Must-Have Food for 2017

The British press were full of announcements from 'middle England' supermarket, Waitrose, yesterday. What's it all about? Well, apparently they have published a list of the must-have food for 2017 and it's caused a stir among the public, who find it hard to believe that products such as quark cheese, tinned artichokes, sweet potatoes and halloumi are now essential items on the shopping list of the middle class. I must admit to buying some halloumi recently to add to a vegetarian curry (below) and I've always been partial to a few sweet potatoes. As for most of the rest of the food on the Waitrose list, it seems like a marketing campaign to just get us to start trying products we have never heard of, but think we should buy to keep up with middle Britain trends.

Along with cambozola cheese, houmous and baby artichokes (below), there are 300 foods that have been added to the cut price 'essential Waitrose' brand, to help middle income families make their budgets go further. Sales of halloumi  have soared over the past year, making it highly popular among a certain class of shopper, and it is part of a wider trend across the high street towards more exotic tastes. I'm told that even cut-price store, Iceland, is now stocking salt baked sea bass and hand filleted tuna steaks!

Waitrose introduced its 'essential' range in 2009, to see off the threat posed by budget supermarkets like Aldi and Lidl and counter the view that Waitrose was expensive for basic food items. It has now extended this range, to reflect a shift in what we shoppers consider 'essential', to a list that never went beyond baked beans and cheddar cheese. Apparently they are reflecting the public's changing tastes shaped by cuisines that have become popular since the 'essential' range was launched - ''Mexican, Middle Eastern and Greek foods are now firmly in the mainstream,'' claims customer director for Waitrose, George Martin. The essential range now generates sales of more than £1 billion a year and is to be the focus of a new advertising campaign by the supermarket. No surprise there then - I did say earlier that it's all about selling more sweet potatoes, houmous and cambozola, if you know what that is! (It's a soft German cheese and according to Waitrose, a 'big seller' -below)

So what's on the Waitrose 'must-have' list, I hear you ask?

• Ardenne pate 
• Tinned artichoke hearts
• Green pitted olives
• Halloumi
• Chamomile soap
• Balsamic vinegar
• Baby avocados
• Limoncello dessert
• Quark cheese
• Passata tomato puree
• Coconut milk
• Cappuccino mousse
• Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
• Sweet potatoes
• Mountain Blend ground coffee
• Pickled beetroot
• Tortilla wraps
• Cambozola cheese

Are they on your weekly shopping list?