This recipe brings together multiple components with which most American consumers are quite familiar: flatbread, pesto, scrambled eggs, vegetables and a creamy sauce. What makes it interesting is that it’s an upscale breakfast concept combining savory flavors from around the globe at a mealtime usually reserved for classic comfort foods. Portable breakfast is a huge trend right now, and this concept fits into that theme nicely. Unfortunately, many convenience breakfast products lack nutrition and are high in sugar. Conversely, this is a complete, protein-rich meal featuring eggs and vegetables that still plays into consumers’ desire for indulgent flavors.
This concept combines classic Mediterranean flavors, like savory herbs, garlic and rosemary, with a California twist on the pesto with almonds and sun-dried tomatoes. Savory, bold flavors play nicely with everybody’s breakfast favorites, creamy scrambled eggs and smoky bacon, and the Indian naan bread offers a chewy, toasty base for the toppings.
The Greek seasoning is a dry blend of herbs, spices, aromatics and salt used to infuse a savory flavor reminiscent of the Mediterranean.
To make this recipe plant-ready, it would first need to be converted to a formula, with ingredients listed in percentages by weight. Next, the retail ingredients, where necessary, would need to be swapped out for commercially available ingredients, such as using individually quick-frozen (IQF) herbs instead of fresh herbs. Finally, the product would need to go through shelf-life testing, to ensure the moisture from the toppings wouldn’t migrate into the bread and make it soggy; the oil content of the pesto sauce could be tweaked to help prevent this. Also, the sour cream sauce would require reformulation to make it freeze/thaw stable.
Some manufacturers might have the capabilities to produce some or all of the components in-house and assemble the finished dish, but it might be more cost-effective to source them from ingredient manufacturers. For example, the naan flatbread could be par-baked and shipped frozen from a bakery; the pesto could be made to specification from a sauce manufacturer; the roasted vegetable mix would most likely be pre-seasoned, fire-roasted IQF vegetables; and the composed dish could be assembled at a third-party manufacturer with blast-freezing and packaging capabilities.
As a retail product, the current configuration might prove a little unwieldy for a portable breakfast concept. Adjusting the serving size to a single serving and enclosing the toppings in the flatbread—such as in the style of a calzone, panini or wrap concept—would make it easier to eat on the go.
