Oser Communications Group

GOURMET NEWS www.gourmetnews.com n JANUARY 2019 n GOURMET NEWS 6 4 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 com- pany is ready to take off the mask and step into the American market under its own name, the La San Marzano brand. The com- pany introduced six varieties of pasta sauces: La San Marzano Marinara, Tomato Basil, Arrabbiata, Roasted Garlic, Four Cheese and Vodka, into the American market with re- gional distribution in New York specialty re- tailers 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 Man- ager 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 expanding its reach outside the metropolitan New York City area and expects to be in national dis- tribution within the next five years. Growth will be incremental, with every new retailer starting with in-store demonstrations, ac- cording 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 marketing because 70 or 80 percent of their success 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 because we don't have to brainwash the consumers 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 Vesu- vius. "This sauce is how an Italian mom makes the sauce in Italy," Pagnini said. "We own the seeds. We grow them. We harvest. Every- thing 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.lasanmarzano.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 ingredients, and exported to the United States, where they're certified to contain no GMOs to re- assure American consumers who may not be aware that their Italian origin forbids GMOs. "Everything starts with the tomatoes. We are the tomatoes," Pagnini said. The sauces are also gluten free, and in ad- dition to the San Marzano tomatoes, all other ingredients are sourced in Italy from the region around Naples, including Parmigiano aged 36 months, Pecorino Ro- mano 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 garlic.... 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. Sticky Fingers Bakeries Introduces Three Gluten-Free Mix Choices Sticky Fingers Bakeries is excited to intro- duce three mixes to its gluten-free selection: Gluten Free Buttermilk Pancakes, Pumpkin Pancakes and Fudge Brownies. "We've had an overwhelmingly positive response to our gluten-free scones," says Tom Owens, Sticky Fingers Bakeries Owner and co-Founder. "We wanted diversify our lineup, and make sure our gluten-free friends had some new flavors to add to their present lineup." The GF Buttermilk Pancakes are the per- fect way to ease into the cooler weather and shorter days. The subtle buttermilk taste blended with a sorghum flour base pairs nicely with an anytime breakfast. The GF Brownies are also a great choice for parents looking for lunchbox additions or crowd-pleasing soccer snacks. Fudge Choco- late Brownies have been a favorite with pint- sized taste testers as well as their parents. "A lot of people are looking for gluten-free options now," Owens says. "I think the biggest compliment we've received is that most people can't even tell they are gluten- free." Sticky Fingers now offers five gluten-free scone mixes. In addition to the Chocolate Chip and Pumpkin Cran- berry, there's also Wild Blueberry, Meyer Lemon and Original flavored scones. The company main- tains its commitment to quality with its gluten- free line. The gluten-free scone mixes are certified by the Gluten-Free Certification Or- ganization (GFCO) and produced according to GFCO standards in a dedicated gluten-free facility using only kosher-certified ingredi- ents. Sticky Fingers Bakeries has used only the finest ingredients since it began as a retail bakery in San Diego more than 25 years ago. Sticky Fingers prides itself on what its mixes don't include: preservatives, artificial flavors or colorings, high fructose corn syrup, trans fats or cholesterol. "We want to highlight our ingredients, and give our cus- tomers something they can feel good about eating and serving to their family and friends," Owens says. Sticky Fingers Bakeries sells its products around the globe. In addition to gluten-free scone mixes, the company also offers a wide variety of easy-to-make scone and brownie mixes, Irish soda bread, premium Northwest jams, fruit butters, pepper jellies and English curds. Visit Sticky Fingers Bakeries at booth #5369. For more information, go to www.sticky fingersbakeries.com. Emmi Roth Adds Kaltbach Le Crémeux Emmi Roth has expanded its highly sought- after Kaltbach™ line to include Emmi Kalt- bach Le Crémeux, a new imported cheese from Switzerland. Made in 9-pound wheels, Kaltbach Le Crémeux is a washed-rind cheese that's crafted with pasteurized milk and microbial rennet and aged a minimum of 120 days in the Kaltbach Cave in the Alpine Valley near Lucerne, Switzerland. The temperature and humidity of the Kaltbach Cave is naturally regulated, creating an ideal environment for aging cheese and making the Kaltbach cheeses unlike any other in the world. Le Crémeux has a unique flavor profile that is sweet and unassuming at first, but devel- ops into a more complex flavor with brothy notes. Extra cream added during the cheesemaking process gives this aged cheese an extra-creamy texture. The entire Kaltbach line of cheeses, including Emmi Kalt- bach Le Crémeux, Kaltbach Le Gruyère ® AOP, and Kalt- bach Emmentaler ® AOP, is available at retailers and spe- cialty cheese shops nation- wide. For more information, call 608.285.9800 or go to www.emmiroth.com. Rango Honey Offers the Taste of the Desert Southwest By Lorrie Baumann Rango Honey offers all-natural high-end honey from Arizona's Sonoran Desert to the nation. The company, founded in 2015, is unique in that all of its profits go to benefit assisted living facilities for autistic adults. "One of the owners decided to get a cou- ple of hives to provide his family, including his autistic son, with the natural health ben- efits that come from honey, and it started from there," said President Jason Zimmer- man. The company has grown from its two- hive start and now gathers honey from 1,500 to 2,000 hives and distributes it nationally, with its products currently reaching con- sumers in about 20 states. "We're growing," Zimmerman said. "It's a true start-up with a great mission. We're growing like crazy and have a lot of fanfare out there." The sense of mission behind the com- pany comes from the personal experience of one of its owners, who has an 18-year- old son with autism. The owner got inter- ested in honey bees and the health benefits of natural raw honey, so he decided to get a couple of hives and try raising bees him- self. It didn't take long before those two hives, coupled with Rango Honey's own- ers' previous experience building health- care facilities, suggested that if they could expand the honey operation, it could gen- erate funds to build and operate safe and nurturing homes for autistic adults, accord- ing to Zimmerman. "They're creating and building that environment," he said. The company is currently funding two homes in the Phoenix, Arizona, metropolitan area – one in development and one functioning as Alpine House with half a dozen adults liv- ing there. Rango Honey is offered in four varieties: Sonoran Orange Blossom, with a flavor that's influenced by the desert southwest; Sonoran Mesquite; Sonoran Clover Alfalfa, and Sonoran Desert Bloom, which is pro- duced by facing the beehives toward open land populated by native wildflowers and cactus blossoms. "That's the one where we let them roam," Zimmerman said. The honey is pure and all-natural, raw and unfiltered, thicker than most honey because it's produced in the desert. It's processed and packaged in the company's facility in Tempe, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix. The honeys are sold in bottles ranging from 6 ounces to 5 gallons. The top seller is the 12-ounce bot- tle, which retails for $9.99. Distribution is national. For more information, visit www.rango honey.com.

• Cover