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GOURMET NEWS SEPTEMBER 2018 www.gourmetnews.com Supplier News SUPPLIER NEWS 1 6 BRIEFS La San Marzano Sauces: Made in Italy with Mama's Recipes BY LORRIE BAUMANN La Regina di San Marzano has been co- packing pasta sauces in Italy for major U.S. brands for the past decade, but now the company is ready to take off the mask and step into the American market under its own name, the La San Marzano brand. The company intro- duced six vari- eties of pasta sauces: La San Marzano Mari- nara, Tomato Basil, Arrabbi- ata, Roasted Garlic, Four Cheese and Vodka, into the American mar- ket late last year with regional distribution in New York specialty retailers and on Amazon. "All of these flavors are made with premium ingredients, fresh in- gredients," said Sergio Pagnini, La Regina di San Marzano's North American Area Manager for the U.S. and Canada. The company is headed up by Felice Romano, the son of its founder Antonio Romano. The brand is now ready to start expand- ing its reach outside the metropolitan New York City area and expects to be in national distribution within the next five years. Growth will be incremental, with every new retailer starting with in-store demon- strations, according to Pagnini. "It's very important that the consumer taste this product, because the product is something else," he said. Once consumers have tasted the sauces, sales will follow, he added. "A lot of companies are doing a lot of market- ing because 70 or 80 percent of their suc- cess is the marketing and 20 percent is the product. Our case is very different.... It's very important for us that people taste the product. That's the first thing we do be- cause we don't have to brain- wash the con- sumers before they taste it. They taste it, and then we talk." The La San Marzano sauces are made without tomato paste or sugar, and the fresh tomatoes that go into them are authentic San Marzano tomatoes grown from seed in the company's own fields below Mount Vesuvius. "This sauce is how an Italian mom makes the sauce in Italy," Pagnini said. "We own the seeds. We grow them. We harvest. Everything in the sauce is made by us.... It's a classical Italian family business." Pictures of the fields are posted on the company's website at www.lasan- marzano.com, and consumer inquiries that come to the website are all answered, Pagnini said. The tomatoes for each year's batches of sauce are planted in March in the family's greenhouses and transplanted into the field in April. The harvest starts around July 15 and ends in late September. "In those three months, we make all the tomatoes we use all the rest of the year," Pagnini said. The sauces are made in Italy, where it's il- legal to use genetically modified ingredi- ents, and exported to the United States, where they're certified to contain no GMOs to reassure American consumers who may not be aware that their Italian origin forbids GMOs. "Everything starts with the toma- toes. We are the tomatoes," Pagnini said. The sauces are also gluten free, and in addition to the San Marzano tomatoes, all other ingredients are sourced in Italy from the region around Naples, including Parmi- giano aged 36 months, Pecorino Romano DOP and fresh basil, garlic and onions picked from fields near the Amalfi coast. "We don't use pre-prepared garlic powder," Pagnini said. "We cut and clean the gar- lic.... The workers in the plant prepare the ingredients as they prepare in their own kitchens." The company has conducted third-party blind taste-testing in which its Marinara and Arrabbiata sauces were compared with other major brands for aroma, chunkiness, flavor and taste. Consumers were asked whether they'd buy it. In those taste tests, the La San Marzano sauces came out on top in each of those categories. The sauces are sold in 24-ounce jars that retail for around $7.99. For more information, visit www .lasanmarzano.com. GN Green Valley Creamery Introduces Organic, Lactose-Free Cottage Cheese In response to strong consumer demand, Green Valley Creamery (formerly Green Valley Organics) continues to expand its award-winning line of lactose-free, real dairy products with the introduction of organic, lactose-free cottage cheese. Starting in August 2018, Green Valley Creamery cottage cheese will be available nationwide at a suggested retail price of $5.29 per 12-ounce cup at New Seasons Market on the West Coast, Roundy's and Mariano's in the Midwest, MOM's Organic Markets in the Northeast, as well as other natural food stores and co-ops throughout the U.S. As the only certified organic, lactose-free and FODMAP-friendly cottage cheese in the U.S., Green Valley Creamery's cottage cheese has a rich, creamy taste and mild cultured flavor. It is made with simple, clean ingredients – organic milk and cream, Celtic sea salt, lactase enzyme, and live, active cultures. With 4% milk fat, it contains no additives and is made without any gums, stabilizers or preservatives. Each serving provides 12g of protein and only 3g of carbs. Cottage cheese can be served simply with fruit, nuts or granola, or enjoyed with savory toppings like tomato, olive oil and black pepper. It also gives a hearty, high-protein boost to recipes like pancakes, muffins or quiches. Plant-Based Good Catch Secures $8.7M Series A Financing Round Good Catch has closed on an $8.7 million Series A funding round. The round was led by New Crop Capital and a syndicate of investors: leading European food manufacturer PHW Group; retailers Thrive Market and Fresh Direct; strategic private investors and entrepreneurs with global reach; and mission-aligned impact partners, including Stray Dog Capital, Clear Current Capital, VegInvest, Rocana Capital, Blue Horizon, EverHope Capital, Baleine & Bjorn Capital, M13, and Starlight Ventures. Founded by the venture firm New Crop Capital, by conscious agency BeyondBrands, and with culinary innovation led by plant-based chefs Chad and Derek Sarno, Good Catch aims to help solve the oceans' complex global issues with a line of culinary-driven, fish-free seafood. Potato Industry Debuts New Campaign that Highlights Performance- Boosting Benefits Potatoes USA, the nation's potato marketing and research organization, worked with its members to identify a nutrition-based lifestyle benefit that challenges consumers' preconceived notions about potatoes. Potatoes provide the energy, potassium and complex carbohydrate people need to perform at their best. A medium-size, 5.2-ounce potato with the skin on has, 26 grams of carbohydrate, 620 mg of potassium, and is more energy packed than any other popular vegetable. Potatoes also contain many other important nutrients that athletes seek such as 27 mg vitamin C, 2 g fiber and 3 g complete protein. A More Convenient Way to Maple Your Morning BY LORRIE BAUMANN Coombs Family Farms launched its new Maple Stream at the Fancy Food Show. Maple Stream is 100 percent pure USDA certified organic maple syrup, packaged in an eco-friendly can that doesn't need to be refrigerated, as other maple prod- ucts do, so it's very convenient for a mul- titude of uses. Coombs Family Farms sources additional maple from small fam- ily farms in the U.S. – more than 3,000 of them – that share its commitment to quality, environment stewardship and sustainable forestry management. By pur- chasing their syrup, and bringing it to market, Coombs Family Farms supports other small farmers and builds local, rural economies. In the Maple Stream, the syrup is forced out of the can by air pressure. The syrup streams rather than sprays, so it's not at- omized into a fine mist. Coombs Family Farms Maple Stream offers the distinct ad- vantage that it's not going to spill all over the table if it gets tipped. Mess-free and portion-controlled, the product helps consumers avoid sticky sit- uations. During consumer testing for the new product, one of the things that the company heard from parents was that they'd use real maple syrup themselves, but they didn't want to give it to their kids because they didn't want to take the risk that it would be spilled and wasted. This new packaging solves that problem. The Maple Stream doesn't re- quire refrigeration because the syrup is sealed so that no air can get into it, so bacteria can't grow. "From the bulk containers to this package, it's a unique way of pack- ing it," said Arnold Coombs, Di- rector of Sales and Marketing for Coombs Family Farms and a sev- enth generation sugarmaker. Since it doesn't need refrigeration, the Maple Stream can come warm to the table, so it doesn't cool down the flapjacks or the French toast or the coffee or tea to which it's added. "We're spoiled up here in Vermont, and a lot of people put maple in their coffee or tea," Coombs said. "We have a local bartender who's experimenting with it for maple mojitos – it's a lot easier just to squirt it in than to go to the refrigerator for a bot- tle. A lot of uses we hadn't thought of are now coming to light." Coombs Family Farms Maple Stream is shipping in September. The 7-ounce can retails for $7.99 – similar in price to an 8-ounce bottle of traditionally packaged pure maple syrup. "It's a little bit more expensive but a lot more convenient," Coombs said. GN

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