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GOURMET NEWS NOVEMBER 2015 www.gourmetnews.com Supplier Business SUPPLIER BUSINESS 1 3 BRIEFS Meatless Handheld Breakfast Options from Sweet Earth Linde Appoints New Application Sales Engineer Linde LLC has named Ryan Wall as its new Application Sales Engineer for the food and beverage markets in Texas. He is responsible for sales and providing food manufacturing companies with food chilling, freezing, and modified atmosphere packaging solutions, typically using either carbon dioxide (CO2) or nitrogen (N2). Wall began in the Marketing and Innovation Development Program at Linde in 2013. Before joining Linde, he worked as a design engineer at WSP Group. He earned his Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Hussmann Acquires Commercial Refrigerator Door Company and STYLELINE Door Products Hussmann Corporation has acquired Commercial Refrigerator Door Company based in Sarasota, Florida. Family owned and operated since 1975, Commercial Refrigerator Door Company offers a full line of STYLELINE products, including heated and energy-free glass door and frame systems for walk-in coolers and freezers and a wide range of shelving and merchandising accessories. In addition to its display case and refrigeration system products, Hussmann is an innovative leader in developing and offering glass door products to the retail food industry. The acquisition of Commercial Refrigerator Door Company will expand Hussmann's ability to offer of a complete line of glass door solutions to its wide range of food retail customers. Mars Acquires Mexican Manufacturer Grupo Turin Today, Mars has entered into an agreement to acquire Grupo Turin, the manufacturer of high- quality chocolates in Mexico since 1928 and owner of iconic brands such as Conejos and Turin. The transaction is subject to approval from the Mexican Antitrust Commission. The parties expect to complete the transaction in the first quarter of 2016 and will continue to operate separately until then. Mars believes this acquisition, combined with the capabilities of its local team, will uniquely position the business unit in Mexico to take advantage of the projected growth of the Mexican chocolate category over the next decade. Victoria Introduces New Organic Pasta Sauce Line Victoria Fine Foods is launching a new organic pasta sauce line that will hit shelves nationwide this fall. The new line features four varieties:Organic Pomodoro, Organic Tomato Herb, Organic Arrabiata, and Organic Toasted Garlic and will be packaged in 24-ounce jars. The new products are certified USDA Organic, Non-GMO Project verified, and gluten free. Gourmet Sausage from the Heart of Montana to New Orleans to take lessons in an- douille. "I had a letter of introduction, and in the South, a proper introduction is everything," he says. "I couldn't get the good stuff, so I learned to make it." He came back to Montana from New Or- leans, met up with a friend who was open- ing a Cajun restaurant and made up a batch of the an- douille he'd just learned to make. "We were in busi- ness after that," he says. "I used to make it in a teeny kitchen in the back of a bar that was about three phone booths big." Then after a few years, a butcher who was supplying him with his meat of- fered him the use of his kitchen, and Stoianoff made his sausage there for the next 15 years. "It's just kind of the Montana way of things," he says. "You just say, 'This seems like a good idea,' and run with it." For the past nine years, he's been making his sausage in a commercial processing kitchen called the Mission Mountain Food Enterprise Center in Ronan, Montana. It's a hundred-mile drive from Stoianoff's home in Missoula, but it's worth the drive because it's also a US Department of Agriculture-in- spected facility, which allows for commer- cial production. "Before that, I could only sell in the farmers market," Stoianoff says. "Now I can sell to grocery stores." "It's just wonderful. I went to Bozeman to get more USDA training," he says. "To do USDA, you have to be perfect. But once you're certified, people will buy it because they know it comes from a completely clean situation." Stoianoff insists on using only high-qual- ity ingredients. "No preservatives, no addi- tives, no fillers, low fat, low salt, and I grind all my spices from whole just before I use them," he says. "It's made with pork shoul- der. No noses, hoses or roses. They call that offal for a reason." GN BY LORRIE BAUMANN Uncle Bill's Sausages started with a break- fast burrito. Today, Uncle Bill's Sausages makes 50 varieties of sausage that are sold in supermarkets across Montana. That breakfast burrito came into the story when Bill Stoianoff went to San Fran- cisco to attend the Winter Fancy Food Show. He was staying with a friend, and he thought he'd make her a nice break- fast burrito one morning to help show his gratitude for the lodging. To make his burrito, he says, you boil a potato the night before, and then in the morning, you cube it up, dice an onion and fry it, and you scramble an egg with some sausage in it. He'd bought some chorizo to put into it, but when he opened the package and looked at it, it scared him so badly that he just tossed it into the garbage. "It was one of those aha moments where you think, 'I could do this better,' and that's what I do," he says. "I said, 'You know, I could make this from pork shoulder, and it would be better.'" That started something. In 1987, he went a spoon. And, that portability is what makes breakfast all day work," Swette said. "Breakfast sandwiches are also for people who want comfort convenient foods with- out compromising flavor," she added. "We see that as one of the areas where we have been particularly innovative." The Farmstead Flaxbread Breakfast Sandwiches come in the kind of range you'd expect from a line of breakfast sand- wiches, except that a plant-based meat al- ternative has replaced the sausage, bacon or ham you'd find in a conventional break- fast sandwich. One variety comes with cage free eggs, sharp cheddar and meatless Benevolent Bacon™ on a bun made with whole wheat, oat bran and flaxseed. This variety provides 14.5 grams of whole grains, 22 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber. Other varieties are similar, and there's even a vegan version in which meatless Harmless Ham™, a spicy chickpea patty and a sun-dried tomato spread are sand- wiched on the bun. Each variety is pack- aged as a two-pack that retails for $4.49. Swette notes, "We have a version that's vegan, but we also have egg sandwiches too. We've chosen mainstream flavors like ham and Swiss, bacon and Cheddar that people love. We know that people are in- terested in protein, fiber, vitamins and minerals, but we also think they are in- creasingly looking for clean proteins, free of preservatives, hormones and antibi- otics." Sweet Earth's burrito line also hits the mark on portability and convenience. There's a line that's designed around breakfast flavors and a range that's based on food truck-type fusions of interna- tional flavors. The Peruvian Burrito, for instance, is filled with black beans, red quinoa, sweet potato, goat cheese, roasted corn and spirulina, while the Santa Cruz is filled with a classic Southwest blend of pinto beans, Monterey Jack cheese, oregano and a tangy salsa. Sweet Earth's products are, in general, not for the consumer who's avoiding gluten. "That really isn't our point of view," Swette said. "We are more focused on what we put into the product: real vegetables, whole grains, and the natural consequences are more fiber, vitamins and inherently healthy food." Sweet Earth Natural Foods products are distributed by UNFI and are available in Whole Foods, Target, Kroger and other re- tailers nationwide. GN BY LORRIE BAUMANN Sweet Earth Natural Foods, which makes award winning, all natural plant- based foods, is on a mission to persuade more Americans that plant-based foods can be an affordable, convenient and de- licious way to eat less meat. "Our food is plant based, but not just for vegetari- ans and vegans - everyone wants to eat more vegetables and whole grains," said Sweet Earth Natural Foods CEO Kelly Swette. "We want mainstream customers who are trying to eat less meat because they recognize it has a negative effect on their health and the environment. Plant- based foods are simply more sustain- able." Sweet Earth offers a range of heat-and- eat products made with plant-based meat alternatives that consumers will recog- nize as options for multiple day parts, starting with breakfast. They include bur- ritos, veggie burgers, seed based energy bars and the company's newest products, Farmstand Flaxbread Breakfast Sand- wiches, which respond to the breakfast- food-all-day trend that fast food restaurants are embracing enthusiasti- cally. "It's nice for people to have a deli- cious portable option that doesn't require

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