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NATURALLY HEALTHY www.gourmetnews.com n SEPTEMBER 2019 n GOURMET NEWS NH 3 8 Clean, Refreshing Coconut Water from TAJA By Lorrie Baumann TAJA Coconut Water is the only patented cold-filtered coconut water on the American market. Made from tender green coconuts 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 nature intended it to be," says company President Hallie Lor- ber. The company started two years ago after TAJA's founder Nilang Patel discovered 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 beverage industry, he had the intellectual tools necessary to solve that problem. "Since he couldn't find it and didn't like any of the brands that were out there, he created it himself," Lorber said. After figuring out the patented process that's used to extract the water from the coconuts he was able to source from local farm- ers 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 person- ality, gave it great packaging and sold it into retail," Lorber 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 re- cycle," Lorber said. "It can be re- cycled up to four times." The triangular-sided bottle mimics the shape of the natural coconut, and it offers the extra advantage that the bottles fit to- gether 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 success since its February launch. "It makes for easy merchandising," Lorber said. Specialty Food Producers Bring Home the Gold By Lorrie Baumann The Specialty Food Association honored cheeses in two categories this year: cheeses made from cow milk and cheeses made ei- ther from milk from other species or from mixed milks. Bellwether Farms' Whole Milk Ricotta won the gold award for cow milk cheeses, and Vermont Creamery's Coupole won the gold award for other cheeses. Best new product awards in those categories went to Cabot Creamery for its Cabot Centennial Cheddar, an aged cheddar made five years ago in a limited edition to celebrate Cabot Creamery's centennial anniversary and of- fered at retail in 1-pound deli bars and to Cy- press Grove for Straight Up, a fresh goat cheese that's packaged for retail sale in a 4- ounce cup. In other dairy categories, Vermont Cream- ery won a gold sofi Award this year for its Cultured Butter with Sea Salt Crystals and TEA*RRIFIC! Ice Cream won a gold sofi Award for its Masala Chai. New product awards in those categories went to Pyrotech- nic Foods LLC for Fireworks Finishing But- ter Honey Lavender Sea Salt and Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams for its Frose Sorbet. In the baked goods category, Date Lady Inc. won the gold award for Date Lady Fruit- cake, and Just Date Syrup won the gold award in the category for baking ingredients. Sutter Buttes Olive Oil Company's Blood Orange Olive Oil Brownie Kit won the gold award in the baking mix category. Atalanta Corp. won the gold award for a dessert topping or sauce with Deca & Otto Dulce de Leche. Wildly Delicious Fine Foods won the gold award for its Korean BBQ Grilling Sauce in the barbecue sauce category, while Wozz! Kitchen Creations took the gold award for its Vietnamese Green Tea & Mint in the condi- ment category, and Bitchin' Inc. won the gold award in the salsa and dip category for its Original, while RealStuff Inc. won the gold award in the hot sauce category for Or- ganic Sriracha. In the cooking sauces and marinades category, Spicemode LLC won the gold award for its Vindaloo, and India Spice Palette LLC won the award in the sea- soning and spice category with its All-Nat- ural Indian Spice Blend. Sweets are well represented in this year's sofi Awards categories, and Rigoni di Asiago USA LLC won the gold Award in the honey category for its Mielbio Italian Honey Aca- cia. BRINS Jam & Marmalade won in the jam and preserve category with its Lemon Saffron Marmalade. In the confection cate- gory, Katherine Anne Confections won the gold award for Rosemary Sea Salt Caramel. Goodnow Farms Chocolate won the gold award in the dark chocolate category with Ucayali, 70%; Askinosie Chocolate's Co- conut Milk Chocolate Bar took the gold award in the category for milk and white chocolates; and Italian Products USA won the gold award for chocolate candy with Croccante al Pistacchio con Cioccolato Bianco-Kant. Goodnow Farms Chocolate also won a new product award in the choco- late candy category with Special Reserve, 77% Dark Chocolate with Putnam Rye Whiskey. In the cookie category, Douglas Sweets won the gold award with Italian Lemon Rosemary Shortbread. SuperSeedz won the gold award for SuperSeedz in the sweet snack category. In the savory snack category, Noosh Brands took home the gold sofi Award for Keto Coffee Almond Butter, while East Hampton Gourmet Foods had the best cracker with its Lentil Rice Crispbread Turmeric + Nigella Seed. That cracker also won the award for the best new product in the category. The Dessert Table LLC won the gold award in the granola, cereal category for Roots and Seeds Granola, and Manna Organ- ics LLC won the gold award in the nut or seed butter category with Manna Butter – Dark Chocolate Pecan. In beverage categories, Lettieri & Co. Ltd. won the gold sofi Award in the category for ready-to-drink cold beverages with Tomar- chio Organic Aranciata Rossa, a sparkling blood orange soda from Sicily, and Bitter- milk LLC won the gold award for a drink and cocktail mix with its No. 2 Tom Collins with Elderflower & Hops. In the hot bever- age category, the gold sofi went to Katherine Anne Confections for Mexican Drinking Chocolate Mix, and Republic of Tea Inc. won the gold sofi for Milk Oolong Full-Leaf Tea in the tea category. Built by Bees Inc. won the gold sofi Award in the vinegar category for its Sour- wood Balsamic Vinegar. The award for the best olive oil went to Henri Mor SL for Pri- vate Reserve Henri Mor, while The Art of Pecan won the award for other oils with its Pure Pecan Oil. In the category for meat, poultry and char- cuterie, Tempesta Artisan Salumi, formerly 'Nduja Artisans, of Chicago, Illinois, re- ceived the gold award for its Culatello, made in the traditional manner with sea salt, black pepper and red wine and aged for a minimum of one year. The gold award for the best seafood product went to Acme Smoked Fish Corporation for its Blue Hill Bay Smoked Wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon, smoked with natural hardwood and packaged for retail sale in 3-ounce plastic envelopes of pre-sliced, ready-to-eat product. Pacific Pickle Works Inc. won the gold award for the best pickled vegetable or preserved fruit or vegetables with its Fenn Shui, a pickled fennel root in a rice vinegar-based brine accented with gin- ger, citrus zest and Thai chile. Lotus Foods won the gold award in the category for pasta, rice or grain with its Or- ganic Dehraduni Basmati Rice, and the gold award for the best pasta sauce went to Sun- dried Red Pesto with Genovese Basil DOP. Nona Lim received the gold award in the pre-made category with Thai Coconut Lime Bone Broth Heat & Sip Cup, a bone broth in- spired by classic flavors of Thai cuisine and packaged for retail sale in a 10-fluid ounce cup. It's made from chicken bone broth sim- mered with coconut cream, lemongrass oil and ginger root. Duck Fat Now Available in a Cooking Spray By Lorrie Baumann Cornhusker Kitchen has introduced Duck Fat Cooking Spray to the market. Packaged in a 7-ounce can with a two-year shelf life, Duck Fat Cooking Spray delivers a fat beloved by high-end chefs in a format that appeals to home cooks, including those who grill and barbecue, as well as consumers who are practicing keto and Paleo lifestyles, said Dennis Schuett, who developed the product and introduced it to the market along with his business partner, Roger Brodersen. "The duck fat doesn't overpower – it just makes food better," he said. "We have such a diver- sity in our customers – it's amazing." Schuett's development of the Duck Fat Cooking Spray happened over the course of four years and started with Coney dogs. Schuett was serving Coney dogs in his cafes in Omaha and needed beef tallow to make the authentic sauce, and his source for his "secret ingredient" happened to mention one day that he could also supply duck fat from a Pennsylvania pasture-raised duck farm if Schuett had a use for it. That greased the wheels in Schuett's culi- nary brain. "I got on the computer and started learning more and more about duck fat and found it to be one of the most wonderful cooking fats I'd ever dealt with," Schuett said. "This, you can spray on food. You can spray it on your pan for a wonderful pan re- lease, but you can feel good about spraying it right on your food." He learned that duck fat was shelf-stable with a melting point around 58 or 59 degrees and that it has a high smoke point. "So I thought, 'what a wonderful cook- ing fat it could be if we could put it into a spray application for sear- ing or for using as a binder for rubs and spices,'" he said. "It would be so much easier than heating up a fat or using a brush and trying to get all the areas covered." That began Schuett's search for the way to turn the duck fat into an aerosol spray. "I started looking at the world of aerosols, and for the most part, I didn't like what I found," he said. "Many ingredients had nothing to do with the flavor." When he discovered bag-on-valve technology, which features a product-filled bag inside a can that uses pressure between the can and flexible bag to propel a spray without the need for chemical propellants, he was, he says, "the happiest person in the world." With the tech- nology secured, Schuett next had to find a co- packer that was certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to handle a poultry product and that was willing to house Schuett's new equipment before he could go into production. Schuett found that combination in the state next door to his Nebraska home, and he now has a product that's already being embraced by specialty food grocers around the U.S. and by competitors on the country's barbecue circuit who are finding that it allows them to achieve a great reverse sear with attractive grill marks. "It's sure nice on vegetables too," Schuett said. "Air fryer folks are using it too. It's like a godsend for those. It's easy to clean up, and you hardly have to use any, and it creates a wonderful savory finish on fish, on pork or beef – I could just go on and on." Cornhusker Kitchen Duck Fat Cooking Spray retails for $8.99 to $12.99 for the 7- ounce can. Cases contain six cans. For more information, call Dennis Schuett at 402.306.5958 or email dennis@duckfat spray.com.

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