British supermarket chain Waitrose has introduced a new 'drunken' prawn dish, as well as two brand new cocktail-inspired desserts from Heston Blumenthal.
The alcoholic-infused product is introduced during a massive surge in popularity of foods enhanced by the flavours of alcohol, according to the supermarket chain.
Jonathan Moore at Waitrose said, ‘The trend for drunken food is becoming more innovative and unexpected than ever before. We identified it as one to watch from the USA as long ago as 2012 but foodies are enjoying exploring the use of spirits, beers, ciders and wines to enhance the flavours in food.’
It reports that the ‘boozy prawns’ are already proving to be a hit with customers and are seeing a week on week increase of over 20%.
Growing Trend
The new World Deli range, which launched last month, also adopted this trend with a king prawn dish, marinated in tequila.
The tequila-infused prawns are inspired by Aguachile, which is a Mexican dish, made with shrimp, seasoned with chilli peppers, tequila, lime juice, coriander and onion.
Back in 2015, Waitrose launched a Prosecco Panettone and had to double its orders last Christmas to keep up with demand.
In addition to this, it also launched three varieties of marinated olives inspired by popular cocktails including Bloody Mary, Gin & Tonic and Limoncello in 2016 which were hugely popular.
The news of the increasing popularity of 'drunken food' comes on the back of Waitrose announcing a total sales increased of 0.9%, compared to the same week last year.
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Aidan O'Sullivan. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
