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Naturally Healthy GOURMET NEWS DECEMBER 2019 www.gourmetnews.com NATURALLY HEALTHY 1 3 New Coffee Creamers Appeal to the Dairy-Cautious with coconut cream, cashew milk and MCT oil for a silky dairy-free creamer that's paleo-friendly and keto-certified. The Pic- nik's new Collagen Creamer features grass- fed collagen and rich cashew cream to offer an added boost for hair, skin, gut and joints. It's paleo-friendly and keto-certified. The products, like the Picnik's Original Creamer, are now offered in vibrant and modern packaging that puts a spotlight on the ingredients that appeal to paleo-, keto- and other nutrition-conscious shoppers while creating a strong and attractive brand block on shelf. The recipes for the products were developed by brand Founder Naomi Seifter, who opened Picnik in a food trailer made from a repurposed shipping con- tainer in Austin in 2013. From her food trailer, she offered grab-and-go lunch items along with the butter coffee that developed a cult following for her the brand. In 2016, she opened her first brick-and-mortar cafe full-service restaurant in Austin. "My initial reaction was a bit of awe because it was ex- tremely crowded and busy, and you could tell that people just loved being there," Malloy said of his first visit to the cafe. "It has healthy food that tasted amazing." Seifter expanded with a second food trailer and devel- oped her first re a d y - t o - d r i n k coffee in 2017. Malloy joined the brand just this year after a career that included 20 many years with Frito-Lay and, most recently, as chief executive officer of Hail Merry. He's made a specialty of growing brands in the CPG industry and has part- nered with Seifter on this end of the busi- ness. "Naomi created Picnik after a life-changing difference in what the fats did for her physical health and mental clarity. Now they're getting back to where they started with functionality for physical and baking needs," he said. "She is the gate- keeper to innovation and built all the recipes. We have a chef in our restaurant who helps as well, but the making of our products comes through her and her phys- ical health and mental clarity." "I created Picnik after discovering the life- changing difference that high-quality fats and other functional ingredi- ents could have on phys- ical health and mental clarity," Seifter said. "Based on the response we received to our Origi- nal Creamer, we knew we wanted to expand the line so it was more inclusive of all dietary needs. Inclu- siveness is a core value we live by, so I've worked hard to create our new offerings keeping in mind consumers who are vegan or prefer plant-based food as well as the millions out there who are already putting collagen in their coffee daily." For more information, visit www .picnikaustin.com. GN BY LORRIE BAUMANN Austin, Texas-based Picnik is launching from its foodservice origins into the retail market with a line of creamers designed to provide those with concerns about dairy products to enjoy a creamy coffee again. The launch, helmed by consumer packaged goods veteran Andy Malloy, includes Dairy- Free Collagen and Vegan Creamers along with a fresh look for the line, which also in- cludes Picnik's unsweetened Original Creamer. All Picnik Creamers are keto-certified, Non-GMO Project Verified, and contain zero sugar or net carbohydrates. Like Pic- nik's Original Creamer, the two new op- tions are unsweetened, powered by MCT [medium-chain triglycerides] oil for an en- ergy and brain boost, and have a similar fla- vor profile to half-and-half. "This allows people to indulge in a way that people with dietary restrictions can't otherwise do," Malloy said. "Many of Picnik's values fall into that better-for-you category that I'm passionate about." The Picnik's new Vegan Creamer is made you choose—we can take you to that farm to show you exactly where your wheat came from," Fleming says. "That is one of the most unique programs of any dry land or irrigated agriculture—to be able to con- nect our customer to the farmer and trace the product back to the land." As a grower-owned company, Shepherd's Grain works with 42 farmers who represent about 220,000 acres in Washington, Ore- gon and Idaho. They're all practicing no-till agriculture on the acreage. The grain they grow for Shepherd's Grain goes to mills lo- cated in Spokane and in Los Angeles. With a transparent approach to pricing, Shep- herd's Grain pays its farmers a sustainable and equitable price based on the cost of production so they're not subject to market volatility—otherwise unheard of in the commodity-driven industry. Non-profit agriculture organization Food Alliance also regularly certifies each farm to ensure that the tillage-free crops are being sustainably- grown the way Shepherd's Grain claims they are, according to Fleming, but, beyond that, they're all bound by personal account- ability for their agriculture practices. The result of the company's regenerative farming practices is a working landscape that's more resilient against climate ex- tremes. Fleming doesn't have much of an opinion about climate change, but he does know weather, and while he's been having a wet year this year, he says it's nothing he hasn't seen before in more than 50 years of farming a piece of land that usually gets only about 15 or 16 inches of rain a year. "We've had this [rainy weather] before. We've had droughts before," he says. "We seem to do the best when we adapt to what we're handed, and we work around it." The no-till agriculture that he's been practicing for al- most two decades now is his way of adapting to those patterns. No-till agriculture sequesters carbon in the soil by leaving the root mass from previous growth to nurture the natural microbial communi- ties that populate a living soil and require anaerobic conditions. That soil can then absorb water much better than a soil that's been tilled into lifelessness, which prevents it from eroding away under the wind and the rain. "Even if the climate warms, the crops grow better. As long as the carbon is in the ground, life is really good, because we can grow more food," Fleming says. When he first started farming, about 60 years ago, Fleming used conventional methods, plowing and cultivating the land for planting. "The ground was always – it was just ground, a medium to grow a crop. When I converted to no-till, all of a sudden, the earthworms came back. I have a living compost pile out there. I have earthworms – never had them before," he says. "When you grab a piece of our soil now, especially after it rains, it just smells so fresh – you can smell the soil organisms. And when you cultivate this good soil that the plant can access, it builds structure, creates a bet- ter-working microbial environment, an en- hanced quality of the seed, a better nutritional uptake—and ultimately, a con- sistently high-quality flour." Rain, when it comes now, doesn't run off his fields the way it used to, he says. "I had pastures where we had gullies [caused by soil erosion]. We don't have that anymore," he says. "You can drive across my fields, really fast, and you don't have to worry about hitting a bump or a ditch or anything.... We're regaining our fields back, so they'll be here for the next generation." "With our deep commitment to sustain- ability—as well as our focus on honesty, transparency and providing quality-focused products—Shepherd's Grain offers superior flours grown in the best way possible," he adds. "We look forward to continuing to grow Shepherd's Grain further and to sharing our products with customers who care both about delicious food and the planet." GN Shepherd's Grain Continued from PAGE 1 flours, semolina and flax seed products, Shepherd's Grain just introduced its most recent products: Shepherd's Grain Soft White Enriched Pastry Flour and Soft White Unenriched Noodle Flour this year at the International Baking Industry Expo- sition. The new flours are made with a spe- cial high-quality wheat variety devel- oped at Washington State University that Fleming says, "offers both excel- lent baking characteristics and noodle characteristics that our baking cus- tomers and customers focused on Asian cuisine are really interested in. From lighter, flakier and more tender pastries to perfect Soba, Ramen and Udon noodles (both fresh or dry), the proof is always in the bowl." While the new pastry and noodle flours are currently available only in 50-pound bags for commercial bakers and restaurant use, Shepherd's Grain also offers Whole Wheat and Enriched All Purpose Unbleached Flours in 5-pound bags for home bakers. Each bag of Shepherd's Grain flour is identity-preserved, so customers can use special coding printed on their bag to check the Shepherd's Grain website and identify the two to four farmers who grew the wheat for that particular bag. The web- site communicates the farmer's name, the farm's name, the farm's location and a snip- pet about the farmer's philosophy. "You can meet our farmer, read about them, and—if

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