Last week our CEO Laurie Buckle headed off to Chicago for the Tastemaker Conference and the Inspired Home Show. She spent five days in the Windy City connecting with food bloggers, chatting with brands, learning about new trends, and speaking on a panel! Here are her biggest takeaways from both events.
Tastemaker Conference
The top trade show for home and housewares brands returned to Chicago the first week in March, hot on the heels of the Tastemaker Conference. Here’s a quick look at the insights and trends she came away with.
The Tastemaker Conference was started up in 2017 by Abbey Rodgriguez (herself a food blogger, freelancer, and mom) as a place for influencers in the food space to connect and learn how to grow their businesses. Laurie was invited to speak on a panel about brand partnerships – the how’s, why’s, the in’s and out’s.
Her two biggest takeaways from the two days of panels, meetups, and meals:
- So many influencers are overwhelmed by trying to create content for all the social media channels, and frustrated with Instagram’s unpredictable performance.
- The blog is back! We’ve been working to help brands understand the value of a blog post for a long time. Now influencers are stepping up to the plate, building, optimizing, and monetizing their sites, and we couldn’t be happier.
Interesting Voices
- Vallery Lomas, Foodie in New York
- Sam Adler, Frosting and Fettuccine (#CookIt Crew!)
- Paul Bakaus, Head of Creator Relations at Google
- Laura Muller, Las Recetas de Laura
- Arsen Rabinovich, TopHatRank
- Liz and Dan Marek, Sugar Geek Show
Inspired Home Show
From coffeemakers to cookware, rice cookers to bread makers, home design to tabletop, this show is North America’s largest housewares trade show. Their goal is to connect buyers to sellers; for Laurie, the goal was to catch up with the brands we know and connect with those we don’t. She also got a good look at some of the trends we’ll be seeing in the near future.
Top Trends
- Compact cookware (Dash)
- Color stories (Le Creuset)
- Better for the planet; better for you: recycled, non-toxic, antimicrobial (MadeSmart)
- Composting (Bamboozle)
- Induction: (Cuckoo)
- Creator collabs (Babish)
Interesting Brands
- Gibson (Martha Stewart, Sur la Table, Crockpot, Oster, Kenmore and more)
- Peugeot
- Ooni
- Le Creuset
- KuhnRikon
- Cuckoo
- Umbra
- DuBuyer
Check back soon to see what CookIt discovers next at Expo West!
