Oser Communications Group

BY LORRIE BAUMANN Climate change is the next lift hill on dairy farmers' roller coaster of economic and environ- mental challenges. The farmers who bought their tickets for the ride decades and even genera- tions ago are already buckled in. "Being in California, from a temperature/environment/cli- mate standpoint, has a lot of great things. One of the chal- lenges is that we tend to have the most stringent regulatory com- pliance laws in the country," said Brian Fiscalini, a fourth-genera- tion dairy farmer who's milking 1,500 cows a day on 470 acres in Modesto. He's the dairy behind the award-winning Fiscalini Bandage-Wrapped Cheddar, San BY LORRIE BAUMANN Theo Chocolate's upcoming new products as well as the Coffee Toffee 70% Dark Chocolate Bar introduced at Natural Products Expo East fully uphold the brand's obsessions with the joy of chocolate as well as the values that underlie them. The company is planning a rollout early next year of another two new prod- ucts, a Peanut Butter & Jelly Cup that won a NEXTY award at Expo East this year and a Coffee & Cream Cup that's a particu- larly imaginative spin on the nut- butter cup concept. All this is according to Jason Ethical Innovation from Theo Chocolate Continued on PAGE 8 Continued on PAGE 9 Continued on PAGE 14 Harty, Chief Marketing Officer for Theo Chocolate, who said, "We have this super-delicious choco- late and want to invite people to see the big impact a small treat can have." Theo brought the Peanut Butter & Jelly Cups to Expo East for sampling, and the product will be rolling out to gro- cers early next year. It's a cup made from 55 percent couverture chocolate and filled with a cus- tom blend of peanut butter and raspberry jelly. The nuts for the butter are custom-roasted, and all of the ingredients are organic. "There was a ton of excitement about it. It will change your life," Harty said. "It will be in stores and online starting in January." The Coffee & Cream Cup, also planned for rollout early next year, looks like the familiar for- mat, but, like the Peanut Butter & Jelly Cup, it's a whole new experience for the consumer. It's a milk chocolate cup filled with a chocolate filling made with coffee-infused coconut oil and chocolate. The coffee-in- fused oil and chocolate are blended together in such a way that they melt together in the mouth when the con- sumer bites into it, for a luscious mouthfeel and a flavor that com- bines chocolate, coffee and the creamy flavor and texture of the milk chocolate cup. Both products will be dressed Grocery Industry Drivers Combat Human Trafficking Dairy Farmers Confront Climate Change Joaquin Gold and Hopscotch Cheddar, among others. "We keep records upon records upon records of the things we do to be more sustainable, to be more green," he said. "Being in com- pliance is the bare minimum – it's what we can do above and beyond that." As a California dairy farmer, he was squarely in the cross-hairs during what one journalist called "Cali- fornia's 2018 legislative blitzkrieg," in which California committed itself and its citizens to its most ambitious climate change agenda ever. The legisla- ture's action was followed by an executive order from then-Gover- nor Jerry Brown to put California on track to be carbon neutral by 2045. In pursuit of those goals, California's Air Resources Board zeroed in on the California dairy BY LORRIE BAUMANN Tierra Farm is celebrating its 20th anniversary in business this fall, and as it does so, it's also fac- ing the challenge of scaling up the business while ensuring that a growing workforce continues to see the company as a good place to work. "When you start with a company with 10 employees, the culture's always going to be dif- ferent than when you have 60 employees, said Chief Executive Officer Todd Kletter. "We try to take that small company feel and try to replicate it the best we Continued on PAGE 16 Tierra Farm Grows by Cultivating Employees can." Tierra Farm's shiny new sta- tus as a certified B Corporation is part of that, he said. Tierra Farm is a certified-or- ganic manufacturer and distribu- tor of nuts and dried fruits that attained B Corp status in August. B Corp Certification is the only certification that measures a com- pany's entire social and environ- mental performance. To qualify for certification, companies must earn a minimum score of 80 on their "B Impact Assessment," a self-assessment that measures how the company's operations and business model affect its workers, community, the envi- ronment and customers. "B Corp is very exciting to me and I be- lieve that I'm selling the future," Kletter said. "It's going to be very prevalent and very important to consumers and companies over the next five years." In its self-assessment, Kletter and his team took a hard look at how the company's rapid growth over the past few years has af- fected its employees and their BY LORRIE BAUMANN KeHE's professional truck drivers have joined the fight against human trafficking, and the na- tional distributor of natural and organic, specialty and fresh food is hoping that grocers and food manufacturers will join them in support of Truckers Against Traf- ficking. Truckers Against Trafficking is a nonprofit organization that ex- ists to educate and mobilize members of the trucking, busing and energy industries to combat human trafficking. KeHE re- cruited its drivers into the organi- zation's mobile army earlier this year and now has all 632 of its drivers trained to identify possi- ble victims of human trafficking and to know how to help. "The shocking thing to us is how big the problem is and how it's all over the place – it's everywhere," said Randy Shaw, KeHE's Director of KeHE Cares Outreach. "For me, it's the most horrific thing I've ever seen. I don't know how any- one who has a daughter or a sister or a mother cannot be affected by these things." Through KeHE Cares, the em- ployee-owned company's philan- thropic volunteer program, he got VOLUME 84, NUMBER 11 NOVEMBER 2019 n $7.00 www.gourmetnews.com SUPPLEMENT: Pasta & Sauces SEE PAGE 17 HOT PRODUCTS: Jarlsberg SEE PAGE 21 NATURALLY HEALTHY: Patagonia Provisions SEE PAGE 15 NEWS & NOTES n Gillibrand Calls for USDA Study of Produce Industry Market Conditions PAGE 6 RETAILER NEWS n Market of Choice Places Community at the Core PAGE 10 SUPPLIER NEWS n Rustic Bakery Gains Mainstream Popularity PAGE 12 NATURALLY HEALTHY n A Righteous Salty Snack with Crunch PAGE 15 SUPPLEMENT n Pasta & Sauces PAGE 17 News ..............................................6 Ad Index .......................................22 Calendar.......................................22 G OURMET N EWS T H E B U S I N E S S N E W S P A P E R F O R T H E G O U R M E T I N D U S T R Y ®

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