Oser Communications Group

GENERAL NEWS KITCHENWARE NEWS & HOUSEWARES REVIEW n AUGUST 2018 n www.kitchenwarenews.com 6 Interest in Food Preservation Remains High, But Why? was standing at the stove in my mother's kitchen stirring a pot of strawberry preserves when she came in. I had picked the strawberries that morning with my f riend Joe, before the day's sweltering heat set in. "Why do you even bother doing that?" she said. "I used to make jam and do preserving, but I realized that it was too much work for too little effort. It's cheaper just to buy the damned food. So I quit." In the moment, I didn't have a ready answer. I only knew that something about the strawberry-scented steam billowing out of the pot, something about watching the bubbles of the boil change f rom small to large, pleased me greatly. My mother's been gone many years now, but this exchange remains vivid among my memories of her. Why do we preserve? It's hot work indeed, whether standing over boiling water canners or paying close attention to the pressure canner's dancing weight to make sure the pressure remains steady and safe. Some people take up food preservation to save money. Buying produce in bulk at a roadside stand or farmers market saves money over grocery store prices and growing your own produce saves even more (if you don't count the labor, costs of seeds and supplies, water and other incidentals). But when a can of diced tomatoes costs less than a dollar at the market, it's unlikely that saving money is the real reason. For me, it's more about the ability to eat local foods, and to control what goes into the foods I eat. The tomatoes I put up won't have anything added to them but a little lemon juice and salt – no preservative chemicals, no additives that I wouldn't otherwise use in my own kitchen. If I want to choose organically grown produce, all the better. I also want to put my money into the hands of the people who did the hard work of growing the food that I rely on. But in the end, my primary reason is probably quality. When I do food preservation – whether it's canning, f reezing or dehydrating – I can be confident about the quality of the ingredients in the meals I prepare. I know when the foods I preserve were harvested, and when I put them up. Your customers may have their own reasons, and may include seasoned food preservationists like me, as well as beginners who have a lot of questions about the process. You can offer other kinds of advice to beginning food preservationists too. Your counsel can help them figure out how many jars of various foods they may need for the coming year, for example. Ask questions about your customer's cooking style for some help in this. For example, I know that I'll need, on average, a pint of diced tomatoes a week, so if I want to supply myself, I'll need to put up a little over 50 pints. Canning food has some implicit hazards, and it behooves the home canner to observe the rules to prevent sickness or even death. Can you answer those questions about what foods can be water-bath canned, and which must be canned in a pressure canner? Can your employees explain, gently but firmly, why canning in recycled mayonnaise jars is a really bad idea? Do you offer your customers high-quality canning equipment, f rom jar lifters to pressure canners? Do you sell canning jars, or, failing that, know which stores in your town do sell them and roughly how much a dozen jars costs? Can you speak knowledgeably about dehydrating and its pros and cons? Do you stock, or can you recommend, reputable books about food preservation? (Hint: Your county's Extension Service will offer lots of scientifically proven advice, and recipes for many of the things that beginners like to can, f rom preserves to salsa, and they may even be available to teach classes in your store.) We're in the thick of preserving season now. What are you doing in your store to help your customers pursue this interest? KN BY ROBIN MATHER BY AMANDA HELT With the rise of health-conscious buyers approaching the consumer market who crave organic and fresh produce as opposed to processed and packaged food, Mother Nature is getting revamped with the invention of a smart indoor-garden called the AVA Byte. The AVA Byte, which was founded in 2016 by AVA Technologies Inc., was born out of a startup competition where the founders first partnered with a Vancouver- based venture capital firm called Vanedge Capital. The AVA Byte is the invention of food marketer Valerie Song and ex-sous chef turned industrial designer Chase Ando. The two Founders said they aim to, "disconnect people f rom plastic- packaged produce, and reconnect people back to their food," according to a written statement from the company. At her previous position at organic breakfast food maker Nature's Path, Song said the company had a motto and a mission to leave the Earth better for its presence. Song said she admired the motto: "So I took a big look in the mirror one day and decided I wanted to be a part of that movement," she said. From then on, Song and Ando, who designed the AVA Byte, pooled their talents and skills to create a smart indoor garden in order to give people access to f resh, nutritious food. They intended to allow novice gardeners to grow plants at home and to provide an easy system that doesn't require advanced skills or horticultural knowledge. Some of AVA Byte's features include water, temperature and ambient light sensors built into the device along with a camera to track the growth rate of the plants. Made with artificial intelligence technology, the AVA Byte comes equipped with an automatic self-watering system, hydroponic technology and LED lighting that was inspired by NASA tuned for optimal plant growth. Each of these sensors can be monitored on the associated app. The app allows users to set up reminders to water their plants and provides a time-lapse video of the growing seedlings that users can share with friends. Gardeners can also use Amazon's cloud- based voice service, Alexa, to find out information on their assortment of plants. Users can ask questions like, "When should I harvest the basil?" or, "When do I need to water my plants?" Alexa will provide the information upon request. The AVA Byte can grow tomatoes, herbs, peppers, lettuce and berries up to three times faster than a typical soil garden with its ready-to-grow, pre-seeded pods. The pods are soil-less and come pre-embedded with seeds and organic nutrients. "Compared to traditional gardens where you have to depend on good weather and you have to worry about pest control, this garden can grow all year long, and because of the soil-less pods, it's less likely to attract pests," Song explained. The AVA Byte is available for a limited time on Indiegogo for a discounted pre- order price of $299. It will be shipping this fall. KN Indoor Gardening Just Got Smarter Around the Table with Robin

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