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Naturally Healthy GOURMET NEWS JUNE 2019 www.gourmetnews.com NATURALLY HEALTHY 2 2 Smart Flour Reformulates Ancient-Grain Pizzas Smart Flour, which makes ancient-grain pizzas and crusts, has reformulated its lineup to deliver more flavor in every bite. The company has replaced its original whole-milk mozzarella with low-moisture, part-skim mozzarella in all of its pizzas so they're less likely to burn and come out of the oven with bet- ter texture. The meat pieces are cut into smaller pieces now in both Smart Flour's Uncured Pepperoni and Chicken Sausage Pizzas. That ensures that consumers will get even distribution of the toppings, so they taste the meat in every bite. Smart Flour Classic Cheese Pizza is now Four Cheese Pizza, with Parmesan and romano cheeses now added to the original moz- zarella and provolone blend, and for its Traditional Margherita, Smart Flour is now using fresh basil. What hasn't changed is the brand's com- mitment to serving up ancient grains in every slice. Smart Flour's certified gluten- free pizzas start with a Non-GMO Project Verified crust that's made with a unique flour blend of sorghum, amaranth and teff. These ingredients give the pizzas a healthy boost of fiber, protein, calcium, vitamins and minerals that far surpasses the nutri- tional profile of other whole-grain- and gluten-free options on the market. The gourmet pies are then topped with carefully-se- lected, clean ingredients that include a traditional and tasty tomato sauce, hor- mone-free cheese blend, and the best-tasting, nitrate/ni- trite-free uncured pepperoni and hand-selected sausage in the meat versions. Smart Flour's pizzas are available at select natural and mainstream markets na- tionwide for a suggested retail price of $6.99 to $7.99. Visit www.smartflour foods.com for more info. GN the brands that were out there, he cre- ated it himself," Lorber said. After figuring out the patented process that's used to extract the water from the co- conuts he was able to source from local farmers in India, he opened a zero-waste production facility in India and started the company. "In the last year and a half, we named it, gave it a great personality, gave it great packaging and sold it into retail," Lor- ber said. The packaging is a triangular 10-ounce polyethylene bottle that's labeled with the same PET, so that it's completely recyclable. "It's the easiest to recycle," Lorber said. "It can be recycled up to four times." The triangular-sided bottle mimics the of the natural coconut, and it offers the extra advantage that the bottles fit together without wasted space, so that an entire 12- count case of the bottles will fit on a shelf in the produce aisle, where the product has already seen significant suc- cess since its Febru- ary launch. "It makes for easy mer- chandising," Lorber said. Individual bottles retail for $3.59 to $3.99. TAJA sells cases online for $53.99, which in- cludes shipping. According to Lor- ber, "We've seen that among general consumers, there's been an increasing trend to- ward being careful about what they're putting into their bodies, and as a re- sult we see a larger amount of people look- ing for better-for-you, all-natural products with real ingredients. TAJA especially appeals to these health-conscious consumers since it's 100 percent natural and free from additives. It's clean. It's raw. What you see is what you get." For more information, visit www.tajacoconut .com. GN BY LORRIE BAUMANN TAJA Coconut Water is the only patented cold-filtered coconut water on the Ameri- can market. Made from tender green co- conuts harvested when they're just 90 days old and then filtered with a seven-step cold filtration system, TAJA contains no juice, no sugar and no stabilizers. "It never turns cloudy; it never turns pink. It's just like na- ture intended it to be," says company Pres- ident Hallie Lorber. The company started two years ago after TAJA's founder Nilang Patel discov- ered that he was unable to find in the U.S. the kind of coconut water he was used to while he was growing up in India. With his background in the bever- age industry, he had the intellectual tools necessary to solve that problem. "Since he couldn't find it and didn't like any of Barbecue Sauces for the Sugar-Shy said, 'That stuff has no business going in your body.'" Other barbecue sauces on the shelf pre- sented much the same issue to him, so he decided that he was going to have to make his own. At first, the sauce was just for his own use, but then he decided to take some barbecued ribs with him over to a dinner at a friend's house. The fruit that he'd been using as an in- gredient happened to be out of season at the time, so Jenkins had to do some tin- kering with his recipe, substituting in dif- ferent fruit, but he had new sauce ready when it was time to fire up the smoker, and the ribs were a hit with his friends – and, more importantly, with an older rel- ative who was visiting his host's home. "Older folks will tell you the god's-honest truth about how something tastes. He just loved it," Jenkins said. "He had a big smile on his face, and he nodded and let me know that he really enjoyed the sauce.... That gave me the inspiration to go forward.... The flexibility of the prod- uct just gave me the impetus to try to market it." He's now offering his Stick 'em up! sauces in four flavors: Spicy Orange and Pineapple Jalapeno, the first two in the line; Mango Habanero and Agave Garlic. The sauces work well with any sort of meat, fish or chicken, according to Jenkins. "My vegetarian customers love it as well. It's very vegan friendly," he said. "It can go into dips, nachos, pizza topping. Mango Habanero, in particular, has been used as a cocktail sauce for oysters, and it makes a great Bloody Mary mix." Each of the sauces is based on agave and garlic, with three of them containing some peppers for a kick and some fruit to balance out the heat with some sweet- ness. Spicy Orange is a smoky sauce, the most like a traditional barbecue sauce, with paprika, cayenne and chipotle to provide the smokiness. "Pineapple Jalapeno has a nice balance of sweet and spicy," Jenkins said, "and the Mango Ha- banero brings the heat along with the great taste." They're packaged in 15-ounce glass jars that retail for $12 apiece. Jenkins drop ships the product directly from New Haven, Connecticut to customers nation- wide. For more information, visit www.muggersmarrowllc.com. GN BY LORRIE BAUMANN For health-conscious consumers who've woken up to the realization that condi- ments and sauces may contain ingredients that they're no longer comfortable with in- gesting, Maurice Jenkins, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Mugger's Mar- row LLC, has created Stick 'em up! sauces. These are an organic spin on traditional barbecue sauces that contain no granulated sugar. They're also low calorie, low sugar and low in sodium. A long-time grilling enthusiast, Jenk- ins got his start in the food business when he looked at the ingredients label of the barbecue sauce he'd been buying in his local grocery store. "I noticed that there was a lot of stuff that isn't good for you," he said. "I just looked at that and Clean, Refreshing Coconut Water from TAJA

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