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GOURMET NEWS SEPTEMBER 2015 www.gourmetnews.com NEWS & NOTES 9 FDA Continued from PAGE 1 storage conditions may affect the risk. The FDA has found that the current rule that raw milk cheeses must be aged at least 60 days before they can be sold may not be helpful. The aging period may actually pro- vide an opportunity for listeria to grow, in- creasing the contamination. The agency is now asking cheesemakers to offer their data about the things they're already doing to minimize the risk of listeria contamination in their cheese and how well those methods are working. "When you start with a raw milk product, what steps do you take, what opportunities do you have to intervene to make sure the product is safe? What is your experience? What works?" she said the agency will be asking. The FDA will use that information to guide its decisions about future guide- lines to apply to the entire industry. "We recognize there is a broad diversity of cheese manufacturing methods. We are interested in learning more by a wide va- riety of producers, including the arti- sanal community," Mayne said. "We're initiating this data call to request your comments to work together on mitiga- tion measures. We want to understand current practices that are intended to minimize the risk of contamination.... We understand that cheese is a result of a balancing of good and bad bacteria. We have responsibility for cheese safety, but we want to do that in partnership and with a goal of preserving traditional practices." GN Shifting household dynamics are changing the way Americans shop for groceries. Most notably is the diversification of the primary store shopper with moms no longer always assuming this role exclusively, according to market research publisher Packaged Facts in the recently released report, "Retail Food Marketing Trends in the U.S.: Technology, Mobile, and Social Media." "Mom isn't the only shopper for house- hold groceries anymore. There's a signifi- cant constituent of men who identify as primary shoppers themselves, regardless of whether they share or wholly fulfill grocery shopping responsibilities," says David Sprinkle, Research Director for Packaged Facts. "There's evidence that the percentage of men who are now the primary shoppers in their households has more than doubled in the past two decades." Research shows that men clearly shop differently than women. Overall, men tend to shop with greater weekly frequency and spend less time in the store. The good news for retailers is that men tend to spend more, yet purchase fewer items—making their average cost per item higher. This suggests that women may still do the "big" grocery shopping trips for their household, while men are tasked with the interment grocery store trips to pick up sta- ples or food for immediate use (i.e., meat or vegetables for dinner that night). However, food marketers must be aware that age/generation also plays a role in shopping behavior, and shifts in gender household re- sponsibility are evident in grocery shop- ping behavior by both age and generation. Younger males are the most likely to be in- volved in frequent shopping trips as those aged 18-34 (i.e., Millennials) are 161 per- cent more likely than average to shop four or more times per week. In contrast, men aged 55 and older significantly under index in shopping as often. At best, older men will shop once a week for items. Millennial dads in particular are proving to be a very unique group, with behaviors that are a significant departure from previ- ous generations. This set had a different up- bringing and don't subscribe to traditional gender norms. Because of this, Millennial dads are redefining fatherhood by spending more time with their kids, doing a larger portion of the household shopping and spending lots of money. This shift is evident in grocery shopping trip behavior. While younger men are cer- tainly shopping more than their older counterparts, being a parent is a key driver in their likelihood to grocery shop. Millen- nial dads are significantly more likely to shop four or more times a week when com- pared to the average shopper. Notably, these dads aren't just making the quick shopping trips as they over-index in shop- ping for more than an hour. The value of this demographic is elevated when consid- ering their higher average spending ($170 compared to $108 of all) and increased cost per item. GN Survey Finds More Men Shopping for Groceries

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