Oser Communications Group

GOURMET NEWS AUGUST 2018 www.gourmetnews.com FROM THE EDITOR 4 WWW.GOURMETNEWS.COM PUBLISHER Kimberly Oser SENIOR ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Jules Denton-Card jules_d@oser.com EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Lorrie Baumann lorrie_b@oser.com SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR Robin Mather robin_m@oser.com ASSOCIATE EDITORS Jeanie Catron Greg Gonzales ART DIRECTOR Yasmine Brown GRAPHIC DESIGNER Jonathan Schieffer CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGERS Caitlyn McGrath Susan Stein CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Tara Neal tara_n@oser.com CIRCULATION MANAGER Jamie Green jamie_g@oser.com PUBLISHING OFFICE 1877 N. Kolb Road P.O. Box 1056 Tucson, AZ 85715 520.721.1300 Fax 520.721.6300 SUBSCRIBER SERVICES Gourmet News P.O. Box 30520 Tucson, AZ 85751 520.721.1300 G OURMET N EWS ® OSER COMMUNICATIONS GROUP FOUNDER Lee M. Oser MEMBER OF: Periodicals postage paid at Tucson, AZ, and additional mailing office. Gourmet News (ISSN 1052-4630) is published monthly by Oser Communications Group, 1877 North Kolb Road, Tucson, AZ 85715; 520.721.1300. Publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material or prices quoted in newspaper. Contributors are responsible for proper release of pro- prietary classified information. ©2018 by Oser Communications Group. All rights re- served. Reproduction, in whole or in part, without writ- ten permission of the publisher, is expressly prohibited. Back issues, when available, cost $7 each within the past 12 months, $12 each prior to the past 12 months. Back orders must be paid in advance either by check or charged to American Express, Visa, or Master Card. Gourmet News is distributed without charge in North America to qualified professionals in the retail and dis- tribution channels of the specialty foods and hardgoods trade; paid subscriptions cost $65 annually to the U.S. and Canada. All foreign subscriptions cost $150 annu- ally to cover air delivery. All payments must be made in U.S. funds and drawn on a U.S. bank. For subscriber services, including subscription information, call 520.721.1300. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Gourmet News, 1877 North Kolb Road, Tucson, AZ 85715. New market research conducted by Mintel for the Specialty Foods As- sociation predicts that the specialty food prod- ucts that will be most successful over the next five years will be those that help consumers feel connected to a place or connected to a cause. What it tells us is that consumers are hungry for connection. Meeting that need was supposed to be the great gift of modern communications technology, but we know that many con- sumers feel more isolated and alienated than ever. We're coming to grips with a kind of culture shock, a phenomenon that grips us when we find ourselves thrown into a culture that threatens our comfort- able first assumptions that everyone around us is more or less just like us. Once we start actually getting to know more peo- ple, we come face to face with the realiza- tion that most people actually aren't exactly like us – they're unique individuals within their own cultural contexts. Our human re- action to that is a shock that provokes fear and anger, sometimes culminating into a retreat back into the tribes and communi- ties in which we feel safe, and sometimes easing into a sense of safety and comfort among these new people as we continue to learn more about them. Which way that goes depends partly on whether we feel welcomed and loved by the strangers in this new world. Retailers are often the gatekeepers into these new communities, suddenly realized to be all around us in what we'd thought was our own country, peopled by people exactly like us and now revealed to be something quite other. You can teach us how to eat here – what kimchi is and how it's made, how to make the salsa for a deli- cious fish taco, what we're supposed to do with this weird cheese that must be good because we just paid $20 for half a pound of it. You speak the language of food and home cooking, so you can be the essential translators for us who are hungry – as much for an understanding of the strangers in the world around us as for food. It's the kitchenware retailer who can show us a tagine and lead us to some understanding of its role in North African food culture and thus into the beginning of some knowledge of a people who share a very different her- itage from most, but not all, American con- sumers. It the specialty grocer who can introduce us to a sheep milk cheese and the people who made it. Both can help us all feel more comfortable in a world in which suddenly the people all around us eat banh mi and chitlins and cricket snacks instead of "normal" food. During his lifetime, Anthony Bourdain did a great deal to help us make these kinds of connections and to show us that growing our understanding of other people and their food and their cooking has real value in helping us feel connected. His death is a loss to our world, and his voice will be missed. GN — Lorrie Baumann Editorial Director FROM THE EDITOR

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