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General News GOURMET NEWS MAY 2015 www.gourmetnews.com GENERAL NEWS 4 Today's organic tent looks a lot different than yesterday's. It's bigger, younger, and significantly more diverse than just a few years ago. In fact, inside that tent, it looks pretty much like most places in America, a new study by the Organic Trade Associa- tion (OTA) shows. As the availability of organic has become more mainstream and the offerings of or- ganic more varied, there's more diversity in those choosing organic. There no longer is a typical organic consumer. Organic is meeting the needs of a wide and multi- faceted culture, and the faces of organic- buying families now mirror the demographics of the U.S. population in terms of ethnic background, according to OTA's "U.S. Families' Organic Attitudes and Beliefs 2015 Tracking Study," a survey of more than 1,200 households throughout the country. Today, seven in ten families who pur- chase organic describe themselves as "white," after hovering consistently around eight in ten from the survey's first year in 2009 through 2013. In contrast, African American and Hispanic families have been steadily increasing among the ranks of or- ganic-buying households. The percentage of African American families buying or- ganic on a regular basis has doubled from just 7 percent six years ago, to now 14 per- cent. Hispanic households choosing or- ganic is even higher at 16 percent, a huge jump from 7 percent just four years ago, when the survey started tracking Hispanic buying patterns. "Our survey shows that organic has turned a corner," said Laura Batcha, OTA's executive director and CEO. "Organic hasn't been a niche for some time, and today it is the face of America. The demo- graphics of the organic consumer are not any different than the demographics of America." A side-by-side comparison of the figures: Percentage of organic buyers who are white: 73 percent; percentage of the U.S. population that is white, according to the latest U.S. Census: 72.4 percent; percentage of Hispanic organic buyers: 16 percent; per- centage of U.S. population that's Hispanic: 16.4 percent; and percentage of African American organic buyers: 14 percent; per- centage of U.S. population: 12.6 percent. The OTA survey also looks at the in- comes, education and ages of organic buy- ers, and compares the buying habits of the new organic purchaser to the more experi- enced organic consumer. Like most of us who buy the bulk of our food from our local supermarket, or- ganic shoppers generally also are turning to the convenient supermarket for their organic purchases. A whopping 78 per- cent of organic buyers say they typically buy their organic foods at conventional food stores/supermarkets. Over half also shop organic at the "big box" stores, an increase of almost 10 percentage points from just a year ago, and some 30 percent also report that it's not unusual to buy or- ganic at one of the warehouse clubs in the country, again up almost 10 points from the previous year. The similarities don't end there. Forty- three percent of the parents surveyed said they're making more of an effort to use coupons, discounts and other money-sav- ing tactics when making general food pur- chases, very close to the 36 percent watching their budget when buying or- ganic. Choosing store brands, either con- ventional or organic, to save money has become popular among penny-pinching families. Nine in ten families says they are choosing store brand products rather than brand names for conventional products, and eight in ten say they choose store brand organic items over organic brand names. This was the sixth year OTA has part- nered with KIWI Magazine to conduct the study. The primary objectives of the track- ing study are to identify any changes in the degree to which families are incorporating organic into their lifestyle, parents' knowl- edge about organic products and benefits, the importance and use of labels when shopping for and choosing organic prod- ucts, and the household shopping budget and retail channel preferences. This year the study looked more closely at the importance of the private label, dig- ging down into the various factors that go into play when making the decision to buy the store brand private label over the more well-known brand label. The target audience for the study con- sisted of more than 1,200 households, in- cluding a national online panel of U.S. households supplemented with KIWI Mag- azine's Parents' Advisory Board. All respon- dents had at least one child under the age of 18 in the household, and had sole or shared responsibility for household grocery purchases. GN Survey: Organic Food Shoppers Look Like America University of Maryland faculty and gradu- ate students in computer science and eco- nomics, together with a colleague from the University of California, Los Angeles, have created the largest national database of food safety inspection information. In the U.S., such inspections are done by local public health departments, which can take different approaches to conducting, coding and reporting inspection data. Using this unique new automated database, food service businesses and consumers can monitor and compare food safety practices from outlets across the nation. The national database was developed by UMD Professor of Computer Science Ben Bederson, UMD Professor of Economics Ginger Jin, UCLA Associate Professor of Business Management Philip Leslie, new Ph.D. Graduate Alexander Quinn (com- puter science) and UMD Ph.D. graduate student Ben Zou (economics). According to Bederson, who also is UMD's Associate Provost of Learning Initia- tives and Executive Director of its Teaching and Learning Transformation Center, the team's database uses data robots to automat- ically collect data from local government websites and represents a huge leap from local and state databases that are built using manually-collected and sometimes poorly correlated data, and which can easily miss the big picture and have little impact on compliance actions. "Building our system to reliably collect information from so many different jurisdictions was a formidable en- gineering challenge," said Bederson. Another difficulty was developing nor- malization algorithms to compare data across jurisdictions where the data is very different. For some web pages, the team had to write custom 'scrapers' to get the data, and for others they had to interpret already available databases. "Our data ro- bots cover a large number of local jurisdic- tions across the U.S., continuously detect- ing new data posted by each jurisdiction, and integrating them into a single, stan- dardized, and cumulative database," Beder- son said, noting that the result is a database that is cost-effective, robust and scalable compared to manual alternatives. The researchers also developed analytical tools that can be used to compare inspection outcomes across localities and states, and across chain and individual food outlets, such as restaurants, cafes, convenience stores, and grocery markets. This can im- prove inspection efficiency and promote re- tailer compliance, resulting in a decrease in food-borne illnesses, according to Bederson. The team has created a regulatory data analytics company, Hazel Analytics, which according to Bederson is a direct outgrowth of their academic collaboration around food safety inspection data funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. For non-com- mercial use, the database is publicly avail- able at InspectionRepo.com at no cost. "As we shared our work with industry players, government agencies such as the FDA and CDC, and other academics, our in- tuition was confirmed that there was com- mercial value in our database and analytical approach," said Bederson. Hazel Analytics now produces a commercial grade restau- rant inspection database and analytical serv- ices for the food service industry. "We are currently in close talks with several major national chains. We expect to have our first paying customers this year," Bederson said. The University of Maryland's Office of Technology Commercialization helped Bederson and his group to develop, license and commercialize the technology. Beder- son plans to apply the web 'scraping' tech- nology to other inspection programs implemented by the local governments. GN Food Safety Inspection Database Now Available BRIEFS David Sugarman Named CEO of The Manischewitz Company The Manischewitz ® Company, the world's largest matzo manufacturer, has named specialty food industry veteran David Sugarman as President and Chief Executive Officer. Sugarman, who most recently served as President and CEO of The Allan Candy Company, a division of The Hershey Company, has already assumed his new responsibilities. Sugarman will direct Manischewitz Company's business strategy, develop and foster customer relationships, and oversee all daily operations. He brings over 20 years of experience with businesses in North America, including Sabra Dipping Company, where he served as Country Manager for Canada, and at Billy Bee Honey Products and Succession Capital Corporation. Sugarman led the sale of Allan Candy to Hershey Canada in 2014, and earlier in his career he was responsible for launching Sabra's line of fresh foods items in Canada. Beth Kluge Named VP, Sales by King Arthur Flour King Arthur Flour has hired Beth Kluge as Vice President of Sales. Kluge brings 25 years of experience of sales leadership in the bread and baking industry and will oversee wholesale product sales. "Beth possesses a wonderful balance of strategic thinking, the natural ability to build connections, and a passion for driving business efforts," said Karen Colberg, King Arthur Flour Co-CEO and Chief Marketing Officer. "Beth will be instrumental in the continuous growth of King Arthur Flour as we leverage and strengthen our distribution throughout the country." "What really interested me in King Arthur Flour was how it is a mission-driven company based on bringing people together through the joy of baking," said Kluge. "I am excited to work with a company that values its employees and the community."

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