The Food Job You Probably Never Knew Existed
Andrea Hernández, creator of Snaxshot, titles herself as a "product oracle," someone who delves through the depths of marketing hype for products, services, and the like with genuine potential. The project began, as Hernández describes in a Thrillist profile, with a growing irritation with what she dubs the "Goop-ification" of things. Namely, how aspects of other cultures are repackaged as the latest fad in the wellness industry.
To combat such nonsense, Hernández probes the fluff of content to ask how the company actually interacts with the buzzwords they spew — what it is they are talking about. "Certain terms, like CBD, become devoid of meaning. It's like 'organic'. It's been used everywhere," she explained.
At first, this might appear as a stand-offish stance to take with the entire food industry. However, judging from the review given by Orchid Bertelsen, Nestlé's Head of Innovation, that Snaxshot pins to their homepage, this does not seem to be the case: "If you're not subscribing to Snaxshot and you're in food & bev, then you're missing out on a competitive advantage!" Such a recommendation does propose the question of how much Hernández serves as an oracle and how much companies may shape the market to fit in with her advice and, of course, whether there is a significant difference between the two.
What is Snaxshot?
Snaxshot is a weekly newsletter that Hernández publishes on Substack, the newsletter subscription website. It proclaims itself as ad-free, relying instead on a community of subscribers via Patreon to ensure Snaxshot's independence.
In fairness, the trends highlighted by the most recent Snaxshot newsletter, which came out on June 22, are not those that one finds typically hyped by marketing companies. In this edition, Hernandez focuses on tablescapes, what she describes as the surrealist table layouts of Claire Olshan, the founder of DADA Daily, and grazing boxes. The three prongs cohere to a view that the intimate dining experience will see a resurgence, probably due to how deprived most have been of human contact over the past pandemic-riven year. If Hernández does indeed have the ear of the industry, we can only hope they listen, as such a trend would prove far more interesting than the obsession some of them had over NFTs.