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Gourmet News October 2018

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BY LORRIE BAUMANN American ranchers and farmers producing grass-fed beef and pork are asking the U.S. Depart- ment of Agriculture to stop let- ting multinational cattle companies import meat into the U.S. and then label it for sale to consumers as a "Product of the USA." They're arguing that a package that's labeled as a "Prod- uct of the USA" in the supermar- ket ought to contain meat from an animal that was born, raised and harvested in the U.S., and they say that's not what's happen- ing now. What's at issue is a USDA pol- icy that provides that meat prod- ucts may be labeled "Product of the USA" if "the product is (Not So Much a) Product of the U.S. processed in the U.S. (i.e., is of domestic origin)." That policy is being applied to mean that any imported meat, which must have a USDA inspection when it enters the country, goes into the plant as foreign meat, and once it has the USDA inspection stamp on it, it has become a "Product of the USA," according to a 2017 report on the market potential for U.S. grass-fed beef published by the non-profit Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. The Amer- ican livestock producers, led by the American Grassfed Associa- tion (AGA) and the Organization for Competitive Markets are ask- ing the USDA to change its policy to require that if a product's pro- ducers want to label it as a "Prod- uct of the USA," they should have to show that the meat, vegetables, fruits and dairy products inside the package were actually of do- mestic origin. "The USDA and the American government are doing a disservice," said Jack Whisnant, who raises American Pasture Park and Rain Crow Ranch beef in Missouri and is an AGA member. "The consumer has no idea what they're actually eating because the USDA is allowing foreign meat to come into the country labeled as a product of the U.S." The AGA and Organization for Competitive Markets petition to the USDA is currently under re- view by the agency. "It's an uphill BY LORRIE BAUMANN Denver's Il Porcellino Salumi, al- ready starting to make a name for itself among the cognoscenti, is ramping up its production facili- ties. The company has just opened a new U.S. Department of Agriculture-certified processing facility in Basalt, Colorado, about 180 miles west of Denver, where it's begun processing dry-cured and fermented salumi for the wholesale market. Il Porcellino is already known in Denver for its retail store, lo- cated in the city's Berkeley neigh- borhood, which is anchored by the Tennyson Street shopping This Little Piggy Went to Il Porcellino Salumi Continued on PAGE 8 Continued on PAGE 10 Continued on PAGE 13 district, fairly well known across the city for the artisan shops that make it a destination. The shop combines a deli and butcher shop that earns five-star reviews for Charcutier and Owner Bill Miner's Head Cheese and for sandwiches like the Hoggie, which offers Genoa salami Pep- peroni and Berkeley Ham and gar- nishes on a hoagie roll. The real aficionados recommend adding an optional portion of Crispy Pork Belly to the Hoggie for the full porky experience. Il Porcellino makes dozens of different dry-cured products, in- cluding hams and many flavors of salami. "We make our own bologna. We make our own mortadella," Miner said. "We do a wagyu beef pastrami that's amazing. You name it – we've proba- bly tried it." "We do our own pickled vegetables," he added. "Everything except the bread is made in-house. We make our own mus- tard." The Berkeley store is only the first of the retail locations that Miner is planning. "Nothing's set in stone yet, but there's definitely going to be something in place next year," he said of his search for another location in a similar Denver neigh- borhood. Miner's career as a charcutier is an evolu- tion from his 20-year career as a chef. He learned how to cure meats in the months when business at the catering company he was running was a little slow. "It really stems California Olive Ranch Celebrates Twin Milestones BY LORRIE BAUMANN Wackym's Kitchen is known for its all natural real butter-based crunchy cook- ies, with calo- ries lower than many cookies out there – and for the hats that Owner and Baker Paul Wackym wears during his fre- quent sampling and demonstration visits to gro- cery stores and trade shows. A Continued on PAGE 16 clothing designer during his early career and a department store chain's creative director before he turned to baking cookies, Wackym has a collection of 70 dif- ferent hats decorated with flowers, feathers, paper and butterflies and never makes a road trip without a few of them in his baggage or a cookie- sampling without one on his head. "When I started at the Dallas Farmers Market in De- cember 2018, I put on a gray Ty- rolean hat, stuck some red feath- ers in it and became the cookie man in a hat," Wackym says. "I have them for every season, in every color." The flavors of his cookies are as bright as his hats. Made with real butter, cane sugar, unbleached and unbromated flour and alu- minum-free baking powder, the cookies that are dropped onto the cookie sheets by Wackym's Kook- E-King Dough Depositor in his BY LORRIE BAUMANN California Olive Ranch celebrated its 20th anniversary in August with an announcement that the company has followed through on last year's $35 million invest- ment into the company by plant- ing enough olive trees in California's northern Central Val- ley to create the largest olive tree planting in California and the U.S. to date. The money came from a U.S.-based institutional in- vestor and the company's previ- ously committed investors, and the trees were planted on land owned by California Olive Ranch and on land belonging to other growers who have entered into long-term partnerships with the company. The new plantings make possi- ble an expansion of California Olive Ranch's production to meet the growing demand from a con- sumer base looking for extra vir- gin olive oil that's both high-quality and affordable. "These new plantings come at a crucial time for the industry as a whole," said California Olive Ranch Chief Executive Officer Gregg Kelley. "When we first de- cided to break into an industry dominated by the international VOLUME 83, NUMBER 10 OCTOBER 2018 n $7.00 NEWS & NOTES n UNFI Foundation Funds Report on Safety and Health of Farmworkers PAGE 6 RETAILER NEWS n Meijer Tests Specialty Concept with New Store PAGE 12 SUPPLIER NEWS n Sausages and Deli Meats with a True Story Behind Them PAGE 14 NATURALLY HEALTHY n Seafood Jerky from OneForNeptune PAGE 18 OLI E ACETI n Included with this Issue News ..............................................6 Ad Index .......................................23 Calendar.......................................23 www.gourmetnews.com The Man with the Hat Sells Cookies G OURMET N EWS T H E B U S I N E S S N E W S P A P E R F O R T H E G O U R M E T I N D U S T R Y ® SPECIAL FEATURE: Craft Beverages SEE PAGE 19 SUPPLIER NEWS: Little Porky's SEE PAGE 16 HOT PRODUCTS: Q Ginger Beer SEE PAGE 22

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