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GENERAL NEWS GOURMET NEWS OCTOBER 2013 www.gourmetnews.com 3 General News BRIEFS Seattle to Kick Off Tea Season at the Sixth Annual Northwest Tea Festival The Northwest Tea Festival will delight long-time tea lovers and new fans of all ages with tea tastings, classes, lectures and great shopping with local vendors. Just in time for tea season, the festival will be held October 5-6 in the Fisher Pavilion at Seattle Center, 305 Harrison Street in Seattle. The Northwest Tea Festival offers products, information and seminars for more than 2,000 tea lovers and aspiring tea professionals. The goal is to provide experiences covering all aspects of tea, from the cultural to the historical and the sensory to the scientific. Entry to the Northwest Tea Festival is free to the public, with a suggested donation of $10, which includes a free porcelain tasting teacup and festival bag. Select lectures and tastings may require additional fees. Seating is limited and pre-registration is suggested and available on the festival's website, www.nwteafestival.com. Mexican Healthy Products Summit to Bring Top Buyers to Puerto Vallarta The first annual invitation-only Mexican Healthy Products Summit, scheduled January 24-26 in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, will connect key buyers from Mexico's major supermarkets and health food stores with U.S.-based natural and organic products companies who seek distribution in the Mexican market. The Mexican Healthy Products Summit is currently seeking North American companies that are interested in breaking into or expanding distribution in the Mexican market and would be interested in attending the event. Eighty to 100 Mexican buyers are scheduled to be in attendance, representing major supermarket chains, including Casa Ley, Costco, H-E-B, Soriana and Walmart. Those in attendance will have the opportunity to participate in pre-scheduled private boardroom presentations, one-on-one meetings and networking events. Experts will present on topics ranging from reaching the Mexican consumer, healthy lifestyle trends, industry research and best export practices. The 2014 Midwest Foodservice Expo Set for March 10-12 in Milwaukee The 2014 Midwest Foodservice Expo will take place March 10-12 at the Wisconsin Center in Milwaukee, Wis. The event is the region's premier annual foodservice and hospitality industry trade show and conference. As the largest industry event in Wisconsin, the Expo brings top foodservice executives and professionals together with leading suppliers from around the country. The Midwest Foodservice Expo has a proven track record of bringing thousands of attendees from every segment of foodservice, including grocery stores, fine dining restaurants, quick service, bakeries, taverns, hotels, schools, institutions, convenience stores, contract feeders and more. Hundreds of exhibitors from around the country showcase products. Fair Trade USA Announces Final Changes to Product Certification Standards BY LUCAS WITMAN Earlier this year, Fair Trade USA, the leading third party certifier of fair trade products in the United States, announced a draft proposal to amend the standards the organization places on food and beverage companies seeking to include a Fair Trade Certified™ label on their product packaging. The company spent six months carefully studying the issue, gathering feedback from consumers, farmers, activists and those within the specialty food industry. Now, Fair Trade USA has released its final revised Ingredients Policy. The new policy officially went into effect on August 20. According to Fair Trade USA's revised Ingredient Policy, food companies now have two options for labeling their fair trade offerings. If a product features at least 95 percent fair trade ingredients, the packaging will be permitted to feature the "Fair Trade Certifed" label. If the product contains at least 20 percent fair trade ingredients, the packaging will be permitted to feature a different label identifying it as containing "Fair Trade Certified Ingredients." In addition, if a product contains less than 20 percent fair trade ingredients, but it still contains at least one component that does come from a fair trade source, the company may identify the fair trade ingredient on the front of the packaging, but it will not be permitted include either of these two aforementioned Fair Trade USA labels. After its careful analysis of the draft proposal, Fair Trade USA made several important changes that show up in the final version. One of these is the requirement that companies labeling their products with the Fair Trade Certified Ingredient seal identify the specific percentage of fair trade content (by weight) in the product. "As we went through the process, there were quite a few people who believed that we should disclose the percentage," said Sri Artham, Director of Consumer Packaged Goods for Fair Trade USA. "People have viewed that particular change very positively." According to Fair Trade USA's updated policy, regardless of the percentage of fair trade content in a product, if it includes an ingredient the organization identifies as "commercially available" in a fair trade form, these ingredients must be sourced from fair trade producers in the global South. One significant change to the final Ingredients Policy concerns the company's definition of "commercially available." In the draft, Fair Trade USA identified three ingredients as "commercially available": coffee, tea and cocoa. The final version adds quinoa to the list. "There is so much awareness of quinoa and the issues that producers face," Artham said, explaining the organization's decision to require Fair Trade Certified products to include only fair trade quinoa. "Quinoa meets the commercial availability requirement very well, and it is primarily sourced from the global South." The high price of quinoa on the global market threatens to preclude some producers from having access to the grain themselves. In addition, the commercial production of quinoa requires the land to lie fallow for a period after a certain number of harvests. As prices continue to rise, some worry that farmers will be forced to skip this step, threatening future harvests of the grain. It is because of these problems associated with the farming of quinoa that Fair Trade USA ultimately decided to identify the grain as a "commercially available" ingredient. According to Artham, reaction to Fair Trade USA's final Ingredients Policy has been overwhelmingly positive. He attributes this largely to the fact that the public has been so involved in drafting the policy from the beginning. "We heard people's feedback on the policy before we published it," he said. "It's their policy as much as ours." In general, Fair Trade USA hopes that these changes will increase transparency within the fair trade movement, ensuring that consumers know that when they are purchasing a Fair Trade Certified product they are patronizing a company with a meaningful commitment to a social cause. This is the hope of Michael Besancon, Former Senior Global Vice President of Purchasing, Communications and Distribution for Whole Foods Market and current board member for Fair Trade USA. "This policy moves the Fair Trade movement a meaningful step forward toward greater consumer transparency and empowerment," Besancon said. According to Artham, he expects that these changes are unlikely to be the last for Fair Trade USA's certification standards. "It's an ongoing process," he said. "Two years from now we might revise the policy again to meet the needs of consumers." To read Fair Trade USA's final Ingredients policy in full, visit www.fairtradeusa.org/ certification/producers/ingredients. GN "Winnimere" from Cellars at Jasper Hill Wins Best of Show at American Cheese Society Competition Winnimere from Cellars at Jasper Hill in Vermont was named "Best of Show" among 1,794 entries at the American Cheese Society's 2013 Judging & Competition. The results were announced on August 2 at a ceremony during the 30th Anniversary ACS Conference in Madison, Wis. Grafton Village Cheese, also from Vermont, was awarded second place overall for Bear Hill. Bleu Mont Dairy in Wisconsin tied itself for third place overall for Bandaged Cheddar and Big Sky Grana. Mateo Kehler of Cellars at Jasper Hill expressed his gratitude for the Best of Show win. "Winnimere represents the soul of our business, and the award is recognition for the hard work of so many people," Kehler said. The 2013 ACS Judging & Competition was a record-setting event, with the largest number of entries in ACS history. In all, 257 companies entered cheeses for consideration, submitting 1,794 different products. Entering companies represented 34 U.S. states and four Canadian provinces, as well as Mexico and Colombia. A total of 315 ribbons were awarded, including 81 first place ribbons, 114 second place ribbons and 120 third place ribbons. Prizes were awarded in categories ranging from cheese curds to butters and everything in between. Cheeses made from cow's, goat's and sheep's milk were all represented. The American Cheese Society is a notfor-profit trade organization founded in 1983 to support the North American artisan and specialty cheese industry. ACS provides advocacy, education, business development and networking opportunities for members of the cheese industry, while striving to continually raise the quality and availability of cheese in North America. For a printable list of this year's winners and judges' bios, visit www.cheesesociety.org The 31st Annual ACS Conference & Competition will take place July 29-August 1, 2014 in Sacramento, Calif. GN

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