Royal Spelt starts first 100% organic bitterballen and kroketten factory

17-5-2022

Royal Spelt has opened the first 100% organic bitterballen and kroketten factory in Nieuwegein in the Netherlands in mid-May 2022. Owners Fabienne Muller and Michael Kapoen started this factory to have full control over the production. The reason for this was the control over of the entire production process. Royal Spelt draws stock from fresh vegetables and herbs instead of stock grains or powder. In its own factory, Royal Spelt can take all the time needed for the cooking process of the spelt ragout (salpicon) and the recipe remains a (family) secret.

read more

TOMBSTONE® Pizza raises the bar with new Bar Snacks Pizza

21-7-2023

If anyone knows bar food, it’s TOMBSTONE® Pizza, which is why the brand that was born in a bar nearly 65 years ago in Medford, Wisconsin is paying homage to its roots with the introduction of the TOMBSTONE Bar Snacks Pizza for the International Beer Day 2023. Fans can enter for a chance to win the unapologetic, over-the-top bold flavour experience that features bar snack favourites all on one buttery, crispy crust. Topped with gooey mozzarella sticks, zesty fried pickles and fried onions, the pizza is finished off with spicy jalapeno slices and nacho cheese sauce, bringing the boldest, craziest bar bite straight to the homes of lucky winners.

A pizza with a crispy crust with crunchy mozza sticks, fried pickles and onions! We have spotted the Frikan’ Dutchman pizza by Domino’s here in the Netherlands with the Dutch bar snack ‘Frikandel’ or the Turkish pizza with our national bar snack ‘kroket’, called ‘Pizza Marjolein’, at a cafetaria in Utrecht (we couldn’t find it on the menu anymore).  We think the mozza sticks and fried onions are more appropriate on pizza!

read more

Culinary snacks by Sjieke Snacks

18-10-2022

As of yesterday you are able to buy the ‘starbox by Sjieke Snacks’. Here in the Netherlands we love our fried snacks, we call them our ‘brown fruit’ and love to eat them with a beer. The culinary snacks from Sjieke Snacks are special, created by chefs with Michelin stars. For the first edition, owner Marijn van Doorn, invited five Michelin-starred chefs from the Den Bosch area to share their culinary snacks. Resulting in a box with the ‘Driel mushroom croquette’, ‘Risolle Wagyu and tomasu’, the ‘Thom Kha Kai Kroket’, the ‘Balleke Vigor with foie’, ‘Chicken Corn Thai curry and shrimp’ and Marijn van Doorn’s own ‘Cheese Pata Souffle’. A box with 6 culinary snacks!

read more

The Spring Summer ’22 Collection by Frites Atelier | ‘Arabic Baba & Feta’ Fries

14-3-2022

Inspired by spring and summer, co-founder and culinary creator of Frites Atelier Sergio Herman has created fresh, summery taste sensations. The flavors will give you the feeling of a summer in Italy or deep into the Arabian fairy tale of a thousand and one nights. The influences of the various cultures and cuisines come to the fore in the new specials. The specials ‘Arabic Baba & Feta’ as well as the return of our seasonal specials: ‘Sea Nori’, ‘Parmasan & Basil’ and a whole new tasty snack, the ‘Fish Burger’. Starting this week, Frites Atelier will serve the very latest Spring Summer Collection.

Fries are the main snacks in the Netherlands, we have ‘snackbars’ where you can order a simple portion of fries with or without mayonnaise, or other sauces and of course other snacks like our famous ‘kroketten’. Since a couple of years we have the culinary expert, chef Sergio Herman (has and had several Michelin star restaurants), who creates culinary specials, for the fancy snackbar/restaurant chain Frites Atelier. His Spring/Summer ’22 collection even has a  fries ‘Arabic Baba & Feta’! If you want to enjoy a culinary portion of fries, visit one of their locations in The Hague, Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent and Designer Outlet Roosendaal. Worth a detour!

reading time: 2 minutes

read more

Trends we spotted | Week 19

12-5-2017

At Horecatrends we spot a lot of national and international trends on a daily basis. We pick the most interesting ones to write articles about, the smaller trends we use in our column ‘Trends we spotted this week’. This week amongst others G&T popsicles in the supermarket and world’s largest inflatable obstacle course got installed in the Netherlands.

If you like to read the whole article, click the title. Enjoy reading! read more

FEBO canteen | Win a FEBO vending machine for your football club

4-5-2017

FEBO is looking for the most fanatic football team in the Netherlands. The current football season is almost over, but FEBO is already preparing for all third halves of the coming season. Untill the 27^th of May all Dutch football teams can enter a contest to win a real FEBO vending machine in their football canteen. Everyone from 12 years old can participate in the contest, which runs through Instagram. Check out the ad video at the end of the article.

read more

10 inspiring lunchrooms in The Hague

14-4-2017

Looking at the list below, it cannot be ignored that The Hague has a great amount of inspiring lunchrooms. From local heroes such as Dungelmann to fancy spots at the Binckhorst. One can be recognized by its products, others by their amazing design and experience. Are you in The Hague and looking for inspiration or do you just fancy a proper lunch? Bram, The Hague citizen visited the below listed restaurants/lunchrooms to give you an idea of what to expect.  read more

Trends we spotted | Week 8

24-2-2017

At Horecatrends we spot a lot of national and international trends on a daily basis. We pick the most interesting ones to write articles about, the smaller trends we use in our column ‘Trends we spotted this week’. This week amongst others the Febao and the opening of Albert Heijns’ first restaurant and café.

If you like to read the whole article, click the title. Enjoy reading! read more

The Snertkroket, a taste of winter in a crispy crust

15-1-2016

At the Horecava Frio Food introduced the Snertkroket. The Snertkroket is a real Dutch speciality, a croquette filled with ‘snert’, which is a soup made of split peas.

Typical Dutch dish used in a croquette

The typical Dutch dish ‘erwtensoep or snert’ used in another typical Dutch treat the croquette; the Snertkroket. This real wintery dish has a crispy crust filled with a creamy ragout made of the best of ‘split pea soup’! Filled with vegetables such as peas, carrots and real pieces of sausage. Frio Food the producer of the Snertkroket recommends  to serve it on a slice of rye bread or just as a snack. We place the Snertkroket in our overview of variations on the traditional Dutch croquette.

Developer of the Snertkroket

This real winter delicacy was developed by Harald Swinkels, who dreamed of  his own croquette factory as a 15 year old boy. He prepares his products in a traditional way with the finest ingredients and uses traditional recipes that have been used by his father. From his father he learned the tricks of the trade. The Snertkroket is one of the many ‘kroketten’ Frio Food sells.

You might consider putting a kroket or bitterbal on your menu. It’s one of those streetfoods most foreigners love in Holland!

The croquettes in the leading role

4-12-2015

Kroketten (or croquettes) and Bitterballen (small croquettes) are a real Dutch treat. The last two years we spotted a couple of tasty varieties appearing in the market. We have made a list of them.

For years I used to make this Dutch treat at home, using recipes from the book ‘The great culinary croquettes cookbook’ by Edwin Kats, and of course I always got compliments! Truly amazing are the game croquets from this season but the croquettes with smoked eel are very special as well. We even wrote about croquettes with snails and goose meat on Horecatrends, both of whom are no longer for sale, but it truly indicates that the possibilities are endless! ^ Marjolein

Our list; croquettes in the leading role

1. CROQUÉTJE! a pulled pork-croquette

Sausage-maker Paul van den Hooven from Wild Vleesch in Rotterdam, has developed his own croquette under the name of CROQUÉTJE! The first CROQUÉTJE is a croquette with pulled pork which contains meat that is smoked low & slow on a barbecue.

2. Croquette made of Shiitake mushrooms

A croquette with Shiitake mushrooms. Shiitake mushrooms are healthy, delicious and a good substitute for meat. FungiFuturi grows delicious and super nutritious mushrooms in the cellar of an abandoned office building in Eindhoven. They are crowdfunding an innovative snack line of mushrooms. The first product of the line is the shiitake croquette, they presented these croquettes during the Dutch Design Week last October.

3. Bieterballen, croquettes with beetroot

The vegetarian Bieterbal, from Jonathan Karpathios of restaurant Vork & Mes. It’s content? Beet, beet and even more beet! The Bieterbal is available in wholesale at: Deli XL, De Kweker, HANOS and VHC de Jongens. The Bieterbal has also been nominated for the Dutch Horecava Innovation Award 2016 in the category Food & Beverage.

4. Bitter Balzz, a bitterbal with insects

At BUGZZ they make food with insects. Their goal is to bring the durable snack, the ‘Bitter Balzz’ in production. They reached their target amount by 117% on their crowdfunding page. We recently ran into them on the Foodfestival in Amsterdam, where they were already completely sold out halfway Saturday evening.

5. Croquette made from 100% organic spelt

The first croquette and bitterbal worldwide made from 100% organic spelt. Prepared with fresh spices, vegetables and the best organic beef, made by Royal Spelt.

6. Restaurant Valuas’s gluten free croquette

Star restaurant Valuas (*) in Venlo has developed a gluten free croquette. The gluten free croquette is made from ragout of corn, rice and 36% pure beef and contains a crust made of rice.

7. Croquette made from the queen of vegetables

Kwekkeboom introduced a croquette made of the queen of vegetables, the asparagus, in 2013. Since I regularly make a variety of the bitterbal with asparagus in the leading roll, this croquette proves that you can make endless variations with the salpicon of the croquettes and bitterballen.

8. Arancini, the Italian bitterbal

Lightly fried balls made from risotto with a core of mozzarella and smoked ham. Simple and a delicious appetizer! Italian restaurants would have their own variation of ‘our’ bitterbal.

9. Sichuan Bitterballen

For her Sichuan bitterballen Robin Kok used ‘Sichuan style red boiled beef’ that includes ingredients like ginger, chilli bean sauce, rice wine and Chinese dark soy sauce. The Asian bitterballen.

10. Chef Thor

Chef Thor makes bitterballen with different flavours and flavours you won’t expect, such as spinach with Dutch blue cheese, coconut curry with peas or scrambled eggs with porcini mushrooms and truffle. The traditional Dutch concept of a kroket, but just something different and delicious without meat. Chef Thor has been around for six years and have seven different flavours, all vegetarian.

11. Fingerfoodballs

Scelta Mushrooms is the founder of a healthy alternative for the snack range: the Fingerfoodballs. The Fingerfoodballs are vegetable snacks that doesn’t contain artificial colors or flavors.