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News & Notes BRIEFS GOURMET NEWS OCTOBER 2019 www.gourmetnews.com NEWS & NOTES 6 Geoff White Named Albertsons EVP Albertsons Companies has promoted Own Brands President Geoff White to Executive Vice President and Chief Merchandising Officer. "Geoff is a customer-centric leader who brings a unique combination of creativity and analytics to achieve growth," said Vivek Sankaran, Albertsons President and Chief Executive Officer. "I look forward to working with him to transform our mer- chandising capabilities." White began his career with the company as a general clerk at Safeway in Burnaby, British Columbia, in 1981. He eventually be- came director of Canadian produce opera- tions for 210 stores. He held leadership roles in produce, dairy, frozen, deli/food service, produce, floral, and branded concepts at the Safeway corporate office from 2004 to 2015. In 2015, he was named senior vice president of marketing and merchandising for the Northern California Division. In 2017, he was appointed president of the company's Own Brands team. GN CPG Industry Veteran Michael Fox to Helm California Olive Ranch KeHE Distributors Announces Private Offering of $200 Million in Notes KeHE Distributors is planning to refinance the $200 million outstanding aggregate principal amount of its 7.625 percent Senior Secured Second Lien Notes due 2021 with the sale of $200 million aggregate principal amount of senior secured second lien notes due 2026 in a private offering. The notes will be guaranteed by certain of KeHE's subsidiaries and secured by a second- priority lien on substantially all of KeHE's assets already securing indebtedness under KeHE's asset-based revolving credit facility. Cooks Venture Raises $12 Million Cooks Venture has announced the closing of $12 million senior secured financing provided by AMERRA Capital Management, LLC, a private, alternative asset management firm with a focus in agri-business and aquaculture operating companies. Cooks Venture is establishing regenerative agriculture systems through crop science and genetic intellectual property to build a superior, transparent food system for the future. The company's first offerings are pasture-raised, slow-growth, heirloom chickens. After launching in spring 2019, Cooks Venture quickly partnered with online grocer FreshDirect, making its pasture-raised, slow- growth, heirloom chickens available to customers across the Northeast. Two months later, the company's poultry became available to customers, restaurants and food retailers across northern California through its partnership with Golden Gate Meat Company. As a result of this funding round, the company has opened a completely renovated, start-of-the art, air-chilled processing facility, allowing Cooks Venture to be able to produce up to 700,000 slow-growth, heirloom chickens per week. Bono Releases Spanish, Tunisian EVOOs Sicilian olive oil producer Bono is expanding beyond its home base to add production facilities in Spain and Tunisia. The company has rolled out a 16.9-ounce Spanish oil made with Arbequina and Arbosana olives and a 16.9- ounce Tunisian oil made with Chetoui and Chemali olives. Both the Spanish and Tunisian olive oils are USDA organic and made from cold- pressed olives grown locally in each country. Bono is also making a significant investment in Sicily by purchasing a second production facility in its home base of Sciacca, an area prized for its growing conditions. The company also acquired hundreds of acres of land that is currently barren in Sicily's Trapani region to grow its own olives and further bolster its supply chain. Tate & Lyle Announces Price Increases Tate & Lyle is raising prices for products sold in North America. Effective October 1, 2019 or as contracts allow, Tate & Lyle will impose price increases of up to 12 percent on specialty food starches, fibers, specialty and high intensity sweeteners and stabilization and functional systems. These adjustments are required following increase in costs to produce the affected products, the company said. California Olive Ranch has hired Michael Fox as its new Chief Executive Officer. Fox joins California Olive Ranch with over 15 years of consumer packaged goods (CPG) experi- ence, including senior positions at PepsiCo, Safeway and Columbus Craft Meats, and was most re- cently the CEO of J.R. Watkins, LLC. California Olive Ranch, an innovator in modern-day olive oil production meth- ods, is now the largest domestic producer of olive oil with the number-one selling item in the U.S. extra virgin olive oil cat- egory. California Olive Ranch is the par- ent company of its namesake brand, as well as Lucini Italia's line-up of products. The company grows, mills and bottles California olive oil and has strategic rela- tionships with high-quality, like- minded farmers from top olive-producing regions all over the world. These relationships are in- spired by a commitment to collec- tively advancing the industry to the highest levels of ingredient trans- parency and product quality. "I've been a longtime fan of California Olive Ranch's products and of their in- credible efforts in pushing both the do- mestic and international industries forward," said Fox. "The company is in a great position to continue innovating, ex- panding and bringing awareness to the breadth of opportunity in high quality extra virgin olive oil. I'm excited to lead this great team and partner with our grow- ers in California and abroad." Fox brings a very successful track record to California Olive Ranch. Most recently, he served as CEO of J.R. Watkins, where he led the spin-off and expansion of the 150- year old brand's natural personal and home care product line. At Columbus Craft Meats, Fox led corporate strategy, market- ing and product development for the San Francisco-based salumi and deli meat brand. Fox also spent time in retail, leading product and brand development for Safe- way's multi-billion dollar store brand port- folio. He also spent close to eight years at PepsiCo's Frito-Lay division working on many of its brands. GN which is a hole we want to fill. And it's not just baked goods. Meat snacks like those by Stryve Biltong are also using quality as their edge into conven- ience retail. Dried meats and meat sticks are nothing new to convenience con- sumers, but these are made with- out nitrates, GMOs, gluten or preservatives. Part of what Stryve is doing to appeal to the grab- and-go consumer is to make smaller packaging with its Mini Sticks, which come in vacuum packs of two or five. "We want to make sure we have the packaging consumers want," said Jaxie Alt, Cheif Marketing Officer of Stryve. "We're trying to listen to consumers. If you think about the changing snacking habits of Americans, the people trying to be healthier with clean snacks, it's a good fit. People are more on the go than ever, so we want to make sure when you get to the convenience store you have more healthy options to choose from." According to Brian Loiseau, Lead of Sales and Product Development at Giorgio Foods, the one-year-old Savory Wild mush- room jerky brand will be exhibiting at NACS to demonstrate the appeal of its products to health-conscious and environ- mentally conscious consumers, especially among Millennials and Generation X. The mushrooms from Savory Wild, Loiseau said, are grown on a farm that recycles water, and mushrooms are generally a sus- tainable agricultural product. And those health-conscious consumers, he added, are looking for plant-based (or fungus-based) snacks more than ever. "Savory Wild is a savory, substantial, plant-based snack that satisfies the vegetarian and the meat-eating snack seekers," said Loiseau. "There's a mushroom mania in the marketplace ― mushroom coffees and teas, mushroom nu- tritional powders and now convenience store shoppers can get a savory mushroom snack." Convenience stores are investing heavily in fresh products, Loiseau said, but the lack of variety in shelf-stable plant-based pack- aged snacks is something that's missing. On top of that, he added, "jerky is a huge cat- egory for the c-store, but the problem with those is, if you add another brand you're just switching out product." Instead of swapping meat brands, stores could extend sales by appealing to a wider consumer base with an entirely new concept, Loiseau said. "There's growing evidence that there's a ton of lost consumer dollars in the con- venience store because there's not enough variety in plant-based and healthy snacks. We've been doing very well in specialty and natural grocery stores, along with big box stores. Now, it's a good time to focus on convenience." GN Specialty Food Continued from PAGE 1 its products have performed with 7-Eleven, and they decided to head to NACS to get a better idea of how to pene- trate further into the channel. Convenience consumers are looking for Sugar Bowl Bak- ery's kind of products, he said, because theses are high- quality baked goods with simpler ingredients, which distinguish them from highly-processed sweets found in most stores. With that in mind, the brand is bringing its Madeleines, Brownie Bites and Duets in packages of one and two to the show along with a gravity-fed dispenser for the counter. Everyone wins with these products, Thomsen says. "If we can help the store demonstrate that they care for their con- sumer and provide an option that's all-nat- ural, that's where we can help distinguish them in the market," he said. "Then, the consumer looking for these products gets a sense that the store actually thought about them. People want more choices to person- alize their diets ― and today, there isn't a good option for all-natural baked goods,

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