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GOURMET NEWS JUNE 2014 www.gourmetnews.com Supplier Business SUPPLIER BUSINESS 1 3 BRIEFS Numi Organic Tea Blends Coming to RealCup Single-Serve Capsules RealCup™ brand and Numi ® Organic Tea are teaming up to bring convenience and quality to teacups everywhere with the introduction of single-serve capsules to the Numi line of organic teas. Numi chose to work with RealCup due to the companies' shared values of innovation and quality. Like Numi, RealCup brand is also an innovator in the beverage industry. Developed by Mother Parkers Tea & Coffee ® , RealCup single-serve capsules feature a FlavorMax™ filter that is designed to allow more of the essential oils into the cup, ensuring a more flavorful experience. Founded in 1999, Numi Organic Tea is a purveyor of premium quality organic, non-GMO and fair trade certified teas and teasans. Numi blends its organic leaf teas with only real herbs, fruits, flowers and spices, not unnecessary flavorings or perfumes. For more information, visit www.numitea.com. Crofter's Organic Celebrates 25 Years in Fruit Spread Industry In 1989, Gerhard Latka and his wife Gabriele co-founded Crofter's Organic in Parry Sound, Ontario, with the dream of creating organic fruit spreads that were nutritious and affordable. Over the past 25 years, Crofter's Organic has blended, jarred and sold antioxidant-rich fruit spreads to jam lovers across North America, fulfilling the company's original mission to bring the highest quality organic products to consumers. Today, Crofter's Organic remains family owned and is the largest organic jam manufacturer in North America and a leading brand in the natural channel in the United States. Today, Crofter's offers shoppers more than 20 certified organic, Non GMO Project-verified spreads, including the company's fair trade cane sugar-sweetened Premium Spreads, high antioxidant Superfruit™ spreads and no added cane sugar Just Fruit™ Spreads. For more information, visit www.croftersorganic.com. Eggland's Best Wins 2014 Product of the Year After calculating more than 40,000 consumer votes, Product of the Year USA has announced Eggland's Best eggs as its "Product of the Year." Product of the Year is the world's largest consumer-voted award program for innovation in consumer products and has served as a shortcut for consumers to pick the best products, saving them time and money. "At Eggland's Best, we provide consumers the best egg available and are thrilled to be recognized as Product of the Year," said Charles T. Lanktree, President and CEO of Eggland's Best. "Consumers can feel confident knowing Eggland's Best eggs not only taste great, but are also superior in nutrition and freshness when compared to other eggs." This year, Product of the Year USA honored Eggland's Best and 23 other category winners, including beverages, personal care products, household care products and more. BY LORRIE BAUMANN Over the past two years, an Australian com- pany has emerged as the producer of some of the best olive oils in the world. Cobram Estate olive oils from Australia entered five oils in this year's New York International Olive Oil Competition and took home two best in class trophies, as well as five gold medals, making the company the most suc- cessful in this year's competition in which 651 olive oils from 25 countries were eval- uated by an international panel of judges. Cobram Estate won its best in class tro- phies for its Hojiblanca and Premiere olive oils. The Hojiblanca won its trophy in the class for Southern Hemisphere non-organic robust monovarietals, while the Premiere oil won in the class for Southern Hemi- sphere non-organic robust blends. Of the Hojiblanca, the judges noted aro- mas of green fruit, grass, banana and apple with notes of tomato, herbs, almonds and grass and a taste that combined abundant fruitiness with green grass, some sweet- ness, bitterness and vigorous pungency, as well as notes of herbs, tomato and walnut. The oil is characterized, according to the judges, by exceptional harmony, high com- plexity and high persistence. For the Premiere blend, the judges noted aromas of green fruit, green leaves and apple with notes of herbs, tomato and flow- ers. The taste exhibits abundant fruitiness, green grass, sweetness, bitterness and vig- orous pungency along with notes of veg- etable, fig leaf, radish and pepper. Judges also characterized it as an oil with excep- tional har- mony, high c o m p l e x i t y and high per- sistence. The com- pany's other three gold medals came for its Classic Flavour In- tensity, First Harvest and Picual olive oils. The judges praised persistence, harmony and complexity for all of them. Cobram Estate is Australia's leading pro- ducer of 100 percent estate-grown extra vir- gin olive oils, with average annual sales growth of 55 percent since 2007. In 2013 alone, the company processed more than 74,000 tons of premium quality olives to produce 13.5 million liters of premium quality extra virgin olive oil. All products sold under the Cobram Estate brand are produced in Australia on the company's own olive estates in Victoria's Murray Val- ley, and they are bottled within an average of four hours from harvest. This is the key to their quality, according to company co- founders Rob McGavin and Paul Riordan and Chief Oil Maker Leandro Ravetti. "Freshness is our key component of olive oil quality," said Ravetti, "The fresher the juice, the higher the health benefits of the product." All of the Cobram Estate oils are labeled with the year in which the olives were harvested, and this year's trophy and medal winners are from the 2014 crop. The brand is one of the world's most awarded, with more than 200 medals since 2001, including four gold medals and two best in class trophies earned at last year's New York International Olive Oil Competition. The oil is widely dis- tributed across Aus- tralia and exported to 15 countries. It is now being introduced into the American market, where it is being re- ceived well, according to the company. In the United States, the suggested retail price for Cobram Es- tate Classic and Co- bram Estate Robust in the 500 milliliter bottle is $9. The 500 milliliter bottle of Cobram Estate Ultra-Premium Hojiblanca and Picual sell for $25 at retail, and the 400 mil- liliter bottle of Cobram Estate Ultra- Premium First Harvest retails for $50. GN Australian Olive Oils from Cobram Estate Win Accolades at New York Competition Woot Froot has been named a finalist for United Fresh's 2014 Best New Fruit Prod- uct Award for its line of fresh cut peaches and nectarines packed in snack-size bags as well as larger packages. Company Pres- ident Kim Gaarde says the flavor and tex- ture of the packaged fruit slices provide consumers with a great eating experience. The brand belongs to Fresh Fruit Cuts of Fresno, Calif. Gaarde's confidence in the company's new offering is the product of several years of re- search and development that involved the evaluation of more than 500 fruit varieties and the development of Fresh Fruit Cuts' proprietary process for packing the fruit to keep its fresh appearance and texture. With consumers responding positively to convenience-driven items, including fresh cut fruits and vegetables, and with snack items like carrots and apples con- tinuing to grow in popularity, Woot Froot sliced peaches and nectarines have been a pos- itive addition to the fresh-cut snacking category. "It has been a whirlwind of activity and opportunity here. We are very excited to see these products become successful in market," said Gaarde. After the success of last year's produc- tion, the company was able to make recent equipment upgrades within their facilities, allowing them to add addi- tional SKUs and pack sizes. Woot Froot will now be offered in 3-ounce bags, five-count multipack clamshells, 14- ounce bags and 10-ounce, 20- ounce and 2-pound trays. The product is scheduled to be in retail stores now, as of May 15. For more information on fresh cut peaches and nectarines, visit www.wootfroot.com, or contact Fresh Fruit Cuts at info@wootfroot.com. United Fresh will name its award winners in June. GN Woot Froot Named Finalist for United Fresh's Best New Fruit Product Award

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