CNE food trends, plus some more overdue Star gift links
Hello r/FoodToronto! Karon Liu, food reporter with the Star checking in after a very busy week of doing CNE and BTS food-related assignments.
Yesterday was the media preview day of the CNE where the main event is to try all the new foods for this year. I know some outlets already posted a rundown of everything, but me being me and overanalyzing everything, every year I look at the CNE as a pulse-reader on what food trends that year are big enough to introduce to the masses (which runs with the intent of the CNE to showcase the latest technological marvels in one place). It's interesting to see what part of the zeitgeist makes it to the CNE food. Last year there was Labubu-themed fried cheese curds (what's more 2025 than that?), and as a sign that the Dubai chocolate trend was already on its way out, there was only one pistachio-chocolate treat. Not food related, but this year there was a lot of AI-generated signage...so I guess that's a sign of 2026 (sigh, you have the food right there! Just use a photo of that!).
This year pickle remains a staple carnival flavour in the form of cheesecakes, springrolls and pizzas, but one pickle-flavoured thing that did stand out was a pickle-flavoured ice coffee. I wrote earlier in the year that I noticed a lot of cafes in the city adding fruit juices like orange and lychee to their iced coffee drinks ahead of the summer, so I feel pickle juice is a CNE-fied continuation of that.
The viral Dot Cake from NYC back in the spring (basically a single-serving vanilla cake topped with rainbow nonpareil sprinkles) arrived in a push-pop cake form after I've seen a few Toronto bakeries come out with their own Dot Cakes (or in Machino's case, a dot doughnut back in June). Hallyu (the Korean culture wave that brought things like Kpop, Kdramas and Kbeauty to the world over the last three decades) continues to resonate in the form of Korean fried chicken served in a taco shell made from Buldak ramen (there was a Tiktok challenge earlier in the year of trying to eat the spiciest flavours). No explicit BTS-themed foods though, unlike in 2024 when the stall that did the Labubu curds did Taylor Swift curds for her Eras tour.
As for the KD Smoothie from Booster Juice, which seems to be the thing that's getting the most attention this year, KD has been doing a pretty interesting campaign this year and did collabs with San Remo (KD cheesecake) and Beavertails (KD-topped beaver tail) back in the spring. Booster Juice's product developer told me Kraft-Heinz was already helping them with some menu development so that led to them making the smoothie. Which by, the way, just tastes like a mango-pineapple yogurt smoothie with a very faint savoury cheese flavour at the end. It's not bad, they could have gone a lot cheesier. I actually finished my sample cup, but maybe because it was really hot yesterday and I missed breakfast.
Anyway, even you have zero interest in eating any of the foods, it is fun from a pop-culture analysis standpoint to take a look at what trends this year have trickled down to the CNE to be remixed and reintrepreted for the masses...like the Cerulean Sweater speech from the Devil Wears Prada, but deep-fried and covered in Flamin' Hot. I'm sure most of the people here who also keep track of emerging food trends from around the city and beyond will have fun looking at the CNE's food options as more of a scavenger hunt on what trends made it to the midway.
Gift links after this post:
