Gourmet News • April 2021

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Crushing the Weekday Lunch

Borges USA

Take Two

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VOLUME 86 • NUMBER 4 APRIL 2021 • $7.00 • Days of Wine and Roses at Uncle Giuseppe’s Marketplace PAGE 8

• CHO America Grows Green in Tunisia PAGE 10

• Southern Love in Jars and Bottles PAGE 12

• Sustainability with a Crunch from Hippie Snacks PAGE 13

• Duralex Presents Empilable Mugs for Cheese Foam Tea PAGE 13

• Oils to Help Heal the Planet PAGE 14

• The Hamburger Bun for Keto Consumers PAGE 14

• Featured Products PAGE 15

• Editor’s Picks PAGE 20

• Ad Index PAGE 22

B U S I N E S S

N E W S P A P E R

F O R

T H E

G O U R M E T

I N D U S T R Y

Traditional Medicinals Offers New Certified Elephant Friendly Teas

BY LORRIE BAUMANN

Traditional Medicinals, which started in 1974 as an herbal tea company and has now branched out from there into a supplier of other botanical wellness products as well, has now entered the black tea market with three herb-rich black teas. “We really began around connecting people around the power of plants as an integral part of our whole healthcare system,” said Jamie Horst, Director of Social Responsibility for Traditional Medicinals.

These products are currently exclusive to Whole Foods Market, with their October 2020 launch there as a partnership with

the Whole Planet Foundation, which works to alleviate poverty both in global communities and the U.S. They will launch nationally in May of this year.

The three new teas, Assam Chai, Darjeeling Rose Hips and Darjeeling Lemon, are Certified Elephant Friendly by the Wildlife Friendly Enterprise Network, so that purchases of these teas supports tea farmers who are working to safeguard habitat for one of the last strongholds of Asian elephants in the wild. To attain the Elephant Friendly certifi-

cation for these teas, Traditional Medicinals worked with its preexisting network of certified or-

If you had to pick one food that transcends culture and geography, you’d probably have to think about it for a while, but you might very well land on the noodle. Although the term itself is derived from a German word, noodles are, of course, a staple in many Asian countries as well as in European

cuisines.

The earliest-known noodles have been dated back to 4,000

years ago and were found by a team of archaeologists in China in

BY LORRIE BAUMANN

the early 2000s. They were made of two kinds of millet that had been ground into flour to make a dough that was then shaped into the noodles. Although they’re much tougher than modern wheat noodles, the same kind of millet noodles are consumed in China today.

Noodles are just one example of a plant-based food, and just as they transcend culture and geography, so do plant-based foods in general, according to Greg

The package of One Degree Organics Sprouted Cinnamon Flax Granola that the company sent me is made of oats from River’s Edge Organics, organic cane sugar from the Cooperativa Manduvira, flax seeds from Rowland Seeds, sunflower oil from Petroagro, cinnamon from Tripper, unrefined salt from RealSalt and tocopherols (Vitamin E) from Food Ingredient Solutions. Roy Brewin, the Farmer at Rowland Seeds, says he’s still amazed by the way that “one tiny little seed can multiply into a handful of seeds.” Margie Brewin is the company’s Office Manager, and she says her company’s products are “chemical free and grown from the heart.”

And although I have to take an interpreter’s word for it, Farmer Syafrizal (Tjap) Nurdin says that he’s been farming cinnamon for more than 40 years. At his farm, after the trees are chopped down, their bark is peeled at the same location and then loaded onto the back of a motorbike and driven down to the warehouse, where it’s dried. The people who are doing the work are dressed casually – they look like they might have

Continued on PAGE 12

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ganic and biodynamic farmers to review and update their previous agricultural practices, when Continued on PAGE 14

Noodles with a Protein-Powered Difference

BY LORRIE BAUMANN

Farmers Speak for One Degree Organics

Recycling Greenhouse Gas Along the Mother Road

BY LORRIE BAUMANN

Mother Road Brewing Company in Flagstaff, Arizona, has invested in technology that will reduce both its carbon footprint and its operating costs. Its new CiCi® carbon capture equipment from Earthly Labs Technology will recapture an estimated 100,000 pounds of carbon dioxide in its first year of operation and pay for itself within two years, according to Mother Road Brewing Founder and Chief Executive Officer Michael Marquess. “Good for the Earth, good for the bottom line – that is a perfect project to do,” he said.

Known for its Tower Station IPA, Mother Road Brewery operates a brewery and taproom along the 1926 alignment of Route 66. The company has been making and pouring craft beers in Flagstaff since 2010, and it was in that taproom that a Mother Road employee heard about Earthly Labs and brought the idea to the company’s committee that handles community engagement and environmental sustainability initiatives. “We actually were looking at ways to be sustainable.

We’re constantly on the search,”

Marquess said. “This came up

through that employee-run committee. They’d heard about it from a customer in the taproom.”

Marquess did some investigation and then brought information about CiCi to his board.

“The board said it’s a home run if it pays back in two years and helps the environment,” he said. “It was an easy yes.”

The new technology recaptures carbon dioxide that’s produced by the yeast in the brewery’s fermentation tank as it’s turning the sugar Continued on PAGE 11

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FROM THE EDITOR IN CHIEF

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Greetings: We’re all used to being asked to make sacrifices to protect the Earth, and as we think about undertaking them, we’re also used to knowing that there’s little chance that these particular sacrifices are going to make any meaningful difference. The Earth’s problems are so great, and what we’re able to do about them always seems too little and too late. Maybe I’m alone in that, but I don’t think so.

That being the case, I felt a sense of great relief when I was told that scientists think that there’s a realistic chance of pulling Asian elephants back from the abyss of extinction in the wild. All we have to do is help support tea growers who are already working to do that, and all that means is looking for teas in the supermarket that are marked with the Elephant Friendly seal from the Wildlife Friendly Enterprise Network.

Elephant Origins, Traditional Medicinals

and Republic of Tea are three brands that offer teas carrying that seal. They’re buying tea from farmers that have already committed to modify their agricultural practices, when necessary, to protect elephants from the worst of the effects caused by the encroachment of tea plantations into areas inhabited by wild Asian elephants. The really good news is that tea growing is such an important reason for those encroachments that the tea growers’ commitments to preserve the elephants are enough to turn the tide for a species endangered by its loss of habitat.

As of now, there are about 50,000 Asian elephants still living in the wild. About 20,000 or so live in the area where the borders of China, India, Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet come together. Over the last three generations, the number of Asian elephants living in the wild in that region, which is also a very important area for tea cultivation, has been halved by conflicts between the human needs of local tea growers and the elephants’ need to migrate freely in search of water and food. Wildlife Friendly

is working with some of those farmers to alter their practices to minimize that conflict. It’s something the farmers are willing to do, partly because elephants have iconic significance within their cultures.

The farmers don’t want to lose the elephants, but they can’t afford to lose their livelihoods, either. What they need is help from the market, from consumers who are willing to pay a little more for tea that’s cultivated to Elephant Friendly standards so that farmers can earn enough by producing it to pay for the difference in what it costs them to grow the elephant-friendly teas.

The really good news from this is that this idea actually has a realistic chance of succeeding, particularly since a few brands of tea sold on the American market are buying in on it. Now they just need those of us who drink tea and think that the planet should continue to be graced by elephants to buy in too.

Shall I be mother? GN — Lorrie Baumann Editor In Chief

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wine roses days of

and

at

Uncle Giuseppe’s Marketplace

BY LORRIE BAUMANN

Inside the doors of Uncle Giuseppe’s Marketplace are marble columns, painted clouds overhead and music in the air to invite shoppers to stroll as leisurely as they would through a European open market. That’s not just a clever merchandising fantasy. When brothers Carl and Philip DelPrete decided to venture out from their wholesale produce business with the purchase of a 7,800 square-foot neighborhood market in 1998, they enlisted the help of Tom Barresi to set out to recreate the Italian markets they’d grown up in. “We enjoyed that when we were kids, and we thought our customers would enjoy it too,” said Carl DelPrete, the company’s Chief Executive Officer as well as a co-Founder. Over the next two years they started adding specialty items that they remembered from the markets they haunted as children and that little market located in East Meadow, New York, relaunched as Uncle Giuseppe’s Marketplace in 2000. “It became more than just our passion,” DelPrete said. “We started opening up more stores.”

Uncle Giuseppe’s Marketplace opened its ninth location in North Babylon, New York, in January of this year and currently has two more stores under construction, one in New Jersey and one in Westchester County, New York. The grocer is planning to open two to three stores a year for the foreseeable future. “We have 2,100 employees now and are on track to be at 2,500 people by the end of the year,” DelPrete said. “In the past five years, we’ve opened up four stores.” All of this year’s new stores will be located on the East Coast of the United States, despite the many requests DelPrete says that he hears from shoppers who live elsewhere in the U.S. and visit his stores while they’re in New York. They want Uncle Giuseppe’s Marketplace to come to their own home towns, they say when they encounter him wandering the aisles on one of his own visits to an Uncle Giuseppe’s.

Both of the new stores have footprints between 40,000 and 50,000 square feet, a size that DelPrete says gives the stores the right amount of space to offer shoppers the entire Uncle Giuseppe’s experience, which includes the opportunity to watch the store’s team members turn whole milk curd into fresh mozzarella cheese, or flour and eggs into fresh pasta, full-service meat and seafood counters, an abundance of fresh produce and floral displays, a deli

counter that offers a minimum of 80 and up to 120 fresh options every day, as well as a center store that enables shoppers to complete their entire market basket while they hum along to background music that reminds them of romantic dinners at their favorite Italian restaurant – Uncle Giuseppe’s even hires professional crooners to serenade shoppers on weekends. “When you walk in, you are hit with all the sounds, sights and smells of the store – bakers are baking, cooks are cooking, and the aromas permeate throughout,” DelPrete said. “The feeling you get when you enter one of our stores is of an open market – We strive to provide people with an experiential, fun way to shop.”

“We don’t pre-package our meat. Behind every counter, we offer a selection of meats and preparations, and the same in our seafood departments,” he continued. “One of our specialties is our cheese department where you can find anything that’s interesting or different in the world by asking a professional cheesemonger who is passionate about all our selections.”

All of this comes with an abundance of customer service – just as Uncle Giuseppe’s doesn’t skimp on the ingredients that go into the prepared foods made on site and offered for sale at the deli counter, the company overstaffs to make sure that customers get the attentive service that provides a pleasant shopping experience and ends in a checkout that doesn’t involve waiting in line for the cashier. “No one waits at Uncle Giuseppe’s,” DelPrete said. “We plan to over-staff the cashier areas. It would be very unusual to find more than one person waiting to be serviced. Once a customer has taken their time and enjoyed their shopping experience with us, leaving the store and checking out should be as seamless as possible. We rarely have half of our registers closed. We take customer service very seriously.”

While some grocery chains try to prevent lines at the cash registers by encouraging speed and efficiency from their cashiers, Uncle Giuseppe’s encourages friendly conversations with shoppers. “I steer away from those analytics because that leads to poor service. We believe that customer service is an important ingredient to what we do, so the same way we don’t cut back on the ingredients in the foods we prepare, and the quality of our meats and seafood that we sell, we hold the same strict standards for

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“People who come to work in our stores are passionate about people. It’s been easier than we thought to find those types of people.

They love to work in this environment because it’s upbeat and engaging.”

—CARL DELPRETE

providing great customer service,” DelPrete said. “I think that’s one of the reasons why we have such a loyal following and people appreciate what we do. What we’re doing is so unique to the industry, and people who come to work in our stores are passionate about people. It’s been easier than we thought to find those types of people. They love to work in this environment because it’s upbeat and engaging.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has demanded some allowances – for the duration of the public health emergency, the stores’ sampling programs are on hiatus and indoor seating areas have been carefully socially distanced and outdoor seating has been added, which was very well received until New York’s wintry weather inspired more customers to pick up their food and take it home with them.

“A lot of office lunches have disappeared, but people are taking food home,” DelPrete said. “When you shop at our stores, you can buy a chicken to roast at home or pick up a chicken and side dishes that are already cooked and prepared. You can dine at Uncle Giuseppe’s just as you would at a restaurant, and at a fraction of the cost. Some people are doing that – obviously, they aren’t eating out as much these days – so we are giving them that experience to take home.”

Demand for curbside pickup and delivery has exploded, and Uncle Giuseppe’s has added 300 team members to its staff during the pandemic to pick and deliver customer orders placed through a new online platform.

“Through some very innovative and nimble work performed by our staff, we were able to integrate our existing technology into a new, more robust online ordering system,” DelPrete said. “We have now made it a very important part of our company, whereas prior to the pandemic, online ordering was limited to only catering orders.”

DelPrete expects that demand for online ordering will continue post-pandemic, even though many customers will prefer to shop inside their stores. “Prior to the pandemic we believed that curbside pickup was going to be an important part of our future and we were strategizing around it,” he said. “We’re going to see some roll-back, but we believe that online ordering, curbside pickup and delivery are here to stay and we’re going to be here online and beyond.” GN

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Ogreen

CHO America

GR

WS in Tunisia

BY LORRIE BAUMANN

In case you have been wondering how the butterfly effect can possibly have anything to do with American’s supply of extra virgin olive oil, consider this: a young man’s selfimmolation in Tunisia has a cause-and-effect relationship with the availability of high-quality extra virgin olive oils to the American market. Unlikely, yes, but just as a butterfly flapping its wings in China may have nothing to do with whether or not it rains in Central Park, chaos theory posits that it just might. Sometimes, no one can foresee how even the smallest actions will change the world.

You may still be unconvinced. Let us begin, then, with Mohamed Bouazizi, whose December 17, 2010 decision to set himself on fire outside a municipal office in the town of Sidi Bouzid is credited with sparking Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution. He was a fruit-seller who became enraged when local officials repeatedly demanded payments and confiscated his merchandise. When he couldn’t get justice for his complaint, he poured gasoline over himself and set himself afire. His protest ignited other activists against poverty, corruption and political repression, the protests spread across the country, and the massive civil unrest forced Tunisia’s president to step down in January of 2011.

Meanwhile, CHO, now Tunisia’s largest producer of extra virgin olive oil, had already decided to turn its family olive orchards into the foundation of a modern trade in olive oil even though exports of the oil were monopolized by the Tunisian government. The change in government elimi-

nated that monopoly, opening the opportunity for CHO to begin exporting its oil.

The company had begun modernizing its olive mills in 1997 to expand capacity for the oils it had been selling to the Tunisian government, but once it entered the international market itself, CHO needed to formalize its production standards to comply with requirements for international certifications. “I believe also in the past 10 years, we have done more and are actively searching [for environmental improvements] because of the international dialog,” said Wajih Rekik, the Chief Executive Officer of the company’s American subsidiary, CHO America. “Then we started also getting more environmental certifications for all of the parts of our operation. There is a framework to direct our efforts, and for the last 10 or 15 years, there was more of a structured environmental effort.”

Environmental awareness was growing in other contexts within Tunisia as well. Tunisia has long been a major exporter of the phosphates used in chemical fertilizers. Most of that fertilizer finds its way to Europe, but Tunisian phosphates are also exported to India and then to other Asian countries. That production was managed by the Tunisian Chemical Group, owned by the Tunisian government that was overthrown in 2011. Those chemical plants had been operating since the 1970s with what we might refer to here in America as a wild-West indifference to environmental

conservation – poisonous gases were simply exhausted into the atmosphere; solid wastes were dumped into the ocean to foul Tunisia’s beaches.

With the government’s overthrow, the environmental management just got worse – gas emissions that had been limited by the Tunisian government to night-time hours when most people were inside their homes were happening during the daytime, whenever the plants needed to dispose of waste. Children were getting sick. Adults as well as children were developing cancers and lung diseases.

Political activists started calling on the government for a radical solution to the problem – they demanded the shutdown of the Tunisian Chemical Group. “The revolutionary spirit unleashed by Mohammad Bouazizi’s sacrifice ignited protests against the industry, known for brutal enforcement and unsafe working conditions. Workers targeted the phosphate supply chain: striking miners halted production in many mines in the south, with some seizing equipment and shutting off the flow of water,” Al Jazeera reported. “Since the 2010-11 revolution, the seaside refinery in Gabes has ramped up production – with disastrous consequences for local communities and ecosystems.”

Activists managed to force a shutdown of that Gabes plant

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in 2011 as the unrest disrupted its supply chain of phosphate rock from the mines, but that proved to be only temporary.

CHO officials watched as the unrest spread to Sfax, the second-largest city of Tunisia and home of the olive oil producer’s headquarters as well as another processing facility owned and operated by the Tunisian Chemical Group that was having the same disastrous effects on the local environment.

“We have seen family members and friends getting cancer at an alarming rate. We saw a blue sandy beach turn into a swamp,” said Rekik. “We had to fight on the ground and politically to make it stop.”

The activism prompted the Tunisian government to take a serious look at the problem, and in 2019, the government shut down the Sfax plant and started working on a clean-up and reclamation plan, which created international ripples as the supply chain for phosphate fertilizers was disrupted. The Tunisian government is currently planning to turn the plant into a technology center and sports complex.

That plant closure had little direct effect on CHO, since the company had never used chemical fertilizers on its olive trees. It did, however, put some environmental activists at a loose end.

CHO knew what to do about a generation of young people fired up about environmental issues and with demonstrated skills in community mobilization and government relations – it hired many of them and put them to work on the company’s environmental program, according to Rekik. “The people fighting to close the plant made the employees and the decisionmakers more sensitive to environmental is-

sues. They experienced first-hand how one plant damaged the area and the land around it, so the effect was very clear,” he said.

“The commitment is stronger because of that.”

CHO put some of those activists to work guiding the environmental programs in its plant, while others fanned out to orchards belonging to other Tunisian farmers to survey their neighborhoods for pollutants and to teach the farmers organic methods of agriculture. “We started our plantations without chemicals and have pushed for that from other farmers,” Rekik said. “As we developed our agriculture more, we wanted to develop in an environmentally friendly way

Mother Road Continued from PAGE 1 from grain into alcohol. Previously, that carbon dioxide had just escaped into the atmosphere. “It’s been a waste product. The new technology captures it as it blows off the tank,” Marquess said. According to Earthly Labs, its CiCi plug-and-play carbon capture technology enables craft breweries to capture more than 1,500 trees’ worth of waste carbon dioxide from the brewing process each year to avoid releasing it to

by reducing our carbon footprint and by using land that had not previously been used.”

CHO has reclaimed thousands of acres from the Tunisian desert by drilling deep wells to irrigate millions of olive seedlings, turning barren desert into green orchards that remove carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere and creating a car-

bon sink. “Over the last year, we planted 500,000 new twigs in the desert,” Rekik said. “It is beautiful to see the transformation of a land that was completely desert....

That does help a lot to regenerate the soil and also to help with the carbon....

The plants that we are adding increase the size of the Earth’s lungs through new plantations rather than through killing other trees or competing against existing crops.” The company is currently evaluating methodology for measuring its carbon footprint but believes that’s more than offset by the olive trees it has planted – it just doesn’t yet have the numbers to prove it.

CHO harvests most of the olives from its mature trees by hand, although the company is currently engaged in a feasibility study of mechanical harvesters.

The olives are rushed to a CHO olive mill where they’re crushed, first in a cold press process to produce extra virgin olive oil and then in a secondary heated crush to extract lower-grade oil that is then refined for sale.

The pomace, the paste that’s left over after the oil is extracted, is either burned to produce energy or turned into fireplace logs.

The CHO olive mills are zero-waste facilities – everything that comes into the plant is either turned directly into a product for the market or it’s reused to make something else; the squalene byproduct that comes out of the refineries is used to make soap, in a process that Rekik says is very similar to a green soap made by his ancestors. “It has a

very strong antibacterial element, and it has strong moisturizing properties,” he said. “It started as a solution to the squalene problem, but it’s evolved into a new product line.

We are now running a 100 percent waste-free operation. We have a full line of cosmetics made with olive oil and the squalene that we get from the refining process.”

The company is now studying how olive waste might be combined with other crop waste to produce energy. “It is a heavier investment, but it is a beautiful thing because it turns waste into electricity,” Rekik said.

Much of the oil produced in those plants is destined for the American and Canadian market. CHO America is currently Canada’s top supplier of olive oil and is working to become a household name in the United States as well, with national distribution in major retailers across the country. The company owns the TERRA DELYSSA brand for extra virgin olive oil that’s verified by blockchain technology, Origin 846 for the company’s unfiltered olive oil and its newest brand, Fork & Leaf, which is its brand for blended oils that answer consumer desires for healthful oils that match their dietary preferences and the way that they plan to use them, whether that’s for salad dressings or high-temperature frying.

For more information, visit www.choamerica.com, www.origin846.com or www.terradelyssa.com. GN

the atmosphere.

After fermentation, the beer comes out of the tank nearly flat, so it’s carbonated by adding carbon dioxide back into it. That carbon dioxide used to come in tanks delivered by a semi-truck. Now, it comes back out of the CiCi technology. The savings achieved by using the recycled carbon dioxide will repay the cost of the equipment within two years.

The spent grain left behind in the tank after the beer is decanted is sold to two nearby ranches, Plowing Ahead Ranches in Camp Verde, Arizona, and Twin Arrows in

Winslow, Arizona. “Between the two farms we’re feeding about 250 head of cattle,” Marquess said.

Plowing Ahead Ranches returns some of that spent grain to Mother Road Brewery in the form of beef that’s turned into the burgers served in the brewery’s tap room. “It’s a lot of fun to see the spent grain leave the brewery and the beef come back up, and it’s good for the farmer, too,” Marquess said.

Those burgers make an excellent pairing with the brewery’s Tower Station IPA, said Marquess, who describes the beer this way: “It pours with a beautiful orange to gold

color with a fluffy white head. It has aromas of tangerine and pineapple leading to grapefruit and a little bit of resiny pine on the back end. It finishes very crisp and clean, making you want that next sip of beer.”

Although Marquess feels that the burger is the best partner for an IPA, Tower Road IPA also works well with spicier foods like an enchilada with a green chile sauce, which makes it a particularly popular choice among Mother Road’s patrons. “It is the one that we are known for more than anything else,” he said. “It’s kind of fun that I have to remind people that we brew other beers.” GN

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Southern Love in Jars and Bottles

BY LORRIE BAUMANN

It’s still possible to go to the Internet to find out how fast Reggie Kelly used to run 40 yards, but back in the days when the former NFL tight end was playing in neighborhood backyards, the food he ate at his family’s table was more about love than it was about the grams of protein that would eventually fuel his professional football career or even about the particular ingredients that went into the dishes, which was likely to be whatever someone who loved him had on hand.

Kelly’s grandma taught him in those early Aberdeen, Mississippi, days that, whatever its other ingredients, food was supposed to taste like love – that one of its jobs was to make guests feel welcome at the family table.

His football career eventually took him away from Aberdeen, first to Mississippi State University, where he played on an athletic scholarship, and then to Atlanta, where he played for the Falcons until he signed a free agency deal with the Cincinnati Bengals. During his 13-year NFL career, he often made his way back to Aberdeen, where he decided to pass on some of his skills and his stories about the glory days in the NFL to local kids who shared the same dreams. He set up football camps in which he invited some of his former teammates to join him in Aberdeen, do a little coaching for the kids and then have meals around his family table. His relatives

Noodles Continued from PAGE 1 Forbes, the Chief Executive Officer of Explore Cuisine, which specializes in making noodles from plants other than grains.

“The people embracing plant-based are driven by beliefs important to them other than geography,” he said. “I was brought up in traditional marketing, where everything was segmented. The set of beliefs around plant-based transcends geography.”

The company is driven by the questions of how to deliver plant-based protein as cleanly as possible and by the question of how to deliver variety within the pasta category, Forbes said. Explore Cuisine started down that path because the company’s Founder had a daughter who would eat only pasta with ketchup, and her father was concerned that she wasn’t getting enough protein in her diet. He found tofu noodles in the market, offered them to her in a meal. She noticed right away that these noodles weren’t the wheat flour-based pasta she was used to, but declared that she quite liked them anyway. Since the tofu noodles

there in Aberdeen pitched in with some of the food, everyone bringing along their own specialties as they gathered to feed all the hungry kids, no matter their actual ages.

When Reggie’s teammates got ready to go back to their own lives, a good many of them asked for recipes to take home with them to their families.

Eventually, the wife of one of his teammates suggested to Kelly’s wife, Sheila, that since Reggie was still looking for his next career, he ought to think about putting some of those recipes in jars so she could just pick them up at the supermarket.

Subtract the professional football career, and it’s the story that many specialty food producers tell about how they started their own businesses. Kelly is under no illusions about the ease of turning that casual suggestion for the brand he created into a national force from its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, but he’s on his way with a line of condiments and preserves, of which his KYVAN Honey Apple Salsa is a flagship product.

Potential buyers tell him that he’s moving into a “me-too” category saturated with sauces and salsas dripping with international fusion flavors or authentic food-ways traditions, and he needs a way to distinguish his products if he’s going to put them on their grocery shelves. What distinguishes his products, he says, is the flavor of that family table in Aberdeen and all the love and family support that goes into those jars labeled KYVAN Foods, a name that Reggie

and Sheila created from the names of their two kids – daughter Kyla, who’s now 16, and her brother Kavan, who’s 14.

What distinguishes those products is the discipline that got Reggie Kelly all the way to the NFL, which he expressed with the line, “When you take care of the little things, the big things will follow.” He and Sheila both put that same discipline into the social media and sampling campaigns to support the brand.

What distinguishes KYVAN Foods products from others like them on the shelves is that they’re innovative: in most cases, never-before-seen-products with flavor combinations that are unique to the market, and these are the recipes that his former teammates loved enough to make sure they went home with their families.

The line includes, in addition to the Honey Apple Salsa in both Mild and Hot varieties, a Jambalaya Sauce; barbecue

sauces in four flavors: Sweet BBQ Sauce, Sweet Potato BBQ Sauce, Cherry Apple BBQ Sauce and Honey Apple BBQ Sauce, Original Hot Sauce; Honey Apple Butter and Dry Barbecue Rub. The Honey Apple Salsa is based on the tomatoes and peppers

that one would expect of a product labeled a “salsa,” but it has a Southern sweetness combined with spices that make it a complement for meat loaf and even spaghetti as well as its use as a dip for chips, Kelley said.

“The sweet combined with savory spice notes is like a well-orchestrated symphony in your mouth. We’re hitting all the right notes,” he said. “We’ve been doing business with chain grocery stores for quite some time, and our consumers are drawn to our products because they are so different – they are unique – and because of our flavor profile.”

“We make our products with love and with a variety of flavor combinations. It’s our goal to create our products in a way that touches your soul,” he said. “Our products are designed to warm the hearts of our consumers and give them a flavorsatisfying experience that’s second to none, and it’s our hope that our neighbors, fellow Americans and the world will enjoy our tasty sauces – one bite at a time,” he added. “People tell me that the Honey Apple Butter takes them back to when their grandmothers used to make biscuits from scratch and top them with homemade jams and jellies. Stories like that warm our hearts because it lets us know that we’re making a great product that takes them back down memory lane.”

For more information, visit www.kyvan82.com or www.facebook.com/ KYVANFoods or the Instagram site at @kyvan82. GN

demonstrated that soybeans could be used to make a noodle his daughter liked, the Founder decided to try making edamame into a noodle.

Explore Cuisine has now been making edamame noodles for more than a decade – the first was made in 2010. Americans had already started becoming concerned about gluten and carbohydrates, so when Explore Cuisine introduced its noodles made from edamame and then chickpeas and pulses like green lentils, the market was ready for them. “It was a trend that was growing, and we provided an answer to that problem – gluten free, lower in carbs and, you know what, a pasta for people who were looking for more protein,” Forbes said. “We responded to a consumer need in the market, but in a relatively unique way.”

Forbes joined Explore Cuisine three years ago, as the company grew from a start-up to the scale-up phase of its business. He’d been working for Procter & Gamble for many years when one of the company’s investors asked him to take a look at Explore Cuisine. “I came up with some ideas to help and met with consumer

groups who loved the brand, the variety and were excited that they could eat pasta again,” Forbes said. “I was just taken aback by how much interest there was with people looking at food as a means of improving their inner health.”

He was excited by the natural foods consumers who were passionate about their nutrition and about plant-based protein as an alternative to meat. “Actually, you know what, it’s more about variety, even among meat-eaters,” he said. “We wanted to become something that someone could use to get some variety. Pasta’s a nice ingredient, but if I want something that’s quick and easy to prepare and want something with some protein – we can do a lot with that to make it interesting and different.”

By using edamame, chickpeas or green lentils rather than wheat flour to make its noodles, Explore Cuisine eliminates the gluten but also enhances the protein content of the pasta. “And you add a sauce to it, and it offers you the flexibility to do what you want with it,” Forbes said.

Explore Cuisine’s most recent introductions have been a line of noodles made from fava beans, which bring a creamy

color and mildly nutty flavor to the table.

“With a sauce on it, people cannot tell the difference between a fava penne and a wheat penne,” Forbes said.

Through the company’s Food to Thrive Foundation, these products like noodles made from mung beans are being developed in an innovation facility built by Explore Cuisine in Thailand. Since opening the new facility last year, the foundation is working with the local rice farmers to train them in organic farming methods and to introduce them to the idea of using mung and fava beans as rotation crops for rice in areas where they needed a new crop to generate cash flow during seasons when they were unable to grow rice as well as to produce nitrogen for their soil so they didn’t have to get the nitrogen from chemical fertilizers. “We take the economic risk away from them to encourage them to try something new,” Forbes said. “Fava and mung beans grow well in the dry season. They require a relatively low quantity of water, so it works as a second crop.”

“We feel very good as a company about the work we’ve done in Thailand,” he added.

“We’re very excited about the future.” GN

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Sustainability with a Crunch from Hippie Snacks

BY LORRIE BAUMANN

Hippie Snacks is launching into the nationwide American better-for-you snacks market from its foothold on the West Coast with a product line that includes Almond Crisps, Avocado Crisps and Cauliflower Crisps – all intentionally made in a format that suggests conventional tortilla chips for consumers who are looking for more nutrition in their snacks. “Our objective is to be the premier better-for-you snack in North America,” said Founder and President Ian Walker. “The products we’re making are really resonating.”

Walker began by making nut butters that he distributed locally in western Canada and then evolved into snack products from there. “We were early pioneers for organics with nut mixes, trail mixes and organic popcorn,” he said. “We wanted to build a business that was about sustainability and that was a business we could be proud of.”

As the organic market matured, Walker felt like it was time for his company to transform into a company that was less focused on organic foods in general and more on better-for-you snacks, which offered the advantage that his consumers bought and consumed snacks more often than they bought some of the other products he’d been making. “If people like your product, and they’re a regular consumer, they may eat it every day or week. Your passionate followers will buy your products very frequently. I like the nature of that – you can build a relationship,” he said.

Despite the logic of that, Walker wasn’t seeing many snack foods at local natural foods markets. “We saw that as a big, open space,” he said. “We continue to see that.”

The company entered the U.S. market on the West Coast two years ago with Cauliflower Crisps, which looked like tortilla chips but were made out of ground cauliflower rather than ground corn. “You’re making it out of real food, and people really get that,” Walker said. “At the core of it all, our products have to taste good. Too many better-for-you snacks don’t.”

Beyond that, some of those better-foryou snacks just seem weird to shoppers scanning the aisles for their next snack food purchase – a problem with which Walker was familiar from his early days of making snacks, when he felt that his clusters of dehydrated vegetables weren’t being appreciated in the way that their real snack potential deserved. “I just loved the taste of them, but they were really expensive, really hard to make, and they weren’t in a format that people are accustomed to snacking with,” he said. “I feel like, right now, either products are better-for-you-lite, or they are better-for-you, but they’re very unapproachable: really expensive, or not in a format that people are familiar with.”

When he visited snack aisles in conventional supermarkets to look at what consumers were buying instead, he couldn’t help but notice that tortilla chips, which didn’t meet his standards for a healthy snack, nevertheless had a fan base that his products couldn’t match, even though he felt that the snacks that he’d been making actually tasted better as well as offering better nutrition. He decided that he needed to make a snack that people would understand and appreciate the way that they understood tortilla chips. “It makes it approachable and not too weird,” he said.

“We make it in a format that you’re familiar with – you understand chips and crisps.”

Figuring out how to turn cauliflower into a crunchy bite that looked like a tortilla chip took some ingenuity because there was no machinery on the market that had been designed to do that. With some creativity, Walker’s team was able to figure out how to modify standard equipment to grind whole cauliflower, blend it into uniformity and bake it into a crisp. “It’s really pretty simple; grind, mix, bake,” Walker said. “It’s minimally processed so that you taste the real food. That’s really important and consumers want that.”

Avocado Crisps were the next product to be developed after a year of development and testing. Almond Crisps are the newest in the line. Like the others, Almond Crisps are made with real ingredients – the almonds come from California farmers that pass a Hippie Snacks farmer score card that rates them on practices around tillage and irrigation, the sustainability of the farm’s water sources, protection of riparian areas and other items. “Some of these initiatives can have a large overall impact,” Walker said. “Some farmers are better than others.”

Those farmer scores form part of the basis for Hippie Snacks’ own environmental protection scores on the evaluations it performs as part of its B Corporation certification.

“For us, this is a core part of what we do as a business,” Walker said. “When we did our footprint analysis, the biggest impact is how the food is grown.... We do farmer score cards and supplier assessments around these areas. It’s not really sexy for consumers. It’s just the right thing to do.”

How the food is grown accounts for

about 55 percent of Hippie Snacks’ environmental impact score. Packaging accounts for another 2 percent; transportation of the ingredients to the plant in western Canada and of the snacks to market accounts for another share of the impact. The company’s sustainability is also measured in terms of its own manufacturing practices and how it treats its employees. Hippie Snacks employees get a monthly bonus if they eat organic food at home, for instance. “If they bike to work, they get a $125 a month bonus,” Walker said. “If they take the bus to work, they get a $75 a month bonus.”

Walker doesn’t usually talk too much about the company’s sustainability initiatives – he’d prefer to sell his products on the merits of their taste, their minimal processing and their affordable price. But, though he doesn’t talk about it often, sustainability is a core value for the company, Walker said. “It’s what we do. It’ll resonate with some people, or it may not, but it’s still the right thing to do,” he said. “We’re a completely non-GMO company. We avoid any ‘dirty dozen’ ingredients. About half our portfolio is organic and about half is natural and non-GMO.... We want to have it so that most people can eat these snacks.

Sometimes this results in some tough conversations around sourcing with almonds for example. I know that I can get them from a clean-source farm, and we can make a product that I can feel good about. If we’re going to win over the masses, our products need to be at the right price point and not too weird that people don’t get it.”

For more information, visit www .hippiesnacks.com. GN

Duralex Presents Empilable Mugs for Cheese Foam Tea Duralex, the French glassware maker known for Picardie tumblers, presents the Empilable mug for Cheese Foam Tea, the hottest drink on the internet. Cheese Foam Tea is made with cold black or green tea that is topped with a foamy layer of milk, cream cheese and a sprinkle of salt. The clear glass mug shows off the colors and swirls of this trending beverage, blending a little auberge French style with the Asianinspired beverage.

Empilable, French for stackable, is a mug that is truly transparent and strong. Duralex invented a tempering process that toughens up its glassware to withstand daily wear and tear. Its throwback style is crystal clear brandishing the nuances of this creative drink sensation. The stackability and strength of the mugs make them versatile for both hot and cold beverages.

The basic Cheese Foam Tea recipe is simple and can be made at home with just a

few ingredients.

Empilable mugs, like all Duralex glassware, are made in France and can last for decades. If broken, they shatter into small chunks rather than jagged shards—and are microwave, freezer and dishwasher safe.

Duralex has been manufacturing tempered glassware, through a process the company invented, in the heart of France since 1945.

For more information, visit www .duralexusa.com. GN

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Oils to Help Heal the Planet

BY LORRIE BAUMANN

A new oil on the market allows consumers to delegate some of their concerns about climate change to La Tourangelle. The company has just released a new regeneratively-grown organic sunflower oil as well as the first nonGMO vegetable oil on the market that’s packaged in a bottle made of 100 percent recycled plastic.

“Our goal in making oils is to make delicious products that make cooking a better experience for consumers,” said Matthieu Kohlmeyer, La Tourangelle’s Chief Executive Officer. “Consumers in many ways are outsourcing their relationship to nature to us. Most consumers are living in an urban environment, and they don’t really know where their food is coming from. The role of a brand is to say, ‘You can take it easy; we’re taking care of it.’”

Kohlmeyer noted that consumer concern about the environment is becoming more mainstream, so when his company went looking for a new product to bring to the market, he wanted that to be oils that consumers could see as contributors to envi-

ronmental conservation. He knew that farming has a direct impact on greenhouse gases and climate change, so he went to California to find farmers who were grow-

ing, in an environmentally responsible way, crops that could be turned into culinary oils. “It turns out that sunflower is a very good cooking oil, and it’s something that grows very well in California and in many places in the U.S.,” Kohlmeyer said. “We asked farmers if they were doing regenerative. We tried to find farmers that we could partner with to tell their story.”

In this first year of its production only a small amount of the regeneratively-grown

sunflower oil is being made, but Kohlmeyer is hoping that this is a harbinger of the future of culinary oils. “This is 35 acres, and the goal is to bring to market an organic regenerative oil and start to tell a story of soil health and how it can fight climate change and make the soil more resilient,” he said. “We have to take the lead…. We’re giving consumers the power to vote for better agriculture.”

“We have to scale this effort massively, but it’s only a first step,” he added. “But I do believe that there are tons of consumers out there who are willing to pay a little bit more to make a difference…. That’s driving this approach, and it feels pretty good to do it.”

La Tourangelle launched its Regenerative Organic Sunflower Oil pilot program with Scott Park of Park Farming Organics in Yolo County, California. Beginning in the spring of 2020, sunflower seeds for the oil were grown organically on land that has not had any chemical amendments in 20 years and that has benefited from regenerative practices such as crop rotation, cover cropping, composting and animal pasturing.

La Tourangelle is expanding the pilot

program this year with an organic pumpkin seed oil, also in partnership with Park Farming Organics.

The new non-GMO oil, a blend of canola and sunflower oils, packaged in the 100 percent recycled plastic bottles, is intended as an everyday vegetable oil for consumers concerned about the proliferation of plastics in the environment but also desiring a more affordable option for their cooking oil. The company’s intention is to create a market for the recycled plastic bottles that will inspire other manufacturers to consider using more environmentally friendly recycled bottles in preference to bottles made from virgin plastic, even though the recycled plastic is more expensive than the virgin material, Kohlmeyer said.

While the regenerative sunflower oil is going into the natural foods channel, La Tourangelle is launching the non-GMO vegetable oil with large conventional grocers. “Organic is very much more expensive on the shelf,” he said. “You do have to think about the fact that to be inclusive, you have to be reachable…. You pay a buck more, but it is very reachable…. Everybody’s jumping on it because that’s what the world needs.” GN

The Hamburger Bun for Keto Consumers

BY LORRIE BAUMANN

UnbelievaBuns offers an option for the consumer who’s all in on a keto diet or who’s counting carbohydrates for other reasons but who’s not up for sacrificing forever the idea of a bacon cheeseburger. UnbelievaBuns were created by Jerrod Adkins, a body builder and fitness buff, after he couldn’t find a hamburger bun on the market with a taste and texture that satisfied him.

“My cheat meal once a week was always burgers,” he said. “I asked myself, ‘Why does

Elephant Friendly Continued from PAGE 1 necessary to enable them to comply with the scientific standards required by the Wildlife Friendly Enterprise Network, which sets its standards to match practices that have already been shown to really benefit animals in the wild.

“We do have longstanding supplier relationships. That’s part of our approach to sustainable sourcing,” said Horst, who added that this mitigation and certification process enabled the company to deepen its relationships with those longstanding partners, which is part of the company’s commitment as a California Benefit Corporation, Certified B Corporation and California-certified Green Business. “As a B Corporation, we are as aware of the impacts of our system and our obligation to mitigate those for the benefit of all of our stakeholders, including our nonhuman stakeholders,” Horst said. “We’re deeply concerned about conservation and the impact of our products on the communities.”

In addition to sourcing its black tea from farmers working to conserve elephant pop-

a hamburger always have to be unhealthy?’”

He started his search for a healthier option for his cheat meal by switching out his ground beef for a 93 percent lean beef.

“That knocks off 100 calories,” he said. He looked at his burger toppings, but those were low calorie. “The other big thing is the bun. I couldn’t find a bun that met my nutritional needs,” he said.

He went to four different bakers and asked them to develop a bun. They tried to comply, but Adkins wasn’t satisfied with

any of the results they achieved. “I wasted a year of my time going down that path,” he said. “I decided if it was going to get done, I had to do it myself…. It took me six years to get the recipe perfected. It’s very difficult to get buns that are soft and flavorful and shaped right.”

Once he had a bun that tasted right and had the texture he was looking for, he spent another year getting the recipe scaled up for commercial production. “That’s where we are now,” he said. “We’ve created an en-

tirely new way to make a bread bun with higher protein, lower carbs, no sugar and no GMOs.” UnbelievaBuns are also vegan.

Today, UnbelievaBuns are made in a commercial bakery in Charlotte, North Carolina and ship nationally to be slacked out and sold as fresh in in-store bakeries.

Shelf life once they’re thawed is four to seven days. They’re packaged in a six-pack that retails for $8.99 to $12.99.

For more information, visit www .unbelievabuns.com. GN

ulations, Traditional Medicinals sources many of the herbs used in its teas from producers harvesting them in the wild. “They only collect what the area can manage and leave the area intact,” Horst said. The company is also pursuing Worldwide Fund for Nature certification as Panda Friendly for products that are made from ingredients harvested in China’s panda habitat.

Tea farmers generally protect their crops from marauding wildlife by putting up fences to prevent conflicts between migrating elephants and their crops and workers. The result of that is that each tea estate is encapsulated within its own boundaries, which made it difficult for the elephants to find a safe route to navigate as they migrated from place to place in search of food and water. “As the dry season approaches, they migrate in search of better water sources, which allows the plants to regenerate,” Horst said.

In northern India, home to about 27,000 members of the last populations of Asian elephants, which have been classed as an endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, electric fences are commonly used and electrocution is a frequent cause of death

for the animals. The premium price that Traditional Medicinals pays farmers for tea that complies with Elephant Friendly standards incentivizes them to implement and maintain best practices to allow safe passage for the elephants as they move across the land. “We are aware of the challenges and do not support installation of electric

mium funds that we send to those plantations really does assist.... We hope to be a leader in Elephant Friendly certification.”

All three of the new teas contain the 25 to 30mg of natural caffeine that comes from their black tea component. “These teas contain caffeine, which has efficacy in its own right, blended with herbs that support overall wellness,” Horst said.

Assam Chai pairs black tea with grounding tulsi and warming spices like cardamom and ginger for a blend that combines the best of Ayurveda – traditional Indian herbal medicine – and western herbalism, while Darjeeling Rose Hips pairs black tea with rose hips and spearmint to make for a balanced and refreshing tea and Darjeeling Lemon is a blend of black tea and lemon that adds brightness to the richness of the black tea’s flavor.

The three certified organic Elephant Friendly teas are sold in boxes of 16 tea bags with a suggested retail price of $5.49.

For more information, visit www .traditionalmedicinals.com. GN

fences as a preventive measure. The practice of biodynamic farming teaches the society to be respectful to every creature in and around the farm as they are inclusive in the organism called ‘estate,’” Horst said.

“We’re so proud to support it. The pre-

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GOURMET NEWS

Southern Trio from Tortuga Rum Cake Company In 2021’s second quarter, Tortuga will be launching the highly anticipated Southern Trio range, which will consist of Kentucky Bourbon Butter Cake, Apple Pie Moonshine Cake, and the newest addition, Tennessee Whiskey Spice Cake. All three flavors will be available in the standard sizes – 4 ounces, 16 ounces and 32 ounces. Consumers will be able to in-

dulge in Tortuga’s new selection of spirit cakes, inspired by America’s oldest and traditional delectable recipes, and will be able to experience unique flavors characterized by bold notes and magnificent richness.

Tortuga Rum Cake Company www.tortugaimports.com

Frantoi Cutrera Extra Virgin Olive Oil Since 1906, the Cutrera family has been producing high-quality olive appetizers and spreads in Italy. Still family-owned today, the Cutrera family has poured its family values and recipes into each jar.

The olives used to make these delicious products are grown on the 150 acres surrounding them, which allows the family to know exactly when to pick the olives for the fullest flavor.

This delightful oil is a blend of Biancollila and Nocellara olives, both of which are native to Sicily. It is a medium-fruity oil with notes of tomatoes and artichokes, and the finish has lingering bitter and spicy notes.

There are four different labels, all repre-

senting Sicilian history and culture, but each bottle contains the same oil.

The bottles have eyecatching shelf appeal, attracting buyers and customers with their original artwork and bright colors. Even better yet, their uncompromising quality and flavor will allure customers to come back for more.

Packed six units in a case and imported directly from Italy, Frantoi Cutrera PGI Extra Virgin Olive Oil is available at The French Farm.

The French Farm 713.660.0577 www.frenchfarm.com

Fiorucci Genoa Salami & Mozzarella Panino Originally introduced in 2011, Fiorucci Paninos created a whole new specialty snacking category. Every Panino is hand-rolled with dry-cured meats, such as prosciutto, pepperoni and hard salami. The newest extension to the product line is a single-serve offering, Genoa Salami, filled with delicious, r-BST free cheese to provide a protein-rich treat. Fiorucci Paninos meet the need for convenient, on-the-go, low-carbohydrate, keto-friendly snacking, and are perfect for lunches, workouts, late-night cravings and more.

Fiorucci’s new Genoa Salami Panino starts with aged, wine-marinated Genoa

salami that is infused with natural smokiness and meaty flavor, paired beautifully with creamy mozzarella cheese in each delicious bite.

Fiorucci is the brand of specialty meats that delivers the true taste of Italy. For more than 170 years, the company has used Old World recipes to produce a full line of authentic Italian charcuterie meats, cheeses and premium snacking products using only hand-trimmed cuts of premium pork and the finest ingredients, then slowly aging them to perfection.

Fiorucci Foods www.fioruccifoods.com

Plant-Based Solid Oil for Baked Goods In an effort to eliminate hydrogenated and saturated fats, Borges USA has launched agreena. Agreena is a 100 percent plantbased solid oil made from high oleic sunflower oil that meets the consumer’s growing demand for healthy products.

With up to 58 percent less saturated fat than butter and 20 percent less saturated fat than other shortenings on the market, agreena is without a doubt the healthiest option. It’s no wonder bakers and cooks have made it a pantry staple.

Flaky crusts, fluffy breads, soft cookies and crumbly cakes all have one invisible secret ingredient – well, it’s no longer a secret. Agreena has a neutral flavor, long shelf life and a high smoke point, attributes that contribute to perfectly baked goods every time.

Use Agreena as a substitute for butter and margarine in recipes or follow @Starfinefoods for delicious recipes.

Borges USA www.borgesusa.com

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Guacamole Jalapeño Salsa from Jardines Jardines, known for its funky-fresh, soulful salsa from south of Austin, launches its new creation, Guacamole Jalapeño Salsa.

Made in small-batch kettles with fresh avocado pulp, crushed tomatillos and jalapeño peppers, this salsa is at the crossroad of fresh and tangy – a marriage of bold flavor, medium heat and perfect texture. This new flavor is just the latest addition to an already amazing lineup of the best, most innovative premium salsas in the market, including fan favorites like

Ghost Pepper and Campfire Roasted, as well as Jardines’ Bootleg Series, which includes flavors like Apple Cider, Tequila Lime and Bourbon Chipotle.

Teasdale Foods www.teasdalefoods.com

Jake’s Nut Roasters Seasoned Almonds Jake’s Nut Roasters is a creative line of specialty almond snacks with distinctively bold and unique flavors, which include Bleu Cheese Cracked Pepper, Bloody Mary, Mesquite Smoked, Hatch Chile, Maple, and Barbecue. These almonds are in fact “Straight from Jake’s Orchard,” showcasing the company’s vertical integration and commitment to sustainable growing practices. Jake’s almonds provide an unparalleled snacking experience and make eating this healthy snack both fun and sat-

isfying. Jake’s Nut Roasters 7-ounce cans have a cool, classic appearance that looks great on store shelves, kitchen counters or table centerpieces. Produced in a dedicated peanutfree facility, these premium California almonds are dry roasted and seasoned in small batches to deliver exceptional quality.

Jasper Specialty Foods 800.255.1641 www.jasperspecialtyfoods.com www.jakesnutroasters.com

Mel’s Toffee in New Packaging Mel’s Toffee’s array of flavors is like a rainbow, with some of the flavors brighter and more vibrant than others. This fall, the company is introducing new, showstopping packaging in vibrant colors reminiscent of a rainbow when they’re

lined up on the shelves.

Mel’s Toffee www.melstoffee.com

Coffee on the Go from 40 Below Joe 40 Below Joe features a new approach to coffee with an extraordinary product line that includes coffee lovers’ favorite coffees and dairy-free creamers flash frozen to ensure a delicious, fresh and easy cup of Joe that’s meant to be eaten.

The 40 Below Joe process brews the highest quality Arabica beans and cryogenically (quick) freezes the ultra-fresh coffee into little beads using liquid nitrogen at -320 degrees Fahrenheit. Mixing the coffee beads with 40 Below Joe non-dairy creamer beads makes for a fun, unique, caffeinated treat that is gluten free, dairy free and vegan.

Wholesalers can now offer this innovative treat to their consumers with the 40 Below Joe retail program, which includes prepackaged, 75g grab-and-go cups. 40 Below will provide the wrapped freezer and marketing materials at no cost; the only thing you pay for is the product.

Flavors include French Vanilla, Hazelnut, Vanilla, Salted Caramel, Mocha and House Blend.

40 Below Joe www.40belowjoe.com

New 16-Ounce Glass BBQ Sauce Bottle Ardagh Group’s new 16-ounce glass BBQ Sauce Bottle is the perfect complement to your brand’s sauces and dressings.

Proudly made in the U.S., the bottle is made using high-quality flint (clear) glass with a 38mm continuous thread finish.

This 100 percent, endlessly recyclable glass bottle is environmentally friendly and boasts an excellent shelf life.

The 16-ounce BBQ Sauce bottle is a new addition to Ardagh’s BBQ Sauce Bottle offerings, and is available in 12-pack cases available for purchase by emailing

or calling Ardagh directly.

Ardagh is dedicated to the craft food market with capabilities and resources to grow with you every stage of the way. By the pallet or truckload, BOB and Ardagh have the ideal shapes and styles for craft food producers like you.

Ardagh Group 856.455.2137 www.ardaghgroup.com/food2021

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Howard Products Stainless Steel Cleaner & Polish

Fall River Wild Rice: New Ways with America’s Native Grain

Howard’s gentle, yet effective Stainless Steel Cleaner and Polish leaves no oily residue or harsh chemical smell. The new, rich and creamy formulation instantly cleans and polishes in one step. It is specially formulated to require less wiping and leave nothing behind but a beautiful, streak-free shine. It’s perfect for use on modern kitchen appliances, toasters, trashcans, backsplashes, grills, countertops, faucets, fixtures and more. This

Interest in plants and grains is soaring, as shoppers look for new ways to eat healthy. High in protein and fiber, nutty and with a striking visual appeal, wild rice is one of the healthiest grains available. It was a staple food of several Native American tribes, who called it “manoomin” or “precious grain.”

Fall River Wild Rice brings this culinary gem to your store shelf. This naturally cultivated wild rice is great in salads, soups and stirfries. However, it also works well in mixes for pancakes and muffins and even in chocolate and desserts. Fall River’s Fully Cooked Wild Rice is highprotein goodness in seconds.

ready-to-use formula is manufactured in the USA with strict quality controls from a brand you can trust. Suggested retail price is $7.99 to $9.99.

Howard Products Inc. 800.266.9545 www.howardproducts.com

Coconut Ingredients from Franklin Baker Franklin Baker, Inc. is the largest processor in the Philippines and premier supplier of coconut ingredients to the global food and beverage market. The company has been in business for more than 125 years and takes pride in longstanding customer relationships, many of which exceed 60 years. Its products are produced in the Philippines from the freshest nuts available, at one of three manufacturing facilities, where proprietary processing is utilized to ensure freshness and long shelf stability. Franklin Baker controls the process from tree through shipment, allowing its customers to have the highest level of safety and confidence in the product supply chain.

Franklin Baker is proud of its extensive

third-party certifications and accreditations, including: USDA Organic, Non-GMO Project Verified, Fair Trade USA, BRC, Control Union, ISO ISO 9001:2000, 22000:2005, HACCP, FDA Philippines, GMA-SAFE, AB PAO Accredited Testing Laboratory, SEDEX, kosher, halal-certified, and Award of Excellence, 2016 - 2021 American Master of Taste & Gold Medal Endorsement for Superior Taste and 2019 - 2021 Beverage Champion by Chefs In America. The company holds itself to the highest product standards, which makes Franklin Baker “A Cut Above the Rest.”

Franklin Baker 901.881.6681 www.franklinbaker.com

The “Mother” of All Sipping Vinegars The specialty food makers at Stonewall Kitchen are known for delicious Vermont Village sipping vinegars. Made from quality ingredients and left unfiltered to preserve nutrients known as the “mother,” this new Organic Maple & Honey Apple Cider Vinegar will earn a permanent place on your customers’ shopping lists.

The mother, loved for its mix of proteins, beneficial bacteria and fiber, makes this tonic a prebiotic powerhouse. As tasty as it is wholesome, this New England-inspired flavor is made from organic maple syrup and honey for a smooth and sweet finish. Expertly crafted, U.S. Department of Agriculture-certified organic and nonGMO, there’s something to love in every sip.

Make sure to check out the other flavors offered by Vermont Village, which range from Blueberry & Honey to Orange & Cinnamon.

Customers are sure to enjoy them swigged, sipped or stirred into seltzer, so stock the shelves and keep ‘em coming, because these tasty vinegars will quickly become a must-have addition to anyone’s routine.

Stonewall Kitchen www.stonewallkitchen.com

Olivia’s Croutons Bring the Crunch The satisfaction of adding a good wholesome crunch to soups or salads has never fallen out of favor. The latest trends may be low fat, low sodium, keto, paleo, nonGMO or organic, but a real crouton can never be imitated. Sometimes you just crave a good salad with a good crouton, or a hearty soup with few crunchy morsels on top, and, oh the disappointment, when the croutons don’t deliver.

Olivia’s is all about the crunch. Made from whole ingredients, never flavorings, powders or enhancers, these good, wholesome, crunchy croutons stand apart from others. If your shelf is full of the same old, same old, redundant flavors, tastes

and textures, push a few of those SKUs aside and make a little room for a crouton that delivers a little extra and a lot of difference to your discerning customers.

Olivia’s Croutons offers five varieties of croutons, including its Gluten Free and three seasonal stuffings.

Olivia’s Croutons www.oliviascroutons.com

The only cereal grain native to North America, wild rice is not even a rice at all. It is the seed of Zizania plustris, a tall, blooming water grass that prospers in the Great Lakes region, as well as in the fruitful valley in the shadows of the Sierra Nevadas and the Rockies. Fall River Wild Rice is a small grower-owned cooperative in the Fall River Valley, a rural mountain valley nestled between the Cascade and Sierra Nevada ranges.

Fall River Wild Rice 800.626.4366 www.fallriverwildrice.com

Colby Cheese from Widmer’s Cheese Cellars Perfect for shredding, melting or slicing, Widmer’s Colby complements apples or pears as well as burgers or chili. It’s available in four flavors: Plain, Jalapeño, Caraway Seed and Vegetable and Herb.

Widmer’s Cheese Cellars can be purchased in 5-pound pieces, 2.5-pound pieces, 1pound pieces or 8-ounce pieces.

Widmer’s Cheese Cellars 888.878.1107 www.widmerscheese.com

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GOURMET NEWS

crushing weekday lunch

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Ekoa Fruit Bars

Laura Chenel Goat Cheese Logs

Laura Chenel has launched its Goat Cheese Logs in a new 4-ounce size and in several flavors, including Original, Orange Blossom Honey, Garlic & Chive, Kalamata Olive, Black Truffle, Fig & Grapefruit, Cranberry and Sun-Dried Tomato & Basil.

Except for the Black Truffle variety, which retails for a suggested $5.99, they retail for a suggested $5.49. Visit Laura Chenel at www.laurachenel.com.

Ekoa Fruit Bars are pure, natural, and full of flavor. Each fruit bar has a maximum of three ingredients, and all are gluten free, vegan and kosher. They have no added sugar and no artificial flavors. Ekoa Fruit Bars are available in four flavors, including Mango, Coconut, Banana and Pineapple.

Visit Ekoa Brands at www.ekoabrands.com.

Kakookies

Kakookies offers the comfort and deliciousness of a cookie combined with functional nutrition and plant-based protein. It’s a betterfor-you treat, grab-and-go breakfast or an energy snack anytime, anywhere. Kakookies come in five flavors: Almond Cranberry, Boundary Waters Blueberry, Cashew Blondie, Dark Chocolate Cranberry and Peanut Butter & Chocolate Chip. Visit Kakookies at www.kakookies.com.

Mr. Lee’s Noodles

Mr. Lee’s Noodles in four varieties offer freeze-dried proteins and vegetables, air-dried rice noodles and authentic Asian flavor. They include no palm oil and no hydrogenated fats. Depending on the variety, the protein component is comprised of generous chunks of 100 percent chicken breast, cubed beef and whole shrimps. Just add hot water to a cup of Coconut Chicken Curry, Hong Kong Street-Style Beef, Tai Chi Chicken or Zen Garden Vegetable soup that’s ready to eat in three minutes. Visit Mr. Lee’s Noodles at www.mrleesnoodles.com.

APRIL 2021

GOURMET NEWS

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APRIL 2021

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Five New Flavors of Popcorn

Popcornopolis is launching five new flavors in resealable pouches. Made with real ingredients and bursting with flavo,r the five new flavors include: Double Drizzle, Caramel & Kettle, Triple Cheese, Honey Butter and Caramel & Cheese. The new resealable stand-up pouches lock in the ultimate fresh taste and provide the perfect delicious and gluten-free snack. The 32-ounce bags retail for $3.99. Visit www.popcornopolis.com.

Pro2Go Snacks Showcase Chicken

Pro2Go, a leading producer of protein-packed snack solutions, launched a new line of highprotein grab and go options in January. The new Pro2Go protein line marries traditional whole breast chicken skewers with onthe-go convenience.

The skewers single-serve package offers 21 grams of protein in a 4-ounce serving and comes in Sweet Sriracha Style, Chipotle Style and Rotisserie Style. The skewers are designed with a microwaveable container for easy heat-access as well as a detachable sauce tray.

The grilled chicken breast packs serve 15 grams of protein per 2.46-ounce package. The item comes in Spicy BBQ, Lightly Seasoned and Buffalo-Style varieties. The new products have suggested retail prices of $3.99 for the skewers and $2.99 for the grilled chicken breasts. Visit Pro2Go Foods at www.pro2gofoods.com.

Thai-Style Frozen Entrees from Saffron Road

Thai Basil Noodles and Thai Red Curry Chicken from Saffron Road combine authentic flavors with convenience. Thai Basil Noodles combines pasture-raised, grass-fed beef with bok choy and red bell peppers in a delicious tamarind and Thai basil sauce, while Thai Red Chicken Curry is filled with an entire marketplace of wholesome ingredients from coconut milk, lemongrass, kaffir lime and red chile pepper with antibiotic-free chicken. Both meals are made with premium authentic and responsibly-sourced ingredients like chicken raised without antibiotics or grass-fed beef and are free from anything artificial. They are both halal and gluten free-certified. Visit Saffron Road at www.saffronroad.com.

Once Again Nut Butter Cashew Butter with Sea Salt Caramel

Decadently rich and beautifully buttery, the premium product is crafted from carefully selected, organically grown cashews that are dry roasted for color and flavor and milled creamy with natural caramel flavor, highquality sea salt and organic sunflower oil.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture-certified organic product features 5 grams of plantbased protein per serving and is free of sodium, preservatives, cholesterol and transfat. It’s also Non-GMO Project Verified, glutenfree certified, vegan, paleo-friendly, keto, kosher, and part of the brand’s Honest in Trade program. It’s made in a dedicated, peanut-free facility with no sugar added. Call Once Again Nut Butter at 888.800.8075 or visit www.onceagainnutbutter.com.

20

EDITOR’S PICKS Elephant-Friendly Teas from Republic of Tea

Republic of Tea has a pair of teas certified as Elephant Friendly, with its Bold Black Chai Tea and Bold Green Chai Tea. The Bold Black Chai Tea, inspired by traditional masala chai, has a base of strong black Biodynamic® Assam leaves infused with warming spices: cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, clove, and a hint of black pepper.

It’s also available as part of Republic of Tea’s Chai Teas Stackable Tin, which also includes the Bold Green Chai Tea as well as Mushroom Cacao Chia Tea. The stackable tin contains 12 round unbleached tea bags for each of the three varieties and retails for $15.25 per tin. The tin of Bold Black Chai Tea alone retails for $12.25.

GOURMET NEWS

New Hard Seltzer from Sparkling Ice

Sparkling Ice SPIKED™ is Sparkling Ice’s entry into the burgeoning alcoholic bubbly beverages category. The new full-flavored spiked seltzer is offered in four flavors: Cherry Lime Cooler, Lemonade Refresher, Ruby Fizz and Strawberry Citrus Smash, each with 4 percent alcohol, zero sugar and only 80 calories. It’s offered in slim 12-ounce cans in a 12-can variety pack.

Sparkling Ice www.sparklingicespiked.com

Republic of Tea www.republicoftea.com

Take Two Barleymilk

Take Two Barleymilk is a plant-based dairy alternative crafted from rejuvenated barley made from spent grain created during the beer brewing process. Healthy fats from organic high oleic sunflower oil and coconut cream are blended with the rejuvenated barley and pea protein, delivering all nine essential amino acids and five to eight grams of complete protein per serving. Calcium, potassium and vitamin D are added to make a wholesome vegan milk alternative that provides 50 percent more calcium than dairy milk and at least 50 percent less sugar than other flavored milks. Take Two Barleymilk comes in four flavors: Chef’s Blend, Unsweetened, Vanilla and Chocolate.

Take Two www.taketwofoods.com

New Tillamook Creamery Collection Yogurts

Mesa de Vida Cooking Sauces

Mesa de Vida is a line of cooking sauces based on fruits and vegetables that are designed to inject flavor and convenience into meals prepared with the intention of catering to those concerned about maintaining their health. The line currently has five sauces: Smoky Latin, Creole, Caribbean, Mediterranean and North African.

Representing a flavor profile characteristic of Green and Italian cooking, the Mediterranean sauce is the newest in the line.

Each of the sauces in the line can be used to flavor a wide variety of soups, stews and slow-cooker recipes, and each represents a region with a culinary tradition of gathering around the table every day. Each of the sauces is packaged in a 9-ounce jar that retails for $8.99.

Mesa de Vida www.mesadevida.com

Perfectly Cordial Cocktail Mixers

Tillamook County Creamery Association, the 112year-old farmer-owned dairy co-op, is expanding its offering of high-quality snacks to now include Tillamook ® Creamery Collection yogurt. The innovative new line includes six unique side-byside flavor combinations served in a reusable cup – a first-of-its-kind offering for the cultured category – and is ideal for breakfast or a satisfying snack any time of day. With flavors that range between 13-14 grams of protein and 9-10 grams of sugar, as well as no artificial sweeteners, flavors or preservatives, Tillamook Creamery Collection is made with high-quality ingredients.

Each Creamery Collection Yogurt cup contains two side-by-side flavors that can be enjoyed one by one or swirled together. Flavor combinations include: Oregon Strawberry paired with Plain, Northwest Raspberry paired with Blackberry, Oregon Blueberry paired with Vanilla, California Peach paired with Plain, Dark Cherry paired with Plain and Vanilla Bean paired with Plain.

Created with handpicked fresh fruits and a blend of spices, Perfectly Cordial brings nononsense cocktail mixers to the home bar, making craft cocktails and mocktails accessible for both the novice and enthusiast bartender. Each Perfectly Cordial premium craft mixer is made from a variety of fresh squeezed juices, a unique global spice blend and pure cane sugar, and do not contain artificial colors, flavors or preservatives.

Simply mix with your favorite spirit for the perfect cocktail, or combine with sparkling water or tonic for a refreshing mocktail.

Seasonal flavors and holiday gift packs are available.

Tillamook County Creamery Association www.tillamook.com/creamery-collection

Perfectly Cordial www.perfectlycordial.com

Carbone Pasta Sauces

Carbone, a brand best known as a New York City restaurant, just unveiled a line of restaurant quality pasta sauces, expanding the Carbone name to grocery shelves for the first time.

Developed by Mario Carbone and Rich Torrisi, Chefs and co-Founders of Carbone and the Major Food Group, the sauces will be available in three varieties: Marinara, Arrabbiata and Tomato Basil. They’re launching in the New York City area for $8.99 per jar.

Using the same time and care that’s applied in a Carbone kitchen, these packaged sauces are made in small batches utilizing only fresh ingredients, including Italian-grown tomatoes, whole onion and garlic, allowing consumers to bring the taste of the famous Carbone dining experience into their homes.

Major Food Group www.majorfood.com

Reduced Sugar Grass Fed Organic Chocolate Milk

Maple Hill, America’s original 100 percent grass-fed organic dairy brand, has launched the nation’s first Reduced Sugar Grass Fed Organic Chocolate Milk. Maple Hill Reduced Sugar Chocolate Milk is great for families, active lifestyles and anyone looking to reduce sugar in their diet. It has 8 grams of protein with 25 percent less sugar than leading chocolate milk brands. It is made with 100 percent grass-fed organic milk which is produced from family farms using regenerative agriculture along with Fair Trade Cocoa.

Maple Hill www.maplehill.com

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APRIL 2021

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GOURMET NEWS

SMORGASBORD One Degree Continued from PAGE 1 picked out their clothes at Walmart, and they seem very serious about their jobs.

I know all this because One Degree Organics puts a QR code on the front and back of each package that leads me back to the stories of each ingredient in that product. Videos show the farmers in their grain fields, the workers in the forest in which the trees grew; we hear what they have to

say in their own words.

Danny Houghton is the Chief Customer Officer and a co-Founder of One Degree Organics, a brand that belongs to Silver Hills Bakery, a family-owned and operated Canadian bakery that specializes in breads made from sprouted grain. “I actually married into the family,” Houghton said. A year after he joined the family – and the company – his father-in-law, Silver Hills Bakery President Stan Smith – “He’s our leader,” Houghton said – came to him with an idea.

He wanted to create a brand for breakfast food products – granolas, hot and cold cereals and organic sprouted flours for pancakes and waffles – that could achieve a single degree of separation between consumers and the farmers who grew the crops that went into the foods that the consumers were buying. He was going to call it One Degree Organics, and he wanted Houghton to figure out how to do it. “It was kind of a crazy idea,” Houghton said.

It was particularly crazy because Smith was talking about a product scaled for the

North American market, and he didn’t want Houghton just to figure out how to tell consumers that the oats in their granola might come from any of half a dozen farms – he wanted to be able to tell consumers that the oats inside the particular package they had in their hands came from a specific farm run by a real farmer who has an actual commitment to organic agriculture and the quality of the crop. “Most of our competitors, when they scale, they just call a broker and say they need to up their order,” Houghton said. “We have a very different process....

Everyone is vetted by the company’s procurement team, and then every producer is visited by an involved family member of the company.”

Houghton rose to the challenge by sending family members out to visit with each of the farmers from whom the company buys ingredients to make videos introducing themselves. The farmers were willing, although some of them were a tad camerashy. “Farmers aren’t the most talkative people. They’re a lot of times by themselves,” Houghton said. “We began to talk to them and share values about how they went to organic.”

The next step was deciding how to convey that information to consumers. In theory, that was a problem that had already been solved by the QR code, but Houghton discovered that the problem with QR codes was that many consumers had stopped reading them when they’d learned that many of the codes they were seeing on the backs of packages weren’t providing them with the quality of information they wanted. “We

ADVERTISER INDEX ADVERTISER

PAGE

WEBSITE

Ariston Specialties

21

www.aristonspecialties.com

Borges USA

5

www.starfinefoods.com

Campofrio Food Group

7

www.fioruccifoods.com

DeBrand Fine Chocolates

2

www.debrand.com

Fall River Wild Rice

21

www.frwr.com

Franklin Baker Inc.

6

www.franklinbaker.com

MarDona Specialty Foods

17

www.mardonaspecialtyfoods.com

Mel’s Toffee

21

www.melstoffee.com

Spicin Foods

23

www.spicinfoods.com

Stonewall Kitchen

4

www.stonewallkitchen.com

Teasdale Latin Foods

24

www.jardinefoods.com

Tortuga Rum Cake Company

3

www.tortugarumcakes.com

see a lot of our competitors showcase a hero farmer that’s on the back of the box,” Houghton said. “There is a bias there that really frustrates people because so many have abused it.

We’ve worked really hard trying to convey to people that there’s a tremendous value to the QR code information, specific to the product that they’re purchasing from us.”

The QR codes on the front and back of One Degree Organics packages lead directly to information about a specific product, and that, in turn, leads directly to the individual farmers who produced the ingredients that went into that product. If there’s ever a change within the production, a new QR code gets put on its package. “You can do that all the way down to the salt,” Houghton said. “Ours comes from a mine in Heber City, Utah – RealSalt....

‘Down to the last grain of salt’ is the way we often frame it.”

Darryl Bosshardt, RealSalt’s Vice President of Sales, tells us in the One Degree Organics video that the salt deposit is actually located two hours south of the Great Salt

Lake underneath what was his grandfather’s farm. The video takes us to the mine from which the salt comes. I’ve been inside underground gold mines, and that’s what a well-managed modern underground mine looks like. Neal Bosshardt, the company’s

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APRIL 2021

Product Educator, tells us that the reason this salt is so unique is that it contains 60 trace minerals, “in the form they were in when nature laid it down.”

Providing this degree of transparency is possible only because Silver Hills Bakery already had personal working relationships with each of its suppliers even before Smith came up with the whole One Degree Organics idea, partly because the family behind the company has a real commitment to the nutritional value of its products, Houghton said. “There are two guiding principles: What can we do to maximize nutrition in any of the ingredients in our products, and trying to eliminate any sort of toxin that might be part and parcel of where our grains are grown or in the production process,” he said. “Those are the two anchors that guide our business – maximizing nutrition and eliminating toxins.”

One Degree Organics’ product range includes four SKUs of oats: Quick Oats, Rolled Oats, Steel Cut Oats and Instant Oats, each packaged in 18 and 24-ounce stand-up bags. Granolas include Vanilla Chai Granola, Honey Hemp Granola, Cinnamon Flax Granola and Quinoa Cacao Granola, which is made with lightly sweetened organic oat and quinoa clusters with cacao.

For more information and to see the rest of the product line, visit www.onedegree organics.com. GN

Regal New Zealand King Salmon Wins Four Awards for Superior Taste Regal New Zealand King Salmon won four Superior Taste Awards this year from the International Taste Institute in Brussels.

Regal raises its salmon in the clean and cold waters of New Zealand’s Marlborough Sounds. Its distinctive Cold Smoked slices and Wood Roasted portions of salmon are sold in supermarkets and specialty stores across the U.S. The honored products include Regal New Zealand Double Manuka Wood Roasted King Salmon, Regal New Zealand Beech Wood Roasted King Salmon, Regal New Zealand Manuka Wood Cold Smoked Salmon and Regal New Zealand Beech Wood Cold Smoked Salmon.

Regal, the largest salmon producer in New Zealand, expanded to the U.S. in 2018 with its smoked salmon line, which is sold pre-pack-

aged in refrigerator cases. In August 2020, the company launched its Wood Roasted King Salmon in the U.S. to excellent reviews.

New Zealand’s King Salmon is the first marine-raised salmon to achieve the coveted Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Green/Best Choice rating, which was renewed in 2020. Regal’s salmon is sustainably raised and its cold smoked slices and fresh salmon are certified kosher.

The Taste Awards are given after blind tasting evaluations by a professional jury of 200 food and beverage experts representing some of the world’s most prestigious restaurants and chef and sommelier associations from more than 20 countries. A product is judged on how good its organoleptic qualities are for a consumer product in its category, according to the Taste Institute. GN