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GOURMET NEWS FEBRUARY 2019 www.gourmetnews.com FROM THE EDITOR 4 Greetings! As we go to print with this issue of Gourmet News, I'm just back from the Winter Fancy Food Show and from a preview of this year's International Home + Housewares Show, and the products that I saw at those two events have some common themes. One of them is the obvious point that consumers these days are more conscious than ever about what they're eating and more discrim- inating about what they're willing to bring into their homes and put into their bodies (except on cheat days, when we all acknowl- edge that we're only human, and sometimes we just need to relax the rules and eat some- thing that we're usually afraid of). At this year's International Home + Housewares Show, we're going to see that expressed in the array of storage containers designed for consumers who are taking food from home to their offices, their gyms and to the park with their kids. They want to know what's in the food they're taking along, and they want to be sure that it's por- tioned according to their own dietary re- strictions, and they want to be sure that its container isn't going to come open or leak inside a purse, gym bag, diaper bag or lunch tote. Housewares manufacturers are racing to comply with those demands. Meanwhile, specialty food producers are racing ahead with their own measures to as- sure those consumers that the products they're offering aren't just delicious – they're also conscientiously made and safe to enjoy. Recipes are being reworked to eliminate ar- tificial colors, flavors and preservatives as well as sweeteners that have fallen into dis- favor, additional product lines with plant- based ingredients are being developed, and labels are being redesigned to cram as many nutrition claims and third-party certifica- tions onto the front of the package as their graphic designers can fit in without creating distracting clutter. You can read more about this on the front page of this issue, and you'll certainly see these themes expressed in future issues of Gourmet News, Snacking News and Kitchenware News. Along with this issue of Gourmet News, you'll also find the spring issue of the Cheese Guide, which also reflects the com- mitment, energy and creativity that today's artisan cheesemakers are putting into prod- ucts that align with consumers' social and environmental values as well as their inter- est in quality and variety. There are a lot of reasons for this – the most important of which is that cheesemakers, as a group, are just pretty special people, and it also re- flects the reality that it's just hard to make a living by making artisan cheeses. Accord- ing to the American Cheese Society's 2018 "State of the U.S. Artisan/Specialty Cheese Industry" report, about 20 percent of cheesemakers indicated that they didn't op- erate profitably in 2017, and in the 2018 survey, 92 percent of cheesemakers re- ported that maintaining profitability is a current area of concern. Cheesemakers are finding that as they scale up their production, their profit mar- gins are falling. Some of this might be be- cause the larger operations are able to invest more into their employees. According to the report, almost half of cheesemakers offered benefits to their employees in 2018. The most popular benefits offered by cheesemak- ers to full-time employees were paid time off and health insurance. For part-time workers, cheesemakers were most likely to offer paid time off and disability insurance. I have argued before that buying and eat- ing artisanal cheese is a wholly moral thing to do; it's good to support with our dollars the makers who are doing the right things for us, for their workers and for the planet. It's pure comfort to know for sure that in this society in which we're so afraid of our food, great cheese is just so good on so many lev- els. Enjoy reading, and thank you all for supporting the businesses that support us in our work here at Gourmet News. GN — Lorrie Baumann Editorial Director FROM THE EDITOR WWW.GOURMETNEWS.COM PUBLISHER Kimberly Oser SENIOR ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Jules Denton-Card jules_d@oser.com EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Lorrie Baumann lorrie_b@oser.com ASSOCIATE EDITORS Jeanie Catron Greg Gonzales Amanda Helt ART DIRECTOR Yasmine Brown GRAPHIC DESIGNER Jonathan Schieffer ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Anthony Socci anthony_s@oser.com CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGERS Caitlyn McGrath Susan Stein CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Tara Neal tara_n@oser.com CIRCULATION MANAGER Jamie Green jamie_g@oser.com PUBLISHING OFFICE 1877 N. Kolb Road P.O. Box 1056 Tucson, AZ 85715 520.721.1300 Fax 520.721.6300 SUBSCRIBER SERVICES Gourmet News P.O. Box 30520 Tucson, AZ 85751 520.721.1300 G OURMET N EWS ® OSER COMMUNICATIONS GROUP FOUNDER Lee M. Oser MEMBER OF: Periodicals postage paid at Tucson, AZ, and additional mailing office. Gourmet News (ISSN 1052-4630) is published monthly by Oser Communications Group, 1877 North Kolb Road, Tucson, AZ 85715; 520.721.1300. 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