Specialty Food Magazine is the leading publication for retailers, manufacturers and foodservice professionals in the specialty food trade. It provides news, trends and business-building insights that help readers keep their businesses competitive.
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/195987
food trends This month we look at powerhouse private-label foods, new gluten-free labeling, food dumping solutions and more. BY DENISE SHOUKAS ANCIENT GRAIN VODKA As we near the end of 2013—which the U.N. declared as International Year of Quinoa—there's time to try out relevant products like First, the only fair-trade vodka made from organic Bolivian quinoa. The ancient-grain vodka, which retails for about $35 a bottle, has been available for several years, but the company recently repackaged and relaunched it due to burgeoning consumer interest in innovative spirits as well as the massive surge in quinoa sales. (Customs data shows that the U.S. imported a mere 7.3 million pounds of quinoa in 2007, while the 2013 estimate is 68 million pounds.) First sources the quinoa from more than 1,200 small, independent producers from the Bolivian Altiplano and ships the seeds to its distiller in Cognac, France. PHOTO: FAIR QUINOA VODKA $75,000 was raised in 6 hours on kickstarter.com to open Travail Kitchen restaurant in Minnesota. At presstime, 975 backers donated $241,568 to open the eatery—inspiring other would-be chefs to try crowd financing. TOUCHDOWN FOR FOOTBALL FOODIES Baseball stadiums were the first to bring top-notch food to their patrons but now, NFL venues are catching up. Stadiums for the Philadelphia Eagles, Cleveland Browns and Houston Texans have lured some of the biggest names in food to transform their menus, including Philadelphia's Jose Garces, Marc Vetri and Peter McAndrews and Cleveland's Chris Hodgson. Each of these chefs are bringing their signature flavors to hometown venues, joining the ranks of chefs Grady Spears (Houston), Michael Symon (Cleveland) and Rocco Whalen (Cleveland). Food Dumping for No Reason There's mass confusion among consumers about the meaning of "sell by," "use by" and "best by" labeling, according to a study by the Natural Resources Defense Council and Harvard Law PHOTO: WONDERSALT GETTING A HANDLE ON SODIUM INTAKE 12 ❘ SPECIALTY FOOD MAGAZINE Many people add more salt to food than they realize—fortunately, there's a new product that can help. WonderSalt, a reduced-sodium salt colored with fruit and vegetable extracts is marketed to help children learn to reduce the amount of salt they add to foods, but adults may benefit as well. This multicolored, lowsodium sea salt line, which contains only 50 percent the sodium of common salt, is enriched with extracts of radish, carrot, apple and lemon, to easily show how much salt is used. specialtyfood.com School's Food Law and Policy Clinic. And it comes at a steep price. Last year, Americans threw out as much as 40 percent of the country's food supply, adding up to $165 billion in losses. Solutions to the problem include smart labels that pinpoint the exact moment when food spoils, or a new store being developed in Dorchester, Mass., by Trader Joe's ex-president Doug Rauch, which will sell expired food that is still good to eat.