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Restaurant Daily News Tuesday, May 21, 2019 4 6 California Milk Advisory Board Presents Award to Pinnacle Food Sales The California Milk Advisory Board (CMAB) has presented a Golden Seal Award to Mark Finocchio, President of Pinnacle Food Sales of Florida, in recog- nition for outstanding achievement in sales and promotion of California cheese in the Southeast. The award, which recognizes indi- viduals and partner organizations for contributions "above and beyond" to the California dairy industry, was presented in the CMAB's booth during the Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco. CMAB Chief Executive Officer John Talbot presented Finocchio with a wood- en plaque featuring a three-dimensional depiction of the Real California Milk seal. "We appreciate Mark's hard work and dedication to building a home for California cheese and dairy products in the Southeast," said Talbot. "His relation- ships with retailers like Harris Teeter, Lowes, Publix and Winn Dixie are key to the continued growth in demand for Real California dairy in the east." The Golden Seal Award was launched in 2017 to recognize California dairy processor partners for their rapid and generous response to hurricane vic- tims in Texas and Florida. The award is presented annually to individuals and organizations for outstanding contribu- tions to California dairy farm families and the promotion of California dairy. Past recipients include Cacique, Inc., the California Dairy Quality Assurance Program (CDQAP), FitPro, Pacific Cheese, Rizo Lopez and Super Store Industries. California is the nation's leading milk producer. It also produces more but- ter, ice cream and nonfat dry milk than any other state. The state is the second- largest producer of cheese and yogurt. Dairy products made with Real California milk can be identified by the Real California Milk seal and are avail- able throughout the U.S. and around the world. Dietz & Watson Announces Plans to Eliminate Nitrates, Nitrites By the end of 2020, Dietz & Watson deli slicing meats including turkey and chick- en breast, ham and roast beef, will be uncured. The company will not use nitrates or nitrites in the curing process for these products. "We will be removing nitrates and nitrates from many of our other prod- ucts including franks, sausages and snacks and will be making announce- ments as we do," said Lauren Eni, Vice President of Brand Strategy for the company, and a fourth-generation fami- ly member. "Our turkey and chicken breasts have always been uncured, so removing nitrates 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 & Watson's drive to stay apace with con- sumers' health concerns with regard to the deli category. The company intro- duced its Gourmet 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 Originals line of Organic and No Antibiotics Ever deli meats and cheeses, which are already 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. Nitrates 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 con- sumers want, and we pride ourselves on giving consumers the most choice at the deli," said Eni. "While there is very little evidence that nitrates are harmful, more and more consumers are choosing to eat meats that are not cured with nitrates, so we found a natural way to get that tradi- tional color and flavor in cured meats without them." Drink Coffee Do Stuff: From Pro Snowboarding to Pro Coffee By Greg Gonzales Imagine you're a professional snow- boarder, fresh off an X Games medal win, crowd screaming for you, the famous rapper Nas adorning you with a medal, and a week later, you have a broom in your hand at the local coffee bar – by choice. This is how former pro- fessional snowboarder Nick Visconti shredded his way to the Good Food Awards finalists list after just one year in business as Drink Coffee Do Stuff. Visconti got an idea when he saw a missing piece of outdoor brands: high- quality coffee. "There are so many examples of successful outdoor lifestyle brands and consumer pack- aged goods. Fuel, gear, beer," he said. "Nuun electrolyte tablets, Clif Bars, breweries like Basecamp in Portland, or 10 Barrel, what have you – we were aiming to complete this outdoor lifestyle with a specialty coffee prod- uct, making us half outdoor brand and half coffee roasting." However, Visconti didn't start off with any experience in specialty coffee. Before he could reach the peaks, he had to climb the foothills with a barista job at a little cafe called Anchor Chip, and learn to maintain machines. "That was kind of the beginning, just working my way up, getting expo- sure and experience in all parts of the industry," Visconti said. "Coming from a snowboarding career, I knew that in order to become an expert, I would have to come to fully understand the A-to-Z index of what the coffee industry was like." He was drawn to the technical aspects of coffee like he was to the technical details of snowboarding. "I'm a firm believer of thinking outside the box, but in order to think outside the box you first have to know what's in the box." From there, he apprenticed with a roaster. After about five years of experi- ence roasting coffee, Visconti got started on his own roaster in Truckee, California, a small town in the Sierra Nevada Mountains near the north shore of Lake Tahoe. One of the biggest obstacles, he said, was finding a location – it's not easy finding a landlord to lease from without a resume or collateral – but his other chal- lenge was more interpersonal. "Everyone and their mom was asking me, 'Why ... are you quitting professional snowboard- ing?'" he said. "I mean, I left at the top of my game. I had multi-year contracts with 10-plus sponsors, endorsements, I was traveling the world nine months out of the year, making great money, so from everybody else's perspective I had made it in life." Visconti, however, had other ideas. "From my perspective, I had accom- plished my goals and was ready to set on a new path with new goals," he said. "A lot of people challenged my every thought process – which was great because that became a refinement tool for my business and the brand. But there was a lot of proving to other people and to myself that this was the right idea, that we had advantages in the market and that we had opportunities." Now, Visconti says Drink Coffee Do Stuff is seeing month-to-month growth, and appreciates the kudos from Good Food Awards. His coffee owes the flavor that impressed the judges to its own career in the heights, he says. Drink Coffee Do Stuff 's GFA- finalist Ethiopian Guji was grown at 6,700 feet, and it's roasted at 6,000 feet. "There's always this really cool mountain-altitude connection with our coffees," said Visconti. "I think people were able to taste the results of that in our Ethiopia Guji, particularly because roasting at altitude means we begin caramelizing sugars earlier in the roast process." Higher altitude, he said, peaks caramelization while preserving palatable acidity compared to sea level. The brand's new Peruvian Rutas del Inca is grown at 9,000 feet in the Peruvian Andes, and has flavor notes of brown sugar, molasses, toffee and can- died almonds. Also new to the lineup is a Colombian, El Obraje, and a peaberry coffee called Iyenga, a coffee made from a bean that only has one seed instead of two, which is said to have more sugar, among other benefits. It's not just the coffee itself that benefits from the elevation – even its packaging is about the terrain. The gloss on the bag features mountain icons like skis, peaks, bears and coffee tools. Visconti calls the design moun- tain-modern, and says the speckles and color make it stand out on the shelf. "We felt like the name is really unique, and love it or hate it, you pick the pack- age up," he said. "We didn't want to hide who we were, but be proud of it, and do whatever we could to share that lifestyle quickly." Visconti also sees his brand as a chance to provide premium coffee at a competitive price. "While we want to honor the supply chain, the farmers, our buying habits and our selling habits, the general public is not ready to pay premi- um prices on coffee," he said. "So we take a margin hit in the middle to provide these coffees at a competitive price. That's been huge from the beginning – we want to make specialty coffee more accessible – but that shouldn't come at the expense of the farmers or the cus- tomer." He says his business takes a hint from the craft beer industry to understand that life can be pretty serious, but that it's important to have a good time too. When it snows and it's not busy, Drink Coffee Do Stuff provides season passes so employees can hit the slopes. "By merit of where we live, everybody loves some- thing outdoors. Nobody chooses to live in Tahoe if they're not obsessed with something," Visconti said. "For some people it's mountain biking, for others it's snowboarding, for others it's photog- raphy, hiking, exploring – we try to facil- itate a healthy work-life balance for that." "I never understood why making gourmet foods and roasting specialty cof- fee can't be fun," he added. "We have a creative culture that's more enjoyable, and how that translates to marketing and social media, customer engagement and brand name and packaging – if people aren't enjoying it throughout the whole brand experience, I feel like we didn't do our job. Our brand position is truly to get people out, whatever they're doing, whether they're going to work or the next alpine adventure or the party that night. We like to say we drink coffee and then drink beer after." As for his passion in coffee, Visconti said he's loved the personal, social aspect of specialty coffee since that first day sweeping up the cafe. "Coffee is a connection point, a con- duit to people," he said. "For most people, coffee is the first experience they have in the day. You start your day out with coffee; going to the shop can be your first human interaction of the day, so however you look at it, cof- fee initiates your day. So I very much believe that if your first experience of the day is extraordinary, that's going to give you an attitude shift or para- digm shift that today's a good day, not a bad day."