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GOURMET NEWS MARCH 2019 www.gourmetnews.com SUPPLIER NEWS 1 4 Dietz & Watson Announces Plans to Eliminate Nitrates, Nitrites Food Entrepreneur Creates Line of Wine-Based Seasonings After more than a year of product and brand development, Ken Medei of Mel- bourne, Florida, has officially launched a line of wine-based seasonings and rubs under his brand, Wine It ® . Medei has been in the specialty food business since 1990, when he launched a line of premium pasta sauces, Medei Cui- sine, in Schenectady, New York. After sell- ing the brand in 1994, he has worked with a variety of specialty food companies to as- sist them in packaging, new product devel- opment, distribution and even celebrity licensing, which included the launch of the Emeril's brand of consumer food products in 2000. But, deep down, Medei always wanted to create another line of specialty food prod- ucts as long as they were not me-too items. Says Medei, "For example, in 1990, pre- mium pasta sauces were rare in the market- place so I had a niche back then." Today, of course, there are many excel- lent pasta sauces in the marketplace, and there's also a wealth of other specialty food products. Medei wasn't interested in a product that wasn't unique and relevant as well as high-quality. "I would joke that the only way I would do another sauce or other food product is if it cured baldness or had a Viagra effect," he said. He started thinking about the possibility of creating a seasoning mix. But, there was still the rub that the marketplace is crowded. "With so many seasonings and rubs available to shoppers, many of which are outstanding, how could I stand out among such a crowded field?" he said. Enter wine. When Medei came across wine powders during his ingredient re- search he experienced the proverbial light-bulb moment and immediately knew where he was going with this ven- ture, he said. He references the continued growth and popu- larity of wine over the last 20 years. "Since so many of us drink wine, gift wine, dine with wine and, yes, cook with wine, I simply felt that this has the poten- tial to be quite exciting," said Medei. He likes the way that red wine's complex flavors and subtle acidity brighten up and enhance the flavors of food. By using a high-quality wine powder from Europe along with other ingredients such as porcini powder, garlic, butter and many other ingredients he came up with his first four Wine It products: T.A.P., an all-pur- pose blend, Savory Steer for beef, Here Chicky Chicky for poultry and Sooey! for pork. He is currently creating new blends to be launched later this year along with another line of pasta sauces and other prod- ucts. "I am so excited for my customers to use Wine It and to simply have fun in the kitchen with their family and friends," he said. His marketing plan for Wine It Foods in- volves both online sales to consumers and direct to specialty food retailers around the country. For more information about Wine It Foods, visit www.iwineit.com. GN By the end of 2020, Dietz & Watson deli slicing meats including turkey and chicken breast, ham and roast beef, will be uncured. The company will not use nitrates or nitrites in their curing process for these products. "We will be removing nitrates and nitrates from many of our other products including franks, sausages and snacks and will be making announcements as we do," said Lau- ren Eni, Vice President of Brand Strategy for the company, and a fourth-generation family member. "Our turkey and chicken breasts have always been uncured, so removing ni- trates and nitrites from some of our other products is just another step towards giving consumers the most choice at the deli." This is the latest move in Dietz & Wat- son's drive to stay apace with consumers' health concerns with regard to the deli cat- egory. The company introduced its Gour- met Lite line in the mid-1970s with products featuring lower sodium, low fat, low cholesterol turkey breast and deli ham, as well as a no-salt added turkey breast. The company is also very proud of its Orig- inals line of Organic and No Antibiotics Ever deli meats and cheeses, which are al- ready free of nitrates and nitrites. Nitrates are found in small amounts in processed meats, in larger amounts in foods like vegetables and in drinking water. Ni- trates and nitrites are frequently added to processed meats like bacon, ham, sausages and hot dogs. "We are all about and have always been about responding to what consumers want, and we pride ourselves on giving con- sumers the most choice at the deli," said Eni. "While there is very little evidence that nitrates are harmful, more and more con- sumers are choosing to eat meats that are not cured with nitrates, so we found a nat- ural way to get that traditional color and flavor in cured meats without them." GN Elements Truffles Brings Balance To Indulgent Chocolate and not worry about what they're eating and to build a company with values, in terms of the partnerships, the sourcing of ingredients, the packaging, the people. When we decided we wanted to build the company, we wanted to be mindful, to make it a human-centric com- pany." The brand makes chocolates in small batches that are raw, or- ganic, dairy-free, with no refined sugars, preservatives or emulsi- fiers. Each of its prod- ucts is made in its New Jersey facility, where they're sweetened with local honey that makes each bite melt slowly. Elements Truffles mixes in essential oils, ginger, black pepper, beet root, turmeric and lavender into its products. The result is a new kind of flavor experi- ence, and a bar that's less likely to end in a sugar crash. Much of the inspiration for these flavors comes from Ayurvedic eating, something Vasa and her husband learned as kids in Ahmedabad, India. She explained that where most diets are about do-and-don't thinking, Ayurveda is about bringing balance to the diet. "For example, in the fall the air element is dominant, which means that element can go off bal- ance in you very quickly," she said. "So that's when you eat more grounding foods, like beets, sweet po- tatoes, foods that grow in the ground. You eat warm spices too." Beyond providing nutri- ent-dense, delicious chocolate to cus- tomers, Elements Truffles also donates 25 percent of its profits to the Care for Chil- dren project by the Art of Living Founda- tion, a non-profit. The project helps educate underprivileged kids in India. And it's not just chocolate bars at Ele- ments Truffles. The company also sells Turmeric-Infused Drinking Chocolate, truf- fles infused with flavors like turmeric or cardamom or lavender, and gift boxes that contain an assortment of all the company's products as well as smaller bars in the Pantry Edition line. All the bars come in a cardboard box, with a fabric label hand-stitched onto the box, colored with vegetable ink. On the back, consumers can read about Ayurveda and Ayurvedic doshas, right above the nu- trition facts. Suggested retail prices are $6.99 for the bars, $4 for Pantry Edition bars, $12 for drinking chocolate, $12 for a small box of truffles and $35 for a large box of truffles. GN BY GREG GONZALES Stopping to take a breath now and then can help us pay attention to our inner voices. That's how Alak Vasa, Co-Founder of Ele- ments Truffles, says she found her way to making chocolate. She left a career on Wall Street to follow her passion, and now she and her team make truffles and chocolate bars with a mission in mind. Vasa spent more than a decade on Wall Street before she quit to train at Financier Patisserie in Manhattan. A friend had intro- duced her to meditation, which enabled her to understand herself better, she said. While she appreciated the chance to learn a new craft, she still didn't feel at home. That inner voice kept getting louder, she said, telling her she had to create some- thing of her own. In 2015, she got to work finding the right product. "I never thought I would be making chocolate," said Vasa. "When I quit my job I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I did know I wanted to do something with food and with good food food that you can trust, food that you can give to your child

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