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Gourmet News December 2018

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GOURMET NEWS DECEMBER 2018 www.gourmetnews.com Naturally Healthy NATURALLY HEALTHY 1 6 Dress It Up Dressing Glamorizes a Salad BY LORRIE BAUMANN Dress It Up Dressing is a line of salad dress- ings originally designed to accommodate the dietary needs of a family member who was cutting down on added sugars. That happened when Sophia Maroon's father was diagnosed as pre-diabetic, which in- spired Maroon's mother, Suzy, to pay really close attention to what her family was eat- ing. Maroon's mother couldn't find a sugar- free salad dressing that she liked, so she invented her own recipe. Years later, Ma- roon was still mak- ing and serving her mother's red wine vinaigrette salad dressing, and when she started thinking about a career change in 2012, the idea of that salad dressing kept resur- facing, according to Taylor Bagen, who is now Dress It Up Dressing's Brand Develop- ment Manager. She started making the salad dressing and selling it to friends and family, who were placing orders in such volume that she had to keep going back to her local Whole Foods store to pick up the wooden clementine boxes in which she was packing her jars for deliveries. One day, the Team Leader at Whole Foods asked her what she was using all those boxes for. When Ma- roon explained her salad dressing project, she was invited to let Whole Foods in on the action. "When Whole Foods tried the dressing, they said 'We don't sell anything like this, and we should.' With that en- dorsement, Sophia got serious and started formalizing Dress It Up Dressing," Bagen said. "She was right – the response was phenomenal." A few years later, Dress It Up Dressing has added Ranch, Caesar and Sesame Tahini dressings to the original vinaigrettes, for a total of seven varieties now in the line. All are made with the same kind of quality ingredients that characterized the original dressing created by Maroon's mother. They use no xanthan gum or other fillers. "We make sure that the ingredients for the dressings are all things you can recognize, pronounce and you probably have in your kitchen," Bagen said. Four of the dressings are completely sugar free, while the others have less than 1 gram of sugar per tablespoon. Olive oil is the base for all of the dressings, with a touch of sesame oil added to Sesame Tahini for its flavor. Five of the dressings are vegan, and all of them are gluten free. "When Sophia started out making Dress It Up, she didn't set out to make them gluten free, low-carb, Whole 30-compliant or any of those things. She really just recre- ated her mom's classic recipe using simple, pure ingredients, and by doing it, the prod- uct ended up checking all those boxes any- way," Bagen said. "We like to emphasize that that's the beauty of clean, whole food. When you use real ingredients, you auto- matically set yourself up to be accommo- dating to all kinds of specialty diets." "It then translates into being incredibly versatile. They're wonderful as a dip or marinade or to driz- zle on top of a rice bowl," she contin- ued. "It has really re- placed so many products in my kitchen that were just clogging up space." The new Sesame Tahini Dressing, added to the line this spring, won a 2018 Good Food Award as well as a sofi Award. "That was really exciting for us, and we saw a lot of growth following those awards," Bagen said. The company has also been recognized as a certified B Corporation, with third- party accreditation for its social and envi- ronmental efforts as well as standards for public transparency and legal accountabil- ity. "That allowed us to balance our profit with our mission and our purpose," Bagen said. Dress It Up Dressing's mission is to be a company that benefits employees, the community and the planet by supporting food education, the local food movement, sustainable farming practices, efficient food distribution and access to healthy food for children, she said. A good example of this is the company's partnership with D.C. Central Kitchen, a community kitchen with a mission is to use food as a tool to strengthen bodies, em- power minds and build communities. The D.C. Central Kitchen partners with Wash- ington, D.C. public schools with the goal of getting healthy food to kids at school, and Dress It Up Dressing provides salad dressing for the effort. "They get their veg- etables at lunch; they taste much better, and they're not covered in sugar and un- healthy oil," Bagen said. "The mission to improve child nutrition is fundamentally important to our company. We think it's necessary to instill healthy eating habits from a young age so these habits just be- come second nature as they continue to grow." The Dress It Up Dressings are packaged in 10-ounce bottles that retail for $7.99. They're currently distributed in 27 states across the country with the goal of estab- lishing the products as a truly national brand. They're currently sold in Whole Foods, Central Market in Texas and at all the Fresh Market locations and are soon to be available online through Kroger Ship, and Amazon. For more information, visit www.dressitupdressing.com. GN Honey Mama's Sweet and Soft BY LORRIE BAUMANN Christy Goldsby knew she had a product she loved in her hands the first time she tasted the results of a test batch of what has become her Honey Mama's Cacao-Nectar Bars. "The second I ate the first bite of the bar, I saw the packaging in my mind and knew it was going to be a great idea," she said. "I took it to my dance class, and they loved it, and then I took it to my mom because I have so much respect for her as a baker.... It has an Old World rus- tic appeal that kind of reminded me of a panforte or a wonderful Italian Torrone." Goldsby is the Founder and Chief Exec- utive Officer of Honey Mama's, which launched in 2013 at the Portland Farmers Market with four flavors of her raw bars. Almost six years in, her company now em- ploys 32 full-time staff and Honey Mama's is sold in 1,700 grocery stores nationwide. The idea for the bars came after Goldsby had begun suffering from food allergies that brought home to her that what she ate had a profound effect on how she felt. "It was a huge moment for me," she said. "How I ate absolutely affected my state of health." At the time, she'd left behind the family baking business in which she'd been work- ing for the past few years, and she was looking for another business that she could start on her own. "I wanted something to do with food, but I wanted to intersect it with wellness because both of those things were very meaningful to me," she said. Then, while she was searching for that next great idea, a friend of hers offered, "this wonderful little treat without the cheat, which was a raw-food, coconut oil- laden protein bar with nourishing, deli- cious ingredients," she said. "I ate it, and knew this was close to the idea I wanted to do." She didn't want to copy that product ex- actly, though – she just wanted to bor- row some of the important con- cepts behind it. "It was too protein- focused for me," she said. "I wanted to do something that was more on the indulgence side." That was in 2009, and that moment launched Goldsby into product develop- ment for a raw bar that would be sweet and creamy and delicious. "I always knew that honey was going to be the primary sweet- ener because it was the thing that my body loved the most," she said. "I combined honey with cocoa powder with some co- conut oil for creaminess...." By 2013, the first four Honey Mama's products were ready for the Portland Farmers Market. Today, the line includes eight flavors of the fudgy treats, includ- ing Peruvian Raw, CocoNoNut, Lavender Red Rose and Nibs & Coffee, with Ginger Cardamom Cacao-Nectar Bar the newest. They're all honey-cocoa bars made from five whole foods: virgin coconut oil, cocoa powder, Himalayan pink salt and either sprouted almonds or shredded co- conut along with a few flavoring ingredi- ents. They're each 2.5 ounces and retail for $5.99 from the refrigerated grab and go shelves at grocery markets. A smaller single serving size bar is in the next of- fering in line. "They're in the refrigerated section because we use coconut oil, so they fit into the fresh snacking area," Goldsby said. "We are one of the few brands that sits on the grab and go shelf that represents a clean label indul- gence.... It's a very unique, whole food, luxurious treat." GN

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