A Texas-based food vendor on the nationwide state- and county-fair circuit, Kelly Villareal’s holy grail was the Minnesota State Fair. She applied to join the Great Minnesota Get-Together 10 years in a row. But all her businesses — ice cream, kettle corn, pineapple whip — got rejected.
Then she submitted an idea seemingly plucked straight from TikTok: the viral chocolate strawberry cup. Her new business serves plump, fresh strawberries enrobed in melted Belgian chocolate with topping combinations that include the equally internet-famous Dubai chocolate, made with pistachio cream and crunchy kataifi.
This time, she got in.
Among the 33 new foods coming to the Minnesota State Fair in 2025 are a surprising number of trend-driven ideas making the leap from screen to fair stand. Smashburger tacos, croffles — and Villareal’s chocolate strawberry cup.
For her, choosing and then perfecting a trending food item was the ticket to Minnesota.
“I do believe that we see something, whether it’s on Instagram [or TikTok], and it’s like, wow, that’s doing amazing. How can we take that and really take it to the next level on a bigger scale, to get it out there?” Villareal said. “I’ll be on there and my mind is just buzzing, like, let’s do this.”
As vendors work to stand out at an event famous for over-the-top, deep-fried excess, social media platforms have become a wellspring of ideas for landing a coveted spot on the fair’s new foods list.
“Our vendors keep a really great pulse on what’s trending in the food and beverage industry,” said Maria Hayden, a Minnesota State Fair spokesperson. “Food content has just exploded online in popularity and brought international visibility to what kinds of foods are popular — not just in our region but around the world.”