By Bridget Goldschmidt and Featuring Kurt Burmeister, SVP of National Sales and Importing at KLT Global & Lipari Foods
How Retailers and Brands Can Prevent International Cuisines From Being “Watered Down”
The potential is there: once a cuisine’s flavors attain widespread popularity, they start showing up everywhere, often in modified forms—i.e., less spicy—to make them more acceptable to the broadest swath of consumers. To many advocates for these cuisines, however, this type of progression comes at the expense of authenticity. Just as much Chinese- or Mexican-inspired fare in the United States is barely recognizable to the people who live in those countries, emerging global cuisines could face the same fate. What can retailers and brands do about it? Progressive Grocer asked some keen industry observers to weigh in on the topic.
Sally Lyons Wyatt, Global EVP and Chief Advisor, Consumer Goods and Foodservice Insights, Circana: As cuisines scale, there is a risk of flattening flavor, oversimplifying stories, or diluting cultural meaning.
The brands and retailers that navigate this successfully tend to take a balanced approach. They create an accessible entry point without losing authenticity, offering approachable SKUs alongside more traditional or bolder expressions. This allows for trial while maintaining credibility with culturally connected consumers.
Precision also plays an important role. Calling out specific regions, techniques, or ingredients signals respect and helps preserve authenticity as products scale.
Finally, involving cultural voices matters. Brands that collaborate with chefs, creators, or founders rooted in the cuisine tend to maintain trust as they grow, and consumers recognize that.
Tyler Averett, Category Manager, KeHE: As with any trend, mainstream adoption will eventually happen among consumers and traditional CPGs. Consumers—particularly younger generations—are increasingly seeking real ingredients, cultural representation, and products that stay true to those origins without rebranding for mass appeal. At KeHE, we see the most successful brands maintaining authenticity while introducing approachable formats or entry points that encourage trial without compromising integrity.
For retailers, the challenge—and opportunity—is in thoughtful curation: balancing products that serve core ethnic communities with those that introduce global flavors to a broader audience…By combining deep category expertise with intentional assortment curation, KeHE enables retailers to introduce global foods in a way that balances discovery with credibility. Ultimately, this approach helps retailers build trust with core consumers while inviting new shoppers to explore with confidence.
Kurt Burmeister, SVP of National Sales and Importing at KLT Global and Lipari Foods: As any cuisine grows in popularity, there can be a tendency to simplify it too much or adapt it in ways that strip away the qualities that made it appealing in the first place. The best long-term strategy is to respect the origin of the food, be transparent about what it is, and avoid presenting a heavily modified version as if it were fully authentic.
The right way to introduce these foods is through education, context, and honest positioning. Brands and retailers should explain flavor profiles, usage occasions, and cultural roots in a way that feels inviting rather than intimidating. At the same time, authenticity has to remain central. That means working with trusted producers, preserving core flavor integrity, and avoiding the temptation to over-Americanize products just for broader acceptance.
There is room in the market for both authentic products and approachable entry points, but the distinction matters. Consumers from those cultures deserve to see their foods represented accurately and respectfully, while new consumers deserve an easy, welcoming path into the category. The strongest brands are able to do both.
