Look out Starbucks, JavaVoo is out there!

CHICAGO — Amid the flavored water, organic beef jerky and other samples offered by 2,000 exhibitors at the Food Marketing Institute's trade show this week, a theme with a familiar flavor emerged.

Food companies are catering, above all, to consumers' desire for ever-more-healthful, ever-more-organic products.

Take JavaVoo, an 8-ounce latte that you make in the microwave, with water in the lid that drips through a miniature filter into the drinking cup. Houston entrepreneur Robert Vu figures it's more convenient than espresso machine and, at $1.99 to $2.49, is cheaper than running to Starbucks.

The good-for-you angle for JavaVoo is that the coffee is organic.

Another new product called Bada Beans, which amounts to coffee syrup in dissolvable tablets, contain no fat or sugar.

Then there's the oddly named Froid, a bottled Frappuccino knock-off with ingredients that include organic coffee, organic milk, organic sugar and organic maltodextrin.

Froid is the brainchild of Southern California entrepreneur Ben Shojaee who hopes it will be on grocery-store shelves this summer. "I think Frappuccino is one of the tastiest products out there, and I thought I'd make it better," Shojaee said.

Companies of all sizes display their most promising new products at this trade show each spring, hoping to attract attention from the 35,000 people — many of them grocery-store buyers — who walk among 1.2 million square feet of exhibits. It's actually several shows in one: the Food Marketing Institute's FMI Show; a food export show; a produce show; a "fancy-food" show — think gourmet jam and cheeses; and an organic show with everything from organic Scottish oatmeal to organic forest honey from Zambia.

On Sunday afternoon, a mother of two who sells organic body products enthused over the soy whipped cream she was sampling.

"This is so smart!" gushed Karen Ciesar, founder of Trillium Organics. She doesn't mind the dairy in conventional whipped cream; it's the partially hydrogenated vegetable oil and high-fructose corn syrup that bother her.

"Birthdays are more boring at my house because those ingredients are not allowed," said Ciesar, who was excited about the German product Soyatoo Soy Whip, which the Boulder-based retailer Ceres Organics began importing to Whole Foods last month. It retails for $3.99 to $4.99 for a 7-ounce can that is not certified organic because of the nitrous oxide that helps whip the cream.

Another exhibitor targeting children with health-conscious parents was Bellevue-based Advanced H20.

In August, it will begin shipping Crayola Color Coolerz, brightly colored bottled water that is sweetened with sucralose instead of sugar or corn syrup.

Advanced H20, which is paying Crayola to use its logo, figures the coolers are a healthful alternative to soft drinks. It plans to sell Berry Blue, Wild Strawberry, Screamin' Green and Purple Pizzazz in eight-packs of kid-size 8-ounce bottles that will retail for about $2.99.

For the little kid inside anyone who remembers Fizzies from the 1960s, that drink tablet is back and being marketed as another healthy alternative to soda pop. The tablets turn water into colorful drinks that are rich in vitamin C and sweetened with sucralose.

The same company reviving Fizzies, Amerilab Technologies from Minnesota, is offering another new effervescent drink tablet for folks who are all grown up: Drinkin' Mate, a fizzy drink meant to ward off hangovers. Both products launch in the next few weeks.

Tacoma-based Roman Meal also attended the show this year, emerging with its first new nonbread product in 15 years: whole-grain snack bars. Brand marketing director Todd Kluger said the company knows it's a crowded category, but Roman Meal hopes to compete by offering multiple grains in each bar: oats, rye, barley, wheat and corn bran. An organic version is in the works and could be available within a year.

One exhibitor who made a splash at the same food show years ago with SoBe Beverages is back this year with The Original SoupMan, a new chain of restaurants and fresh soups for grocery stores made with the recipes of Al Yeganeh, a New York soup chef who shot to national fame with the 1995 "Soup Nazi" episode of Seinfeld.

John Bello, who sold SoBe to Pepsi in 2001, figures his new SoupMan venture is "the perfect marketing storm."

"The icon brand already exists in Al, the marketplace is ready for a super premium soup with the emerging health consciousness, and that's coming together with a very talented marketing team led by me and others," Bello said.

He expects to have 50 or 60 franchise restaurants by year's end, including one in Seattle. The 15-ounce soup pouches will retail in grocery stores for $4.99 to $6.99, with five flavors to start: chicken vegetable, garden vegetable, turkey chili, seafood bisque and jambalaya.

Melissa Allison: 206-464-3312 or mallison@seattletimes.com