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/654717
YUMMYSQUISHYFRESH All natural marshmallows and s'mores kits marshmallows www.threetarts.com For more information please contact erika@threetarts.com 2751Summer Fancy Food Show Booth 2774 For the specialty food industry, selling excess food can become its own revenue stream. "From the beginning, we've wanted to look at all of these items as sellable food items. I've been quoted as saying, 'it's not wasted until you throw it out,'" says McQuillan. As with any new initiative, there have been challenges. "Baldor had very well organized, highly technical systems in place to catch and get out the waste," Kaye recalls. "Basically, we asked them to reinvent the wheel." Delivery also posed issues, even though most of Blue Hill's suppliers were already delivering pristine items to them. "It took many trial deliveries to get it right. But it was the same issue with all of our vendors, most of whom we've been working with for over a decade," he adds. Blue Hill's Pocantico Hills, New York, location, Blue Hill at Stone Barns, continues to purchase SparCs today; Marco Canora's New York City restaurant Brodo is a new client, and Baldor is in talks with fast-casual chain Dig Inn. Since not all items can be repurposed for human consumption, the company is also collaborat- ing with Flying Pigs Farm to develop optimally nutritious pig-feed using SparCs, and they plan to participate in a program at Newton Creek 's Wastewater Treatment Plant that will introduce food waste to the digester stream for the first time. Turning Scraps to Gold "Don't call it food waste" is a directive from all of the early adopters of this movement. "It's excess food," asserts McQuillan. "In every instance, the entire fruit or vegetable can be used." SparCs uses a three-prong approach: "First, we look to use the scraps for human consumption; if not, we see if they can be used for animal consump- tion, like mango pits or peelings from the honeydew melon; and if that doesn't work, we use them to make energy. We'll sell them to a company or pay to have them taken to be used for anaerobic diges- tion," he explains. "Our favorite processes always go back to repur- posing food for human consumption, whether that's through juicing or dehydrating or creating a flavoring." The potential for these items is unlimited. "There's a huge economic incentive to doing this," notes Kaye, "plus, from the point of view of restaurant chefs, [they're] always looking for something new. There's been this pantry of potential ingredients under our noses all along." SparCs has created a solution for others as well. "We're design- ing the SparCs program to serve as a guide and inspiration for other players in the industry, even our competitors," McQuillan says. "All great initiatives start with a small, simple action. For us it was the inspiration from Dan Barber at Blue Hill. Now we hope our pro- gram leads the way for other producers and distributors to make the same kind of commitment and impact." McQuillan concludes, "It's better for our world, our earth, and is a great business tool." Denise Shoukas is a contributing editor to Specialty Food Magazine. What was once destined for the landfll has found a place at the table, fueling a trend that has the potential to change the way the industry handles excess food. WastED featured excess vegetables from Baldor Specialty Foods SPRING 2016 77