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PRIVATE 2019 www.gourmetnews.com n NOVEMBER 2019 n GOURMET NEWS P 2 0 Avocado and Cauliflower that Crunch By Lorrie Baumann Making snacks from real food is in the DNA at Hippie Snacks, says Founder Ian Walker, who started the business in the late 2000s with Coconut Chips. "We brought that out before any of the players in the States brought out a coconut chip," he said. "Right from the get-go, we liked the idea of making products that were as close to their natural state as possible but were a little more con- venient." Hippie Snacks' latest innovations are a family of crispy cracker-type snacks: Cauli- flower Crisps in Original and Classic Ranch flavors and Avocado Crisps in Guacamole and Sea Salt flavors. "For eight years, we've been trying to come up with an avocado snack," Walker said. "Nutrient-dense, tasty – people get it." In that quest for a tasty avocado snack, Hippie Snacks' research and development team tried a lot of different approaches, from baking slices of avocado to freeze- drying, but they kept running into barriers created by the natural oiliness of avocados, their tendency to turn brown when the tis- sue is exposed to air, the fruit's tendency to turn bitter when it's dried, and when those approaches didn't pan out, the team turned its attention to cauliflower a year or two be- fore cauliflower found itself trending in the market. "We had kind of given up on avo- cado," Walker said. "We tend to take food that has a long tail [rather than leaping on trends]. Cauliflower took off this year, but it just happened. We just thought it was a great way to create a cracker without flour." As the team was coming up with a way to do that by blending the cauliflower into a base with some starch in it to hold the crisp together, they started wondering if they could maybe lick their avocado prob- lem with the same approach, and they made it work. The resulting Avocado Crisps have avocado as their first ingredi- ent, just as the ingredients label for the Cauliflower Crisps starts out with cauli- flower. That's important to Hippie Snacks, Walker said. "Some snack-makers, they want to latch onto a popular trend, kind of fairy-dust their products with whatever the trendy ingredient is," he said. "We're not going to call something an Avocado Crisp if avocado isn't the first ingredient. No to- kenism here." Both the Avocado Crisps and Cauliflower Crisps are plant-based, non-GMO and gluten free. "All of our products go through Non- GMO Project verification," Walker said. They're offered in 2.5-ounce bags that retail for $4.99 in the U.S. For more information, visit www .hippiesnacks.com. Nancy Johnston Joins Renaissance Food Group Renaissance Food Group (RFG) has an- nounced that Nancy Johnston has joined the company as Vice President, Produce Pro- curement. In this role, Johnston will continue to drive the company's procurement inita- tives and lead all aspects of the corporate sourcing and regional procurement teams. Johnston brings to RFG a wealth of expe- rience and knowledge from her past 30 years in the produce industry. She received her bachelor of arts degree in business adminis- tration from Wichita State University, and her background includes: sales management, purchasing, team building and mentoring, budgeting, relationship building, new prod- uct development, marketing and brand de- velopment. Prior to RFG, Johnston served as senior sales manager for Sysco Corporation, where she launched and managed the new Sysco/FreshPoint brand revitalization. She also held various other roles within Sysco Corporation, The Richard Kaiser Company, and TKO Farms Inc. In addition, Johnston is committed to mak- ing a positive impact on the industry through Produce Marketing Association programs such as Center for Growing Talent Women's Fresh Perspectives. She mentors students each year at PMA Fresh Connections: Retail and PMA Foodservice Expo, taking care to maintain relationships with students after their graduation. She also actively partici- pates with Produce for Better Health Foun- dation and Southeast Produce Council. "RFG is excited to have Nancy join our team," said Raina Nelson, Senior Vice Pres- ident, Supply Chain. "She is a well-respected industry professional, and we look forward to her contributions in leadership, expertise and knowledge. We also express our grati- tude to Debbie Vest for her years of service to RFG and celebrate her devotion to this in- dustry. We wish her a wonderful retirement." Johnston's role with RFG began effective June 3, 2019, replacing Debbie Vest, who re- tired effective June 30, 2019. JSL Foods Reconnects with Family Legacy By Lorrie Baumann JSL Foods has re-established a relationship with the company's founding family by nam- ing Jade Wong Lucas as National Accounts Sales Manager. As National Accounts Man- ager of Foodservice, Lucas is now promoting the Twin Dragon brand her grandfather cre- ated 65 years ago. Her grandfather, Hailey On Wong opened Main On Company in 1954, producing authentic Asian won-ton wrappers, egg rolls, pot-sticker wraps, tofu and bean sprouts, which he sold to local restaurants and bodegas in and around the Los Angeles area. "The company started with my grandfather as Main On. We then created the Twin Dragon brand. Under that brand, we sold almond cookies, Asian noo- dles," Lucas said. The company passed out of the family's ownership in the early 1970s, and although Lucas was still involved in the same industry, she had been working for one of JSL Foods' competitors. "The owner reached out to me. We started talking, and he gave me an oppor- tunity to move over to this company," she said. "At first, I was very hesitant going to the competition, but with the Twin Dragon brand it held a legacy to me personally." In her new position, she calls on national restaurant accounts all over the country rep- resenting JSL Foods and showcasing its Asian noodles, pasta and wraps, which are non- GMO verified, certified vegan and cholesterol free. "One thing I really love about this job is the ability to make an impact in growing the business. The owners give me an ability to grow this business with a lot of support. With product that is innovative, that meets cus- tomer needs with portion control, with clean label – these are some of the new demands that our industry asks for," she said. "We have the ability to have a noodle with protein added, the ability to incorporate green pea or spinach noodles or black bean noodle. These are added features for the noodle that gives added value to the noodle for the consumer. Asian noodles are as different as pastas, ramen, yakisoba, udon. What we do here at JSL Foods is that we do a lot of customization for our customers' needs and preferences." For more information, visit www.jslfoods.com or email Lucas at jlucas@jslfoods.com. Crunchy Granola Goodness in a Portable Snack By Lorrie Baumann Crazy Monkey Baking's Granola Cookie Crunch comes from a mom who had a de- gree in dietetics and an urgent desire to give her own kids a snack that she could feel con- scientious about giving them and that they'd enjoy too. She started with an oatmeal cookie that her kids enjoyed and went to work on the recipe to come up with a product that was a bit more oat and a little less cookie but still delicious. Her kids loved it. Their friends loved it. "My kids really liked it, and that's the beauty of children – that they'll be honest," said Teresa Humrichouser, that Ashland, Ohio, mom. "We are a chocolate family, so I knew that if I put chocolate in it, there was a pretty good chance they would eat it." It was a bonus that she could take it along in her mom-van, and the kids could nibble on it dur- ing their rides without leaving behind a mess of crumbs in the car. "Our lives are so busy, so, as a mom, I can have this in my minivan as I pick the kids up from practice," she said. Humrichouser's friends encouraged her to take her Granola Cookie Crunch to the local farmers market, where, every weekend for two years straight, she sold out. Local gro- cery retailers saw what was happening, and a few of them approached her and asked her if they could carry her product in their stores after the farmers market season had ended. Humrichouser started looking for a commer- cial kitchen. She found a 350 square-foot facility that had been vacated by a pizza kitchen. "It was a few minutes from our house, and it was a small kitchen that we could move into and get it licensed because it had been used for food service in the past," she said. Three years later, she moved out of the for- mer pizza shop and into a 1,000 square-foot facility. Then in January, 2017, she moved into a 7,500 square-foot bakery, where eight employees make small batch after small batch of her Granola Cookie Crunch in four year-round flavors as well as occasional sea- sonal flavors. "With this move, it has allowed us to be in a location that suited us for bringing on larger customers," she said. The move has also facilitated supplier audits and food safety planning and documentation to qualify for national distribution to grocers who sell the products in either the granola, healthy snack or cookie sections of their shelves. Crazy Monkey Baking is also certified as a woman-owned business, and Humrichouser offers contract manufacturing services to other companies that have a granola formula but not a facility. "Even after all this time, baking is still my greatest passion," she said. "I don't get to do it that often any more, that that's what I love working with most in the business." Crazy Monkey Baking is now offered in Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip and Dark Chocolate Chip, Mint Chocolate Chip and Cranberry Almond flavors in 1.25-ounce bags that are smart-snack approved for schools. They retail for 99 cents to $1.49. Those four flavors plus White Chocolate Cranberry are also offered in 7.5-ounce bags along with a rotation of seasonal flavors that includes Cinnamon Pecan in the winter, Lemon Coconut in summer and Pumpkin Seed & Spice in the fall. Additional special-edition flavors also appear occasionally. "We have a variety of flavors, so there's some variety to appeal to the kids and adults alike," Humri- chouser said. All of the products are wheat free and made with 100 percent whole grains. Oats are naturally gluten free, and the products are sweetened with honey, molasses and evapo- rated cane sugar. A serving of the Dark Chocolate Chip flavor Granola Cookie Crunch contains 8 grams of added sugars and 6 grams of fat along with 3 grams of protein and 150 calories. "There is fat in oats and in whole grain cornmeal and in flax seeds, but it's all healthy fat," Humrichouser said. "When you have the real ingredients without the fats stripped from them, you're going to get those good, healthy calories in the fat." For more information, visit www.crazy monkeybaking.com.