirs. Their scent lingers in your nasal cavity long after they disappear from your tongue.

Sesame (in tahini), pumpkin seed, and hemp seed lean to the savoury side. Pumpkin seed is my favorite. Paired with vegetables, it gives an almost meaty richness. I bought the hemp seed butter for nutritional diversity, but the taste wasn’t my favourite: it’s grassy, heavy, and kinda…fishy??

Walnut and pecan are oilier due to their higher fat content. They’re also more drippy, better for drizzling on yogurt than spreading on toast.

There are some other nuts I haven’t tried, but would love to soon, including: macadamia, Brazil nut, and pine nut.

You can also find mixed nut/seed butters, a great way to diversify your nutrient intake, and their flavours are usually more mellowed.

The grind

Many brands describe the grind in a less technical and more sensory way, like “creamy” and “smooth”. But a few expressly indicate their products are “stone ground.” This is a traditional method using stones or granite wheels that roll slowly to crush nuts. The result is a silky smooth texture since the nuts can be broken down to 15-20 microns. The slow grinding also keeps the temperature low, better preserving the flavours, colours, and nutrients.

Picture source

However, it doesn’t mean that if a product doesn’t specify stone-ground is grainy. Similarly, not all claimed smooth nut butters are equally smooth; some are slightly granier than others. Undoubtedly, though, they are distinct from the crunchy ones, where you get to actually bite into the nut pieces. Oh, and the crunchy nut butters are not simply less finely ground. They are made of 80-90% smooth nut butter and 10-20% nut chunks. It sounds so obvious, but I actually didn’t think about this until 3 years ago.

Personally, I go for smooth 9 times out of 10 - I just find it more versatile. And I don’t mind some graininess as long as it doesn’t get stuck in my teeth. In fact, those extremely smooth and homogeneous nut butters are less delightful (looking at you, Skippy) because they tend to be too sticky and lack that oozing moment. Skippy tastes different from the other natural PBs, and the ingredient list gives a hint.

The functional ingredients

I chose the “functional ingredients” over “additives” since the latter may make you think of the E numbers, which are not what I mean here. While most of the nut butters, especially the “natural” ones, only contain nuts/seeds, some will have oil, salt, and/or sugar added. Take Skippy, it’s made up of 91% peanuts, and the rest are sugar, rapeseed oil, cottonseed oil, and salt.

Salt is not there to make nut butters taste salty, but to enhance flavour. It’s the same reason bakers add salt to cookies and cakes. Sugar adds a touch of sweetness and sometimes caramelized flavour. And oil is mainly used to lower viscosity for easier spreading, prevent oil separation, and ensure a stable, homogeneous texture.

Functional ingredients are used to adjust certain properties of the products rather than to create a new flavour. I have zero issue with natural functional ingredients, but taste-wise, I still adhere to purity.

The roast

The roasting happens before grinding. Generally, there are three roast levels in the nut butter world: roast, deep roast (sometimes dark roast), and raw.

Roasting changes the flavour. Heat triggers the Maillard reaction, creating toasty, nutty, caramel-like notes from proteins and sugars in nuts. Deep/dark roast intensifies these flavours. Raw nuts taste milder and earthier. Roasted nuts lose moisture and become brittle and crunchy. You may not taste the textural difference when they are ground into butter, but roasted nuts are easier to break down.

On nutrition, raw keeps more vitamin E and some B vitamins, as heat degrades them slightly. Roasting boosts certain antioxidants (like p-coumaric acid). I don’t think the nutrient difference is significant enough to affect my choice; flavour plays a more important part. If you ask for my advice, buy both.

The add-ins

Now we are on to the fun part. We talked about the functional ingredients, but those are for enhancement and don’t give the products new identities. But add-ins are different; they focus on flavour, texture, and functionality (on you, not on the nut butters!). I swear there are notably more fun flavoured nut butters coming out in recent years. Flower, tea, coffee, chilli pepper, vegetables, spice, and bacon(!?) Some add-ins bring textures as well. I said I prefer smooth nut butters, but I’ve been loving this super seeded nut butter.

A note on praline. When referring to the spread instead of the candy, praline is made from grinding nuts and caramelized sugar. It is a common component in confectionery and pastries. Is it nut butter? Or is it a sweet spread? Either way, you can see it as a nut butter sweetened with caramel.

I’ve heard quite a few makers behind these creative nut butters say that they created the products because they found the existing products boring. I agree, and I love their actions of creativity.

There’s no rule or advice in terms of add-ins. Go for whatever grabs your attention.

By now, I hope you get a clearer idea of which nut butters to buy. If you’re like me - lack self-control and tend to buy too many - worry not, here are some ways I love to use nut butters.

• Top it onto toasts, yoghurt bowl, or porridge.

• Make salad dressings/sauces.

• Use in cooking, such as in stews.

• Replace butter/mayo for sandwiches.

• Use in baking, such as these brownies.

• Eat a spoonful straight.

Lastly, I want to share a few brands I find interesting.

(These are not recommendations. These are brands I am interested in trying in the future.)

For unusally nuts&seeds: Sun&Seeds (tried there hampseed butter and white almond butter; the apricot kernel one is intriguing); Nutural World (thinking about pine nut butter); and Carley’s (brazil nut and tiger nut)

For fun flavours: Butter Bike Co, Mothernutter, Nutty Belly Gal, ButterNut Of London

For mixed nuts: Nut Blend (tried their cacao, cashew & almond butter, love the cacao nibs)

Although no one has created the Opéra-inspired nut butter, I am pretty happy with all these options available in the market. And I don’t really have that motivation to invest a stone grind to make my own, at least before I tried every delicious-looking nut butter.

But I still think the idea of layering different nut butters into one jar is a great idea…Maybe we will see a product like that soon?

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M&S launched its Only... Ingredients in 2025 and expanded the range at the beginning of 2026. The early products include Only 9 Ingredients White Rolls and Only 3 Ingredients Bran Flakes. Now it covers condiments, fresh food, snacks, and canned food. The package design is consistent: a flat, solid color background, the product name, the “only…ingredient(s)”, and a list of ingredients with precise weights for each.

M&S is not alone. RXBAR takes a similar approach. There’s no picture of the product, not even a graphic to help you imagine what the stuff inside the box may look like, just a list of ingredients.

Whatever’s take looks bolder: it puts the actual nutrition label on the front, making me think I got the package back to front. (I had to double-check to make sure I am looking at the right side.)

Is it that the brands want to cut corners on design? Well, maybe it indeed saved some time for graphic design and photography, but the outcomes work well. Firstly, it is eye-catching because it is unconventional and simplistic. The nutritional label on the front makes you think, “Did they display the product wrong?”, and M&S’s 1-ingredient cornflake looks a bit stark.

Second, the information is simple, easy to digest, and more memorable. This minimalist way of communication also echoes the key information these brands try to convey: ingredient minimalism.

This is a new trend within the clean label movement, and it’s not only a design style or a new buzzword, but it is also a signal for how the clean label, healthy food category has evolved and where the customer demand is going.

Before we dive in, let’s briefly recap the history of the clean label movement.

Clean label started as a reaction to E-numbers and artificial additives in the seventies and eighties, then expanded through the nineties and 2000s to encompass Non-GMO and organic certification. By the early 2010s, the term had gone mainstream, with major corporations like Nestlé and Hershey’s stripping artificial colours and flavours to keep pace with consumer demand.

Then, new changes emerged, and that’s why we see these brands printing ingredient lists on the front of the package.

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The message shifts from “Removal” to “Reassurance.”

The biggest change in the clean label category is that the message has shifted from “NO xyz” to “ONLY xyz”.

You definitely have seen claims like “no artificial sweeteners” or “no preservatives.” While “NO artificial flavorings” and “ONLY 5 ingredients” look like the same strategy initially, they encode completely different relationships to the consumer. One is defensive, one is confident. The “NO” message is telling you what the brand is against: the nasty stuff, the industry’s sins. For it to work, brands first have to know what the taboos are, what scares the customers away, and then position themselves against those things. But there are some conundrums: consumers are more concerned about the food than ever, and it’s gonna be futile to list everything they want to avoid (bye, emulsifiers; bye, seed oils; bye, nitrites). And merely removing unwanted ingredients is no longer proof of better quality: the clean label has crossed a threshold; the clean label claim is no longer rare enough to mean anything on its own. A customer may think: “Okay, you tell me that you got rid of xyz, but how do I know you’re not hiding something else?”

On the other hand, “ONLY” sounds more confident. Everything is clear; nothing to hide. The transparency becomes much wanted. The proof of a great product can be as simple as great ingredients. But simple doesn’t mean easy; it actually implies a higher standard of the quality and sourcing of the ingredients. A sign of this is the increasing number of adjectives added in front of the ingredients. Grass-fed, stone-milled, single-origin. The ingredient becomes the story, replacing atmospheric photography and carefully worded tasting notes. Brands don’t want to convince you how tasty or beautiful the products are; they just want to let you know what’s inside, immediately.

Apart from transparency, functional density also gains importance. This doesn’t apply to all the clean-label food, but it is often found in health-focused products. It’s not enough to have a short list of clean ingredients; they now need to do something. Protein content, brain power, and gut health, these are the implicated merits of certain ingredients. “NO” tells you what you will avoid; “ONLY” tells you what you get.

Of course, not every brand makes a clean leap. There is room to sit in between the two positions. Like this LÄRABAR bar, which highlights only 3 ingredients, but also notes that there’s no added sugar.

I think the choice between “ONLY” and “NO” reveals where a brand sits on the confidence curve. Choosing “ONLY” as the main or sole message shows higher confidence.

But a shift in brand language only sticks if it’s meeting something real. The move from “NO” to “ONLY” didn’t happen because copywriters picked up a new style; it happened because shoppers changed. And the change runs deeper than health consciousness.

People are reading the ingredients

I am one of those finicky shoppers who constantly grab something from the shelf, flip the package, pull it right in to their face (with the occasional need to flatten the metallized plastic film, making a lot of noise), and read the ingredient list. And I am glad that I am getting friends: shoppers are reading ingredient lists more cautiously now. Shoppers check the ingredient lists to find out the answer to “What is actually in it, and should I trust it?”

The trend is driven by the rising health consciousness, yes, but it’s also driven by the more accessible knowledge, the awareness of UPFs (Ultra-Processed Foods), and the trust deficit with food manufacturing in general. People are getting better educated about healthy diets, but unfortunately, that only makes us realize there are more products we should avoid in the modern food scene. By highlighting the short and clean ingredient lists, brands are trying to build trust: before they think about taste, price, or the effort of reading the back label, they’ve already been informed that this is a real clean-label product.

Consumers also appreciate minimal processing more, likely because of the anti-UPF movement. Simplicity can be a sign of trustworthiness and high quality. The best ingredients and craftsmanship can speak for themselves, so you shouldn’t need excessive additives to mask any shortcuts.

So at the moment, people believe in short ingredients, but will it last?

Where the demand is heading

People want short ingredients, but not for the sake of it. They want to be reassured, they want transparency, and when they find it hard to trust anyone and consistently feel overwhelmed by the information overflow, simplicity gives them something to grab on to. The demand for pure, high-quality, trustworthy food will last and grow, but it won’t always be satisfied by a short ingredient list. When the junk dominates the market, less is more, but eventually, the demand will evolve.

People will start to request more from those handful of ingredients. Each one needs to be high quality: wheat flour? That’s not enough anymore; it needs to be British heritage organic stone ground flour. Sustainability, minimal processing, nutrient density, and TASTE all matter for each ingredient. Less is more was the first demand. What’s coming next is challenging: fewer ingredients, but each one held to a higher standard.

So, as a buyer and curator, how do I see clean-label fitting into the OFF-HOUR Market shelves? I am a believer in short and clean labels; it’s always one of my priorities. But that’s just the bare minimum. What I will inspect is what are the origin of each ingredient. Do they make sense put together? How are they processed? How well do the brands know about the ingredients? Does the product still taste good with fewer ingredients?

The products that will be successful are not those with the fewest ingredients, but those that really understand each ingredient well enough to source the best quality and create a tasty product out of them. It doesn’t hurt if you have a rather long list of superior ingredients and taste top-notch. But I won’t buy into a 1-ingredient puffed grain that tastes like cardboard.

Marmite, however, is fearless. Its identity is to be polarizing, and it built the whole business on it. “Love it or hate it” is a marketing slogan, but it’s also an unwavering strategy. While the company’s product range has been extremely lean (includes: Marmite), the flavor, the brand, the thick and sticky dark sepia substance, has now turned into a flavor IP, deployed across snacks, spreads, dairy, and prepared foods.

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The Marmite Product Map

Marmite itself didn’t bring out many new products. All these innovations are results of partnerships with other companies. The crisps are brought out with Tayto Group, the UK’s largest privately-owned crisp and snack manufacturer, in 2024. This was just after Walkers discontinued its Marmite crisp variant at the end of 2023, which triggered a fan outcry on social media. Along with the crisps, there are also Cheese and Marmite Puffs and Marmite Tortillas, all created with Tayto. Some discontinued products are not included above, but Tesco used to hold Marmite flatbreads and Marmite houmous, and Waitrose had Marmite biscuits. Back to the COVID-19 era, M&S has launched Marmite butter and cream cheese (discontinued) with recipes and serving suggestions on their site. And in 2021, M&S even had Marmite hot cross buns (should have written it in my HXB report).

One exception is Marmite Truffle, the only variation on Marmite’s own website. Read the playful copy on the age, you can see it’s an elevated version made for the OG Marmite lovers, or as they put it, “finer taste into your daily routine.”

But this is clear: acquired by Unilever 25 years ago, Marmite has built a systematic licensing operation out of Unilever, run through a dedicated licensing function.

The Messages: what brands are telling

Who do the brands think will buy those Marmite-themed products? That is, who are their target, who are they trying to talk to?

The most obvious one is the loyalist: the folk already loves Marmite. I didn’t grow up with Marmite; the only thing I knew about before moving to the UK was “You either love it or hate it” (like what everyone knows about Marmite, I guess). My roommate, a Brit, on the other hand, will spread a thick layer of Marmite on a toasted crumpet and eat it as a snack. Watching him savor it, I vividly learned that there are people who genuinely love Marmite in its purest form. So it’s not hard to imagine that this group will want a bag of crisps or a slice of cracker that tastes like Marmite.

But they’re also conspiring to convert the dislikers. Or — I should put it in a friendly way — to make Marmite more accessible and loved by more people. “Marmite crisps are a firm favourite with Marmite lovers, but they are also great for the ‘first-timers’ who are a bit unsure whether they want to buy a jar of the black stuff or not.” Says Jolanda Wells, Unilever Licensing Manager. I can see the logic here: Marmite is very strong on its own, and you need way less than you think to achieve the balanced deliciousness. Many people either find it intimidating to try or overpowering due to the wrong dose. To cancel all these barriers, we have now prepared everything for you, from the use cases to the right quantity. To make people love Marmite, the first step is to make them love the Marmite flavor.

Products like crisps, nut snacks, and sausage rolls are designed as gateways: the concepts are easy to understand, the formats are highly acceptable, and buying them doesn’t feel like a big commitment. On the other hand, products like Marmite peanut butter and Marmite caramel sauce are more for people who like Marmite or have an adventurous mindset in the kitchen.

And the visual, all these products look unmistakably Marmite. The high contrast between yellow and black, and that iconic “MARMITE” in bold font on a red ribbon.

Why do they buy?

I’m sure people buy Marmite for the taste to some degree, but it’s way more than that. Marmite is hardly the most cravable flavor; it’s great if you like it (I like it, by the way), but I don’t think it will be the top choice, compared to, say, cheese&onion, maple bacon, or BBQ. If one chooses Marmite over other flavors, that’s largely because of something apart from the taste.

Identity is a big one. Because of its controversial nature, your opinion on Marmite draws you into one group and against the rest. And even within the Marmite fans, people have different reasons for their attachment to Marmite. Spreading Marmite on a crumpet may be an expression of Britishness (approved by my roommate). Being the only one who appreciates that deep, strong savoriness may be a sign of contrarianism. And the bravery to incorporate this polarizing spread on many occasions of cooking and eating may be a form of adventurousness. That little “love it or hate it” drama and strong British roots give people so many ways to find identity from Marmite.

And when one is clear about their identity as a Marmite lover, they show in-group loyalty. The love of Marmite is something that needs reinforcement and promotion. From time to time, they need to buy and eat it to remind themselves and people around that “I really love Marmite”. And at this point, going for Marmite over other flavors for snacks becomes an easy and sensible choice.

For British people, Marmite also brings nostalgia and cultural embeddedness. Although Marmite was invented by a German scientist and named after a French cooking pot, it was a staple for British troops during wartime, and it is planted into British collective memory at a moment of national crisis. Wartime may not be something most Brits think of daily, but Marmite has been a classic player in breakfasts or school lunches, and what evokes the feeling of nostalgia more than childhood memory, especially those mundane ones? And you know, nostalgia is always a powerful marketing tool.

The Hero Ingredient Model

A hero ingredient is the core of a product that defines it. Marmite is the hero ingredient in Marmite crisps, not the potato, salt, or oil. Being a hero ingredient means that it has to have a strong flavor identity: the moment you taste it, you recognize it: “it must be that”. Apart from the taste, the emotional/cultural resonance also matters, giving the ingredient a defensible distinctiveness. It may be a little late at this point to bring it up, but Marmite essentially is a yeast extract, though the term Marmite seems to be the equivalent of yeast extract, at least in the UK. The strong flavor identity is universal in all yeast extracts, but only Marmite tells the story. Imagine seeing “yeast extract flavor cheese puffs”, it certainly gives you a different sense from the “Marmite cheese puffs.”

Once you start to look for it, you’ll realize there are hero ingredients everywhere. Just by scrolling through a supermarket website, I can find Doritos Golden Sriracha, Cadbury Lotus Biscoff Chocolate Eggs, TREK Biscoff Protein Flapjacks, Joe & Seph’s Baileys Popcorn, and Grenade Oreo Protein Bar.

So why do brands use this hero ingredient licensing model? It is a practice of reciprocity.

For the Licensors (Marmite), it means:

1. New revenue without capex.

   Licensors get additional revenue streams from the collaboration products’ sales without the need for manufacturing and distribution. Every time a customer buys a block of Marmite Cheddar Cheese, Marmite/Unilever earns royalty income, even though it didn’t make or sell the cheese.

2. Low-risk expansion.

   As discussed earlier, many of those Marmite-flavored products are designed to invite more customers to the Marmite world. To expand the brand universe, expanding the categories is a powerful way. By collaborating with other manufacturers, Marmite expands from a spread to snacks, dairy, and prepared meals. And licensing takes advantage of the infrastructure and retail relationships from other manufacturers, taking away much of the tedious work and risks. Plus, it also helps the brand create “badge status”: reaching new customers without repositioning, keeping the core true to the OG.

3. Visibility of the core product.

   With that expansion, the licensors are getting that “halo effect” as well. This means the customer who has tried a licensed product is more likely to buy the core product (the hero ingredient itself). Hershey found that consumers who purchased Reese’s Puffed Cereal were 4x more likely to buy a Reese’s confectionery item during the same shopping trip. Post Holdings also attributed a 6.7% increase in sales of Pebbles cereal in 2021, partly to licensing deals.

For the licensees (Tayto, M&S, etc.), it means:

1. Ready-to-use brand equity.

   Marmite built its brand equity through years of persistence and its one-of-a-kind history. Getting the brand printed on your product packages just saves all the hard work and risks to achieve those specific emotional/cultural associations.

2. Easier retail distribution.

   Especially for smaller manufacturers, a licence from an iconic brand helps the buyer pitch.

3. Marketing and PR co-investment.

   Licensing agreements typically involve promotional commitments from the licensor. That is, the licensee gets some shared marketing budget and social channels with the brand owner. When the brand runs a campaign for the collab products, it certainly benefits the manufacturer (licensee).

So, are there any risks in this model? Sure, there are. For example, overuse of the model and aggressive extension can dilute the glamor and mystique of a brand. When you see a brand present everywhere, it feels loud, so you may raise an eyebrow and have that feeling of “Hmm, now it clearly just wants to take my money”. Brands need to be cautious in terms of how to licence to and how many licensed products to have. Looking at Marmite’s choice, you will find that it prefers specific categories and partners, keeping the range wide but without stretching too thin.

Lastly, The McCormick Wildcard

Not long ago (March 31, 2026), McCormick & Company agreed to combine with most of Unilever’s food business in a cash-and-stock transaction valued at approximately $44.8bn, creating one of the world’s largest flavor-focused consumer goods companies. McCormick will be adding several strong local brands like Marmite to its portfolio. McCormick’s identity is built around flavor IP: many culturally embedded flavors like Frank’s RedHot, Cholula, Old Bay, and Stubb’s. It’s also one of the companies that popularized pumpkin pie spice mix. McCormick’s playbook is evident: buy an iconic flavor brand, scale its distribution, and extend it into new formats. McCormick gains access to Unilever’s deep-rooted infrastructure in Europe, Latin America, and Asia, but the deal carries uncertainty for Marmite: could McCormick use that same infrastructure to finally take Marmite beyond its UK stronghold? Can a brand so deeply rooted in British cultural identity travel to the globe? Or is its power precisely because it stays anchored to one culture?

Do you think that Marmite will finally become an international flavor?

As a curious eater and shopper, I wonder what the supermarkets are putting on their HXB shelves, so I made a spreadsheet collecting all the supermarket HXBs in the UK in 2026. And if you are also curious (I know you are since you’re here reading), let see what I’ve found:

Welcome to the UK supermarket HXB report 2026 :)

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Flavor Landscape

While the traditional HXB is a must at all supermarkets, we do see some interesting flavor spins.

There are some patterns in the variations.

1. Fruit, but different fruits. The classic HXB is studded with dried grapes (aka raisins and or sultanas), dried currants, and mixed citrus peel. Some variations keep the fruity essence but use different fruits, like apple (in fact, almost all supermarkets have an apple HXB, usually as “Apple & Cinnamon” while Co-op’s is “Apple Crumble”, featuring a crumble topping) and berries (like Waitrose’s Berry Blush, Sainsbury’s Triple Berry, and Co-op’s Blueberry).

2. Chocolate. Everyone has some chocolate HXB except for Morrisons (I couldn’t find it, but I saw they used to have one. Did they discontinue it this year?). Chocolate HXB seems not attractive enough: in this category, chocolate usually goes with something else, like caramel, fudge, cherry, or orange. Even if it’s just chocolate, the name has to be things like “Triple Chocolate”, “Belgian Chocolate”, or “Extremely Chocolatey”. A short name risks being ignored, I guess.
   White chocolate is also present, though always accompanied by lemon.

3. Dessertified flavors. This category is the most intriguing one to me because I am a dessert person. And there are a few eye-catching creations. These are flavors inspired by some well-known desserts like Cherry Bakewell (cherry + almond), Carrot Cake (carrot and sometimes cream cheese), and Millionaire’s (caramel + chocolate). Or simply seem to sit right in the dessert territory.
   M&S is playing hard in this category with affirmationed Millionaire’s, red velvet (dark chocolate chips, white chocolate centre, red colored dough), Tiramisu (coffee, mascarpone, chocolate), and a lemon curd-filled bun.
   Tesco has a lot of cool ideas too. Marbled Neapolitan (milk chocolate chips, strawberry flavoured jelly fruit pieces, dried cream, and a chocolate flavoured cross) and Caramelised Biscuit (caramelised biscuit flavour filling and caramelised biscuit crumb topping) are some examples.

4. Savory (cheesy). Only two savory buns appear on the shelf: M&S’s Extremely Cheesy Cheddar and Red Leicester Hot Cross Buns and Tesco’s Cheddar & Red Leicester Hot Cross Buns. They are basically the same thing, and interestingly, both come from the brands with the most innovative flavors. Maybe a savory HXB sounds too wild, but I do see more and more HXB sandwiches merging bacon and sweet raisin buns: will the cheese HXB be a better option, or will that lose the whole point?

Form

Hot cross buns usually are in the form of…buns. OK, that is true, but buns come in different forms (a bit of a stretch).

The standard is a 4-bun pack, while there are mini ones (9 mini buns per pack) and bigger ones (2-bun pack, positioned as a higher-quality option). For some reason, the budgeted option comes with a 6-bun pack and is priced as low as 16p per bun, even cheaper than the mini buns.

One standout is Tesco’s Tear & Share Hot Cross Bun, which looks like the American-style cinnamon rolls with a cross-shaped icing instead of the smeared cream cheese frosting. It looks a bit unnecessary, but also weirdly snug and comforting.

Oh, and Morrisons has a Hot Cross Bun Sandwich, a sweet one though: HXB filled with Chocolate Cream Cheese and Black Forest Sauce. Sounds great, but from the pictures online, it looks a little sad…

Dietary and Health Options

I am GLAD that there’s nothing very health-forward except for the high accessibility of GF options. No high-fiber/high-protein/low-fat “better-for-you” innovations. At the end of the day, HXB is a seasonal indulgence. Just relax and enjoy the buns!

Price

Most Expensive: Morrisons Hot Cross Bun Sandwich (3 per bun). Or if you don’t consider that a real HXB: M&S Collection Fruited Hot Cross Buns and Tesco Finest Brown Butter and Chai Tea Hot Cross Buns (both for 1.13 per bun)

Cheapest: Sainsbury’s Hot Cross Buns (16p per bun)

Excluding the premium range (M&S collection, Waitrose NO.1, etc.), the crowd averages roughly £0.44 to £0.63 per bun.

Reviews and Ratings

First, I must declare that the ratings are collected on each supermarket’s website (M&S on Ocado) at the end of March 2026. This is not a precise, quantitative way to represent customers’ feedback by any means, but still, it tells parts of the story.

Let’s have a look at the highest-rated buns. The pattern is quite obvious: people love the traditional HXB and the chocolate ones. Classics are hard to beat.

Then, on the other end, are the lowest ratings. I am pretty sad to see that variations like Tiramisu, Caramelised Biscuit, and Rhubarb & Ginger are not doing well: they sound so delicious!

M&S Tiramisu HXB got the lowest rating (2out of 5). The 1-star reviews of it said the buns were dry, the coffee flavor was burnt and bitter, and the chocolate tasted like mint choco. One even said, “It seems to have an identity crisis and ends up tasting unpleasant.” (Sad but also hilarious).

People agree with me that the Rhubarb & Ginger sounds delish, but the rating was low (3.1) cause many said that the buns didn’t taste like what the name promised. A similar problem happened to Tesco’s Cheddar & Red Leicester Hot Cross Buns: people found the cheese underwhelming and the buns bland.

Apart from the execution issues, it seems that the key to a great HXB is to have a robust yet balanced flavor: people need to really “taste” them, but not be offended.

What’s missing and what’s next?

Across all these buns, we can see some ambitious innovations on this traditional yum. But I’d say it’s generally safe: different fruits and spins on standard sweet flavor combos.

Here are some elements that I think are missing in this HXB landscape:

Nuts. I love fruit breads, but I love fruit & nut breads even more. Almonds, hazelnuts, PISTACHIOS, they all sound delicious in a hot cross bun. They don’t have to be in a solid form, nut butter and spreads will also be stunning.

Tropical fruit. Yes, a lot of these HXBs feature fruit, but mostly citrus (Lemon, Orange, St Clements) and orchard fruits (Apple, Rhubarb, Cherry). Tropical fruits are vibrant and warm, and feel especially optimal in the springtime when everyone is longing for sunshine and lightness. Mango, coconut, pineapple, passionfruit—yes, please.

Tea and Floral. Although many fruits are soaked in tea before adding to the dough, there’s none that feature tea/floral flavors as the key components. A stronger dose of black tea in the dough, pairing raspberry with rose, honey with chamomile, or a matcha HXB? Always welcomed (by me).

More creative savory options. Cheese HXB doesn’t seem to be working very well. But this can’t be the reason for stopping exploring savory HXB. Herbs will be an easy entry point, like rosemary & sea salt, sun-dried tomato sounds promising, and maybe echo the British theme with Marmite (a bit ****off at a tangent, but I’ve seen many Marmite products on the shelf, does it sound like an interesting topic for a future article?)

Artisan/gourmet elements. There are some signs in this direction. Like the Brown Butter and Chai Tea bun from Tesco, M&S collection, and Waitrose’s No.1. But the differentiation is not that clear. To add a higher tier of the buns, maybe there will be sourdough, ancient grains, regional/specialty ingredients, and alike.

Do you think health-focused HXB will be emerging? It’s hard to guess since this is such a powerful trend across the entire food & beverage sector, but I hope that’s not happening on the HXB :)

Things are changing now.

From 2024 to 2025, you can clearly see matcha getting popularity. First, it was added to the menus of indie cafes and bakeries, and then you can find it in chains or even supermarkets. Matcha shops are becoming a thing: three opened around where I live in the past 6 months, and I live in a VERY NOT trendy town.

And now you tell me that green doughnut in M&S is actually matcha, not pistachio? Incredible!

Matcha has grown from a specialty item to a category, from a drink to a flavor.

The narrow matcha (matcha tea only) market revenue was about USD 37.2m in 2024 and is forecast to grow at 8.6% CAGR from 2025 to 2033. The broader matcha (matcha product) market is valued at about USD 203.9m in 2024, projected to reach USD 356.1m by 2033. The Financial Times described the UK as Europe’s fastest‑growing matcha market.

It’s not a crazy growing market, but I know many are entering, or at least adding a matcha variation to their existing products.

It’s interesting to see how much matcha shifts depending on who’s selling it. Major brands are interpreting the category through totally different lenses, and (no surprise) customers are showing up for wildly different reasons.

These are the patterns I’ve seen.

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3 motives, 4 clusters

As a member of the tea family, matcha has over a thousand years of history. While many other teas are widely enjoyed in the UK, matcha feels foreign. What motivated people to start drinking this opaque, deep green, noticeably bitter, and subtly savory variety? There are three key demand drives.

First is the health benefits.

Maybe the coffee consumption has given people too much mid-morning jitters and 3 p.m. face-plants, “calm energy” has become more appealing. Matcha is claimed to provide just that by its unique combination of caffeine, the amino acid L-theanine, and the antioxidant epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). Apart from being a gentler coffee substitute, matcha is also said to carry many other health benefits, from enhancing focus to reducing anxiety to anti-inflammatory properties.

Although many benefits are not backed up by solid research, we’re seeing brands pivot hard into the superfood narrative. Some of them highlight matcha’s nutritional features, some of them add other functional ingredients (like mushrooms and…fish, which we will cover below).

Tea is considered good for well-being in general, but matcha means something different. Now people are consuming matcha from their shakes, with fish/mushroom mixed in.

Then there’s the visual virality.

I love most green food: from the savory spinach, kale, and peas, to sweet pandan, pistachio, and matcha. And apparently, people share the same passion with me, at least for matcha.

That deep green turns soft and vibrant when blended into milk. And it stands out because most of the foods are in warm colors: beige, cream, gold, red, etc. The contrast makes it hard to ignore. By nature, matcha is social media-friendly. It’s different and beautiful = worth sharing. The colorful matcha lattes from Blank Street are good examples.

The visual virality doesn’t stop at the matcha itself; it carries on to the motion, the environment, and the lifestyle. Between TikTok and Instagram, the aesthetic content is working overtime, flooding feeds with ASMR pours, morning routines, and lifestyle vlogs. This has established matcha as a “viral drink” and a high-status cultural accessory. For today’s digital cohorts, the matcha can be a prop for the ultimate “that girl” vlog, proving that looking the part is half the battle in the social media field.

Taste matters, eventually.

At the end of the day, if we are going to put something in our mouths, it’d better taste good. As the market matures into 2026, the initial hype is being replaced by a deeper consumer interest in taste and traditional rituals. Consumers are trading in their sugary lattes for a serious education in flavor literacy, proving they can distinguish between specific cultivars like Okumidori and appreciate the nuances of regional terroir. Matcha started to be treated like wine or specialty coffee.

We also see the matcha consumption moving to people’s homes. There is a real investment in the traditional home-preparation ritual, where the bamboo whisk (chasen) has become a common tool on the kitchen counter. People are reaching for high-end ceremonial grades that are quality enough to skip the sweeteners entirely. This shift signals a new phase for the market: the viral novelty has worn off, and in its place is a genuine respect for the craft and the character of the tea itself.

Apparently, when the demand drivers differ drastically, brands have to make it clear to the customers, “I know why you want matcha, and I can give you exactly that.” Based on my research, I find this 4 clusters.

Functional - The Biohackers

These brands differentiate themselves by leveraging matcha’s nutritional profile and well-being benefits. Many of these products have other functional foods added. Tropeaka’s Beauty Matcha mixes matcha with marine collagen peptides (collagens derived from fish) to “support healthy skin from the inside out.” Bio-Synergy’s Matcha & Moringa mix can “fuel energy, immunity, and clarity.” Oh, and of course, there’s mushroom matcha.

Key Brands include: PerfectTed (energy drinks), Dirtea, Matcha Fuel.

Price Tier: Premium, often supported by high-AOV subscription models.

Accessible - The High Street Scalers

This group targets the everyday consumer, prioritizing volume, convenience, and a reliable experience. Brands like Clearspring are established as “supermarket staples,” leaning on that “old faithful” reputation to keep their spot on the shelf. Greggs’ entry in February 2026 with a £3.00 iced matcha is viewed as a “democratization driver,” bringing in a huge crowd that was previously priced out of the fancy specialist chains. This group nudges other clusters to deepen their quality narratives to justify premium pricing.

Key Brands: Greggs, Clearspring, Pukka.

Price Tier: Budget to Mid.

Premium - The Connoisseurs

This cluster represents the “third wave” of matcha, focusing on the “Way of Tea” (chado) and details like single-origin provenance and radical transparency. The customer is a flavor-literate crowd that treats a bowl of Uji-grown Okumidori with the same hushed reverence a sommelier gives a vintage Bordeaux. Entering 2026, they are shifting focus toward household rituals, selling starter kits with bamboo whisks (Chasen) to encourage at-home preparation. Many brands use a “design-led” approach, moving from traditional Zen motifs to minimalist or even gaming-inspired aesthetics to appeal to younger, affluent customers.

Price Tier: High

Key Brands: Marlo’s Matcha, Jenki, Romi Matcha, The Tea Makers of London.

Niche - The Innovators

This cluster plays a critical role as the market’s primary cultural and aesthetic gateway. While other clusters focus on purity or mass-market scale, these brands prioritize flavor innovation, visual virality, and experiential retail to attract consumers who might otherwise find traditional matcha too vegetal or intimidating. I know people who HATE the taste of matcha but still want to enjoy the feeling of sipping a green latte and staying on trend. Maybe the passion fruit cheesecake matcha and the vanilla ice cream matcha from Bird & Blend serve this purpose. Blank Street Coffee has been a “visibility leader,” with matcha now outselling coffee in some UK stores, thanks to viral menu items like blueberry matcha. Beyond beverages, matcha in food also sits in this cluster. However, by 2026, these brands face the risk of aesthetic fatigue. Vibe and virality can’t beat value.

Price Tier: Mid

Key Brands: Bird & Blend, Blank Street Coffee, Matcha & Beyond.

Risks✨

One of my favorite mottos is “success = not to fail”. Thinking about the risks can’t be more important for a winning strategy.

First off, the “green gold” rush has hit a bit of a snag. Production of high-grade Japanese tencha is struggling to keep pace with a 139% surge in global demand over three years. Apart from the skyrocketing price, this scarcity has also invited an invasion of low-quality, machine-harvested pretenders from non-traditional regions. “Fake matcha” often lacks the vibrancy and L-theanine of authentic ceremonial grade. A significant risk is customer disenchantment with the entire category if they form perspectives on matcha based on the dull, bitter stuff.

Then there is the looming threat of “aesthetic fatigue.” As the “matcha hype” potentially peaks in 2026, if a brand’s entire personality is just a specific shade of green and a nice font, it might be in trouble. The market for green aesthetic iced lattes is getting saturated, and the cultural focus is starting to migrate toward the next shiny functional ingredient. Without a value proposition that goes deeper than a TikTok-friendly swirl, the brand is running on a countdown timer.

We also need to talk about the gatekeepers because the UK market is starting to look like a “winner-takes-all” playground. While the big names are hoovering up the growth, smaller brands are finding themselves wedged between high listing fees and the looming shadow of supermarket private labels. Relying too heavily on a single retailer or channel is a high-stakes gamble. An omnichannel strategy is something brands need to think about seriously.

Finally, there’s the identity crisis, especially in the wellness aisle. When every brand is shouting about “calm energy” and “help you focus,” those narratives start to blur into a generic buzzword soup. It’s becoming harder for consumers to tell the difference between a premium brand and a budget competitor, leading to a race to the bottom on price. Plus, in the caffeine competition, matcha isn’t just fighting other tea brands but also coffee and energy drinks. Tossing in some tightening regulatory scrutiny over health claims, the functional cluster now faces the risk of increased regulatory scrutiny regarding health claims that require scientific substantiation.

What’s coming

If you’re thinking about entering the matcha game, I won’t tell you what to do, but here’s what I think would come next.

Decaffeinated Ceremonial Matcha. I am very caffeine-sensitive and have been looking for a great Decaf matcha for a while. Some decaf options in the market now are not actual matcha but substitutes made with mulberry leaf or nettle.

Savory/Culinary Matcha. Think of matcha-infused salts, oils, and savory snacks (maybe high protein as well). Matcha has a pleasing umami taste reminiscent of nori, and it’s used in Japanese cuisine (matcha salt on steak, yum)

Automated Retail and Vending. There are auto coffee machines and orange juicers; why not add matcha to transport hubs, corporate offices, and supermarkets? Then there will be demand for vending-ready matcha mixes compatible with automatic beverage systems.

Provenance as a Differentiator. Much like that in coffee, brands that foreground specific cultivars (Okumidori, Saemidori) and regional terroir (Honyama, Ise Bay) can defend premium pricing against mass-market budget entries. Maybe provide QR-coded sourcing data to build trust with skeptical consumers.

Ritual Community. Make matcha not only a drink but an indispensable part of certain events. Like a modern, more accessible version of Chadō, whisking and savoring matcha will be a part of the yoga, handcraft workshop, or book club.

And finally, as much as I love matcha, I think hojicha deserves more attention. Anyone love hojicha?

Yet I haven’t actually bought from this brand, nor have I seen it in real life.

How does a small brand build such a distinctive identity and make me want to spend £22 on shipping to try?

Let’s talk about this bean-to-bar chocolate brand that looks like a design brand (or pharmaceutical product in a way?): Hunted+Gathered.

Brand Snapshot

Hunted+Gathered: a bean-to-bar chocolate maker

Founded in 2021. Based in Melbourne.

It’s known for its minimalist chocolate with ingredient simplicity.

Positioning: Radical Simplicity as Philosophy

For those who are not familiar with bean-to-bar chocolate, it refers to a production style where a maker controls every step from sourcing raw cacao beans directly to roasting, grinding, and molding the final bar. Many products in this category highlight origin transparency, minimal ingredients, and distinctive flavor profiles.

Think of third-wave coffee or natural wine movements, but in the chocolate world.

Hunted+Gathered (H+G) explains its philosophy as “keep only what’s necessary”, mirroring its choice of minimal ingredients. The bean-to-bar core is reflected by ethically sourced organic cacao and pure in-house manufacturing.

This pursuit of purity is not simplicity for the sake of simplicity. It tells more than that.

Minimal ingredients mean the quality of each of them is more important: there’s not much to hide.

It also means that the cacao itself has a greater chance to shine, and the nuances have a place to dance. Dark chocolate is not just dark chocolate. The 70% Ecuador exhibits notes of fudge, almond, and toffee; while the 85% Dominican tastes dark caramel, deep chocolate, and a subtle sweetness of dried fig.

Clearly, H+G is for people who care about chocolate a bit more. They care about the nuances, the origins (or terroir even?), and the craftsmanship. And, they’d be happy to pay more for a bar. (£5 for a 45g bar definitely sits in the luxury territory)

Radical simplicity as philosophy. But the promise is more than simplicity. The brand is saying: we care about quality, the sources, and we know chocolate VERY well. The simplicity is also shown in their “quiet” communication (which we will cover in a second). It positions itself as a high-end craft/luxury chocolate brand celebrating minimalism.

We can see this positioning stretches further through H+G’s design, content mix, and how it creates a cohesive brand world.

Minimalism Design is a Competitive Strategy

At first glance, I couldn’t tell that H+G is a chocolate brand.

But I absolutely love the design.

The key elements are the stark white boxes, heavy black grotesk typography, and the sparing use of colors to denote flavour or cacao origin.

Now explanation needed: you can tell how its visual design echoes the simplicity philosophy.

The studio behind this brand design reveals that the visual is borrowed from pharmaceutical packaging. Make sense when you know this. And I firstly associated the package with Maison Margiela fragrances and The Ordinary.

You may argue that a package that reminds people of pharmacy or skin care is not so appetizing for chocolate. But I think it’s a smart strategy.

Firstly, it stands out. It’s an unexpected representation of chocolate, so different that it’s hard to ignore or forget.

Second, the packages merge well into the surroundings. When the chocolate bars sit on the table, it looks almost like a modern style decoration. It doesn’t brag about intricacy, but it feels natural to be a part of the environment.

Third, it’s a bit of a cliché, but sometimes less is more. And the “less” here says premium. No pictures, no catchy slogan, just a few words telling you what it is. It gives the feeling that this brand focuses more on the product, and the quality will speak for itself.

The design is quiet yet loud. Quiet because it’s minimal; loud because it’s so different: different yet true to the brand’s identity.

Besides, the design doesn’t stop at the packages. H+G has a physical shop, whose aesthetic echoes Muji / Dieter Rams-style minimalism. I haven’t had the chance to visit it in person, but from the idea and hints in the photos, I know it’s an intentional extension of the brand identity.

The Cinematic Content and Collaboration

I first knew this brand on Instagram via one of their collaboration chocolate recipe posts. At that time, I thought it was a chocolate recipe blog, which was very welcomed by a chocoholic home baker (me).

Turns out, the collaboration recipe content is a smart decision. Although I am a chocolate shopper, I don’t get much chocolate brand content from my feed. However, I do get a lot of recipe content. This make sence because more people care about how they can make something delicious than knowing another commercial product.

Hooked by the recipe IG posts, I was led to its website to read the full recipes (they all look amazing btw). And guess what happened next? I started to browse their products.

What’s more, I think the recipes do make you crave chocolate more. Because now you not only have different chocolates, but also chocolate chip cookies, chocolate mousses, hot chocolates, brownies, and chocolate Karpatka. The deliciousness you will potentially get immediately expands.

H+G also sells cooking/drinking chocolate. And the endorsement from creators and restaurants, as a sort of social proof, increases the brand’s authority.

Apart from the recipes and product-centred content, you will find some “vibe-y” videos on its IG page, many produced by directors COCO and MAXIMILIAN. These videos are like clips from retro films, with little words (or not at all), and elliptical storytelling.

One I really like is this honeycomb chocolate for Mother’s Day.

These videos don’t feature the chocolate much; they create scenes where you can experience the vibes and feelings. Then there’s the chocolate, like a gentle reminder saying, “Time for more chocolate.”

Adding this kind of content to those more commercial/product-centred ones is a way to balance the tension. If a brand always talks about itself, about how great the product is, and why you should buy (now!), the customers may feel pressured, and stressed people don’t take action. Instead, make some room for them occasionally, let them feel and think about themselves, and maybe where your product can fit in their lives.

(Think of this as a conversation with another person. Would I enjoy chatting with one who always talks about themselves? Or would I be happier if I feel like I am also a part of the convo?)

A cohesive brand world

So far, we talked about the H+G’s positioning and core philosophy, its design, and content mix. What makes all this work together is how they mirror each other and create a cohesive brand world.

And I think that’s why H+G is so memorable.

Start with simplicity philosophy and a range of products; they shape each other and define the brand’s positioning. Then come the photography, visual system design, IRL shop, collaborations, and digital content, all of which are built around the brand’s identity.

This is a cohesive brand world.

Have you ever seen a brand that tries to do too many things at once? It may say heritage is where the brand started, then the product description highlights innovation, paired with a trendy and fun package. None of those is bad, but they don’t work together to create a cohesive brand world.

The cohesion reduces confusion; it helps customers understand the brand and, eventually, trust the brand.

So what have we learned?

Here’s a concise summary of what works for H+G.

First is how it draws your attention: a sharp positioning that’s clear and easy to capture; a distinct design system that’s so different on the chocolate shelf; and collaborations that extend reach.

Second is how it convinces and stays with you. Everything that’s brought to you by the brand is reinforcing its philosophy and style, making its image clearer in customers’ minds. And the clearer it is, the easier it is to remember.

Have a look at the brand you’re working on: is the positioning sharp? Does everything align with it?

NO?

Then I recommend you go and watch his signature series on compound butters and how to cook with them. There are a few things that are more satisfying visually than how he scoops (or quenelles, to be chef-y) out a fat portion of perfect-looking butter.

It’s called “All Things Butter”.

And now you can find All Things Butter in many supermarkets, beyond the Instagram feed.

It’s a challenger brand that makes them more memorable than others in a commoditised category.

In today’s article, we’ll be talking about:

• How they find a place in a traditional category with 0 competitor.

• Why sell it before you make it is powerful.

• Where I see the brand is going beyond butter.

Let’s start!

Positioning

The price tag tells you that All Things Butter (ATB from now on) is in the higher-end group. (Plain butter at £1.43 per 100g compared to supermarket brands at around £0.80 per 100g, while compound butters at £2.48 per 100g.) Not especially expensive, but you can see it stresses quality over value.

So what exactly makes ATB high-quality?

Hand-salted, double-churned (whatever what those mean) and 100% real cream from British farms. You can see strong cues of craft and quality via heritage farming and traditional methods.

But this alone is not enough to differentiate ATB. Many brands make artisan butter with British farms.

What makes ATB different is how they bring this high-quality heritage butter to modern tables - with a chef. Most brands tell you how their butters taste (smooth, rich, luxurious, etc.), ATB tells you how their butters make your meals better. Their targets are millennials and younger customers who want innovation, creativity, and excitement, who expect restaurant-level meals at home with ease. Here you go, compound butters!

This is a smart positioning because, although butter is such an ordinary item that you almost take for granted in the UK market, no one is actually making “flavored” butters. When ATB started, there were no competitors in the market. Yes, there are compound butters in the market already, and maybe garlic&herb butter is not so mind-blowing, but how about truffle, smokey paprika, chocolate, and cinnamon bun? With this positioning, ATB does not compete with the most premium quality or best value; it’s simply the ONLY option for its target market.

ATB is a chef-led, innovative disruptor brand that modernizes a category long dominated by traditional, heritage brands.

As important as good positioning is, what messages to convey to make the target customers quickly understand “this is the butter for me.” Despite innovation being the key to ATB, they don’t tell the customers how they invent new flavors; instead, they reframe the role of butter.

Message

ATB is a social native brand. The All Things Butter content mentioned at the beginning went viral way before the actual butter came out in 2023. This means the brand has gained a ready-made audience and an established image.

Thomas Straker, the content creator and the co-founder of ATB, is a chef, cookbook author, and restaurateur. He doesn’t just spread butter on his toast; he makes really eye-catching, professional dishes with butter. Even when he does spread butter on his toast, it must be Roasted Chicken Skin Butter or Chocolate, Coffee, Caramel Butter alike. ATB is literally about “all things butter”. It goes beyond a high-quality natural ingredient and becomes a chef-y, creative style of cooking.

Either on their retail ads, website, or social media, ATB rarely talks about how the milk is sourced and how the butter is made (although I do want to see the double-churning and hand-salting process). Their message is always about how YOU can make YOUR meals better with ATB. When many butter brands advertise their product with happy cows grazing on the grass or a pad of half-melted butter on toasts, ATB features how butter integrates into a meal.

Not to mention the many recipes on their site and social media. In fact, if I scroll through their IG page, I will think it’s just a cooking community where people post delicious recipes, not realizing they all use an essential ingredient: butter. It’s the most convincing way to show what they mean by “Butter is your versatile culinary companion, elevating everyday meals.”

ATB’s message is like: hey, butter is amazing, here’s how chefs use butter to pull out restaurant-level dishes, and now you can recreate it at home, with convenience.

P.S. I think the pre-product marketing is crucial to ATB’s quick success. Of course, not every brand needs to have some viral moments before launching a product, but this “sell it before you make it” method can be used in your next new brand or product. It builds anticipation and momentum, and also gives a chance to get early feedback, which you can use to refine the product.

Now it’s All Things Dairy

ATB entered the year 2026 with a whole different line: All Things Cottage Cheese.

I was secretly screaming in happiness when I first saw the new line. I am a HUGE fan of cottage cheese and always hope it is more popular.

The expansion is unexpected yet makes a lot of sense. Unexpected because ATB is supposed to be a brand dedicated to butter, but a rebranding to “All Things Dairy” ensued with the additional line. It makes sense because cottage cheese is a fast-growing category, thanks to the rising awareness of natural, low-processed food and social media (hello, the countless cottage cheese recipes!) For ATB, it’s a great opportunity and a natural move as a social-native dairy brand.

So far, ATB has 3 SKUs in this category: natural, mango, and mixed berries. The cottage cheese stays loyal to the “no nasties”, “British farm” standards. And the flavored options are somewhat true to their innovative core (the usual flavors for cottage cheese are pineable and chive).

But after the initial excitement, I feel like I expect more from All Things Cottage Cheese.

Maybe it’s that the flavors are not so exciting to me. Or maybe it’s that the cottage cheese content doesn’t hit like the butter’s. Although I will admit that cottage cheese is not as sexy as butter, especially from a chef-led perspective. But I look forward to more recipes that will convert people into cottage cheese lovers.

That being said, I’m still happy to see a brand try to make cottage cheese popular by its taste rather than its health benefits. (Notably. ATB doesn’t have low or non-fat cottage cheese.) ATB is created to educate and showcase how great butter can elevate everyday eating. Can they make that mission work on cottage cheese as well? That’s what I am looking for.

Wrap it up

When commoditised, reposition the usage.
ATB stands out not because it invents new butter but because it reframes the role of butter.

Pre-product marketing: Sell it before you make it.
Before the actual launch of the product, start to post content around it. This:
1) Collect feedback that refine your product and marketing
2) Create anticipation so the momentum is there when you launch

From Product Brand to Category Brand
“All Things Butter” to “All Things Dairy” is a strategic move. Instead of being a single product brand, they are positioning themselves to become a modern dairy platform brand. But rebranding means a new positioning strategy. Will this move be a growth opportunity? Or will it dilute the brand?