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GOURMET NEWS JULY 2015 www.gourmetnews.com Naturally Healthy NATURALLY HEALTHY 2 0 To-Go Food Packaging to Save the Planet BY LORRIE BAUMANN World Centric is just going into produc- tion with a line of compostable packag- ing for prepared foods made out of fiber that's grown in the USA and turned into clamshells and covered plates in an American factory under American envi- ronmental regulations and sustainability ethics. They comply with the regulations of an increasing number of cities across the country that now require take-out food to be served in packaging that can go into municipal composting facilities instead of into the landfill. The new containers are made by World Centric, which was started in 2004 as a nonprofit organization. "For us, the business initially was a result of trying to support a nonprofit mission of raising awareness of social and environmental issues," says World Centric Founder Aseem Das. "We have kept a lot of those values for making change and trying to do our part, in whatever small way, to create a better world and make a differ- ence.... Packaging was opportunistic. We were looking around for a way to sup- port the nonprofit, for products and services that would be sustainable and beneficial to the environment or services that help mitigate social disparities that exist in the world." World Centric is headquartered in Petaluma, California, and in those days "polystyrene," known commonly by the brand name, Styrofoam, had already be- come a bit of a dirty word in California. Cities around the state were becoming concerned about the material's durability in the environment and the expense of picking it up off beaches, and they started passing bans on the material. "In 2005, we were at the Green Festival in San Francisco. We were so busy because everybody was so interested in com- postable packaging as an alternative to Styrofoam," Das remembers. "People just got the concept of compostable packag- ing. There was a fair amount of interest in it." Interest was so great that, gradually, Das started spending more time running the business and less time tending to the nonprofit organization. Finally, after some soul-searching, Das decided in 2009 to end the nonprofit or- ganization and become a for- profit enterprise while keeping many of the same values that propelled him into business in the first place. World Centric was registered as a certified B corporation in 2010 and a Cal- ifornia Benefit Corporation in 2013. The company donates 25 percent of its profits to organi- zations that address social and environmental issues. Back when Das was deciding that he needed to focus all his attention on the business of making a profit, Scott Coye- Huhn and a group of business partners were exercising their own combination of idealism and profit motive with a plan to create biomass re- serves for renewable fuels. They were looking at marginal farmlands around the U.S. that might be able to grow a perennial crop even if they couldn't sup- port annual crops like corn or wheat. The thought was that they'd plant once, harvest a crop year after year, and use the plant fibers as biomass to make fuel. "A perennial gives sustainable characteris- tics; you use much less fuel, much less chemicals, create less erosion," Coye- Huhn says. "That's the game-changer here." They found that an Asian plant called Miscanthus would grow in eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, where farm- ers had land that wouldn't grow an an- nual crop. Coye-Huhn and his partners worked with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to get the plant certified for planting in the U.S., after demonstrating that Miscanthus doesn't make viable seed and can't become an invasive pest, and started signing up farmers who needed an income from fallow farm lands. "It's a big deal. The average age of U.S. farmers is almost 60 years," Coye-Huhn says. "When you plant a crop that grows for 20 years, it solves a lot of problems that come with transitioning family farms from one generation to the next." Along the way, the focus changed from using the plant fiber as biomass for fuel to finding other ways to use it. "Why packaging? The capital to build a full- scale pulp mill is significant, but we can do something like this on a much smaller scale," Coye-Huhn says. "Consumers are asking for this kind of packaging. We learned from our research and develop- ment that we can make a pretty darn good package." Coye-Huhn and his company, Aloterra, then went looking for somebody who could sell the packaging if they made it and found World Centric, which by that time had a decade of experience import- ing compostable packaging from Asia and distributing it to cus- tomers in the U.S. and which shared the sense of conscientious capital- ism that motivated Aloterra. "Getting into distribution is monster work, filled with holes you can fall into. World Centric is good at selling and distributing the product," Coye-Huhn said. The new packaging made by Aloterra and marketed by World Cen- tric will start coming off the line this August. World Centric is offering it first to the company's existing cus- tomers but will start taking orders from new customers shortly. "We sell a lot of products and we are nationwide. The products are currently made in Asia. For us, we'll be replacing those products with the ones that Scott will be making," Das says. "These jobs can never be exported. The economics implode if you try to truck biomass more than 50 or 75 miles," Coye- Huhn adds. "Technically we're reshoring here. We're moving jobs from Asia for this manufacturing plant." GN Terra's Kitchen Announces West Coast Launch Terra's Kitchen, a new, innovative meal de- livery service, has launched on the West Coast. Terra's Kitchen delivers farm-fresh ingredients, ready-to-cook recipes designed by a team of chefs, in its innovative, cli- mate-controlled eco-friendly Vessel. Founded by a team of foodies, wellness professionals, nutritionists and farmers, Terra's Kitchen was created as the answer to the following commonly asked question: 'In today's fast paced lifestyle, how do we find the time to slow down and connect with each other over a healthy, great tasting meal?' The company prides itself on deliv- ering the freshest of seasonal ingredients, including produce, proteins and delicious sauces, prepped and packaged together as chef-designed meals that arrive to con- sumers' doorsteps ready-to-cook. Terra's Kitchen, in partnership with a na- tional network of local farmers and inno- vative, fresh food technology company FreshRealm, has set itself apart from other meal delivery services in the marketplace by delivering ingredients from the farm, faster and fresher, with a climate-con- trolled, eco-friendly Vessel: a unique vessel in which it delivers its high quality, clean ingredients. Terra's Kitchen uses the eco- friendly Vessel, a proprietary, climate-con- trolling technology to keep ingredients cool and fresh beyond the delivery date. Addi- tionally, the eco-friendly Vessel is reusable and creates no waste, as Terra's Kitchen will schedule a pickup date and time with its customers to retrieve it and reuse it, like the modern day milk man bringing fresh- ness from the farm to front door. Through the company's website, con- sumers are able select from a menu of sea- sonal recipes, designed by Terra's Kitchen chefs to celebrate the freshest produce that nature has to offer. Once signed up, con- sumers can add, swap, or remove recipes, or come back when ready for their next order. Each week, Terra's Kitchen will de- liver perfectly ripe and fresh, pre-prepped ingredients that are ready for the skillet, as well as easy-to-follow, step-by-step recipe cards with pictures. "The innovation and inspiration be- hind Terra's Kitchen came from a desire to bring back the classic family dinner experience. We want to give people a tool that allows them to spend less energy cooking a meal and more time enjoying, celebrating and sharing it with family and friends," stated Michael McDevitt, Chief Executive Officer of Terra's Kitchen. "We are thrilled to now be hand delivering that tool to doorsteps up and down the West Coast from San Diego up to Port- land in the form of all natural, farm-fresh and delicious food." Terra's Kitchen is currently offering an opt-in subscription service to customers within its delivery zones, where cus- tomers can purchase ready-to-cook ingre- dients and recipes each week. A full eco-friendly Vessel with 10 dinner serv- ings (up to five different recipes) retails for $160.00. GN

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