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News & Notes BRIEFS GOURMET NEWS MARCH 2019 www.gourmetnews.com NEWS & NOTES 6 Vermont Creamery St. Albans Wins Good Food Award Vermont Creamery was once again hon- ored with a Good Food Award this year, this time for St. Albans, a St. Marcellin-style aged cheese made from cows' milk. The awards shine a spotlight on the taste-making crafters at the forefront of deliciousness and social and environ- mental excellence. The awards were announced on January 11 at a cere- mony held in San Fran- cisco, California. This is the fourth Good Food Award for Vermont Creamery in the past five years. Previous winners in- clude Bonne Bouche, the Creamery's flag- ship aged goats' cheese in 2014, Coupole in 2015 and Bonne Bouche again in 2017. "We are proud to earn the recognition of the Good Food Foundation, an organiza- tion whose core values so closely align with our own," said Adeline Druart, President of Vermont Creamery. "Winning a Good Food Award affirms our com- mitment to social and envi- ronmental excellence and outstanding product quality." Further validating the company's core values, Vermont Creamery became a Certified B Corp in 2014; B Corps are businesses that meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability, using business as a force for good. Launched in 2016, St. Albans is the Creamery's first 100 percent cows' milk aged cheese and the first to receive Non- GMO Project certification. The uniquely American take on the French St. Marcellin is packaged in a ce- ramic crock for easy heating in the oven. When heated, the cheese becomes silken, like a mini fondue. Vermont Cream- ery's St. Albans was one of two Vermont cheeses to earn this accolade in 2019; Spring Brook Farm's Reading also took home a Good Food Award. GN Chocolette Confectionary LLC Launches RED Delight Chocolate Chocolette Distribution LLC, the U.S. sales and marketing division of the Swiss-owned Chocolette Confectionary LLC, has launched its new "guilt free" RED Delight chocolate collection in the USA. RED De- light was developed using patented technol- ogy and is one of the world's lowest calorie chocolates. RED Delight has only 16 calo- ries per piece, which is 50 percent less than competing brands, or the caloric equivalent to an apple slice. In addition, RED Delight has less fat and no added sugar. The RED Delight Chocolate collection was created by leading chocolatiers from France and Switzerland. To achieve the delicious taste, RED Delight is created using only natu- ral high quality ingredients without any cocoa oil substitutes, artificial colorants or preserv- atives. All products in the RED Delight collec- tion are certified kosher, non-GMO, gluten free, vegan where noted and have no added sugar. The quality and safety of the products are guaranteed by the BRC Global Standards. RED Delight's taste has been recognized by the experts – in 2018, RED received the Great Taste Award in the UK. The unique diamond shape of RED Delight Chocolate allows re- ceptors to sense the perfectly opened taste of chocolate. RED Delight is currently sold in the UK, Scandinavia, central and eastern Eu- rope and is launching soon in Germany. Varieties of the 3.5-ounce bars of the RED Delight collection entering the U.S. marketplace in December include Extra Dark, Dark, and Dark Chocolate with Or- ange and Almond, Milk Chocolate with Hazelnut & Macadamia as well as several varieties of Milk Chocolate Nut-filled pra- line boxes. GN La Madeleine Named Recipient of TDn2K's 2019 Heart of the Workplace Award La Madeleine French Bakery & Café accepted TDn2K's 2019 Heart of the Workplace Award at the 24th annual Global Best Practices Conference on Tuesday, January 29. The Heart of the Workplace Award is given to a company that demonstrates both a commitment and investment in their employees and communities. This award recognizes companies that model best practices in their workplace and are exceptional in their execution in going above and beyond to make a difference in the lives of their employees and communities. Apeel and Nature's Pride Team Up to Take the Food Waste Fight to Europe Apeel Sciences, a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer and one of TIME Magazine's 50 Genius Companies, and Nature's Pride, Europe's leader in avocados and mangos with a focus on sustainability, have joined forces to fight food waste. Subject to EU regulatory approval, Nature's Pride plans to integrate Apeel's plant-derived food waste prevention technology across its expansive avocado value chain, which will bring Apeel Avocados — avocados with double the edible shelf life on average — to European households for the first time. The Apeel and Nature's Pride partnership comes at a time when food waste in Europe has reached a staggering 88 million metric tons annually, with associated costs estimated at 143 billion euros, and builds on Apeel's successful introduction in the U.S., where the technology has demonstrated a greater than 50 percent food waste reduction at the retail level. As part of the partnership, Nature's Pride and Apeel Sciences will introduce a co-branded label, a signal to consumers of quality, sustainability, longer lasting freshness, and thus, less food waste, made possible by Apeel's technology. New Acosta Report Finds Rising Costs in 2018 Grocery prices have steadily increased for the past five years, alongside a recent spike in manufacturing and transportation costs. At the same time, both manufacturers and retailers feel pressure to drive sales at the lowest possible prices in a very competitive marketplace where shoppers have a wide range of options on what, where and how to buy. These factors combined have created a "perfect storm" for manufacturers and retailers, forcing the two parties to work together to mitigate the negative impact of price increases. "The Pricing Conundrum," a new report from Acosta — a leading full-service sales and marketing agency in the consumer packaged goods industry — investigates this topic and reveals best practices for effective collaboration between manufacturers and retailers. Fiscalini Cheese Continued from PAGE 1 not walking into something blind." From there, he pursued a career playing baseball, and then upon his return to the family business, went to study cheese- making in Europe, where he met Marin French Cheese's previous owner, who re- cruited him to come and work in Califor- nia. He stayed there for 11 years before moving on to Fiscalini upon Gonzalez's departure. Now at age 38, Borgo has a wife and family of his own, who were delighted with the move from Marin County to the Modesto area, where Fiscalini Cheese is located, and along with his experience in cheesemaking, he brought along a fresh pair of eyes that he's already put to use as he has settled in at Fiscalini, accord- ing to Laura Genasci, who, along with her brother Brian Fiscalini, runs the business started by her great-grandfa- ther, a Swiss immigrant who started it in 1914 with 12 Holstein cows. "We will challenge him to increase production by using updated technology and equip- ment that we may not be familiar with," she said. "He brings with him expertise in plant management and will give us the opportunity to open doors to new styles of cheese." She doesn't have any qualms about Borgo's ability to carry on the standards of cheesemaking excellence set by Gonzalez, whose Fiscalini Bandage-Wrapped Ched- dar has three times been named the world's best cheddar at the World Cheese Awards and is the only American cheddar to win the award. "Our small team of cheesemak- ers has over 20 years combined experience with Fiscalini," she said. "We are confident we will be able to continue crafting and aging our award-winning products without complication." Fiscalini Cheese produces a signature line of three raw milk cheese varieties made in wheel form, ranging from 30 to 60 pounds. Those include Bandage-Wrapped Cheddar, which is aged for 14 months; San Joaquin Gold, which is a hard Italian-style cheese aged 12 months; and Lionza, a Swiss Alpine-style cheese aged for six months. The company also makes a traditional mild block cheddar and a variety of flavored cheddars. "Mariano Gonzalez helped to de- velop all these cheeses and put us on the map, and for that we are very grateful," Genasci said. For the future, in addition to the possi- bility of moving into cheeses similar to the soft-ripened varieties with which Borgo has recent experience, Fiscalini Cheese is also looking at the possibility of developing other products to use more of the milk pro- duced by the company's 1,500 dairy cows. The company currently uses about 10 per- cent of its milk to make its cheeses and sells the other 90 percent to a local milk proces- sor. "There is plenty of opportunity in not only the cheese category, but in the broader dairy category," Genasci said. "Sky is the limit!" GN

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