Three More Food Magazines to Launch in US and UK in 2006
Reader’s Digest Association recently announced that they are releasing a new, digest-sized food magazine entitled Delicious in May, which is meant to compete with upscale foodie publications like Conde Nast’s Gourmet and Bon Appetit. (Meanwhile, Conde Nast is rumored to be launching a spin-off of Self called “Dishes,” which will concentrate on healthy eating and cooking.)
RDA, which just launched Rachael Ray Every Day, and which publishes (through their Reiman division) the cooking magazine with the highest circulation in the US, Taste of Home, hopes to take a bite out of the market share dominated by the full-sized old guard of the highly competitive food magazine publishing world.
Media Week reports that the title will cover entertainment, travel, celebrity chefs, and a wide variety of recipes from myriad cuisines. There is some speculation, however, that because of the digest size, the magazine will be hard pressed to compete with the opulent photography of larger-format magazines such as Saveur, Gourmet, Fine Cooking and Bon Appetit. (If one looks at the food photography in Rachael Ray Every Day as an example of the kind of food styling and photography that RDA is putting out–barely in focus, muddy-looking and generally unattractive–these critics may well have a point.)
Of course, as a foodie who reads a lot of food magazines from around the world, I am wondering if RDA is aware of the award-winning Australian magazine, Delicious, which has cropped up on US newstands in the past year or so.
In the UK, a new monthly devoted to regional produce and local farmers called FreeRange Magazine has released its first issue. 
A magazine with a mission, the editors of FreeRange hope to do no less than help readers “relearn how to eat” by shopping from farmer’s markets, seeking local food producers, and signing up for “box schemes” (that’s British for CSA–”community supported agriculture”) instead of heading off thoughtlessly to the nearest local supermarket on autopilot.
The magazine will feature recipes for seasonal produce, extensive farmer’s market listings, profiles on farmers and traditional food producers, local cheeses, ales, breads and more, with news and views on related topics in each issue.
It sounds like a great magazine–too bad we don’t have something similar to it here in the U.S. (Although, because the US is so huge and the topic of it would be local foods, it would have to have a number of regional editions in order to work as a national publication.)
FreeRange is available by subscription, but is also on sale at all Borders stores, some Co-Ops, independent newsagents, farmer’s markets, farm shops, and speciality shops across the UK.
