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GOURMET NEWS FEBRUARY 2016 www.gourmetnews.com NATURALLY HEALTHY 2 1 Wholesome Goodness: A Brand of Foods that "Love You Back" sodium," Posner said. "Part one of the Wholesome Goodness promise is that for every calorie consumed you get relatively more nutrition than the mainstream national brands," he continued. "Part two is affordability. This requirement recognizes that 75 percent of the country is overweight or obese, and the barriers to eat- ing healthier foods are both taste and price. Conceptually, if you take nutritional density and divide by price, our products provide consumers with the optimal blend of high nutrition and affordable cost. That's our unique value proposition. At Wholesome Goodness, we want the 75 percent of the population that's overweight or obese to be able to afford and enjoy each and every one of our products." The two started out six years ago by talk- ing with consumers and retailers to learn more about changing trends in eating pat- terns before they decided that their first products would be a line of snacks, Letizia said. "Data shows that the bulk of our pop- ulation, in particular the nearly 80 million Millennials, are snacking four to six times a day; thus, portability is extremely important – things you can throw in your purse or backpack," he said. As the two developed other products, they stayed with the directive that they wanted their foods to be nutrition-dense, a concept offered up by Yale University child- hood obesity and nutrition expert Dr. David Katz. This concept, sim- ply stated, requires that for every calorie con- tained in their products, the consumer will get a healthier blend of more positive nutrition and less negative nutrition. They wanted clean ingre- dients without excessive sodium or added sugars. "We currently ban 127 ingredients that other food companies use today, including all 85 identified by Whole Foods," Letizia said. "We have the cleanest ingredient deck in the industry at the pres- ent time." And while they were creating clean ingre- dient labels for their products, they also wanted to produce foods that were more af- fordable than mainstream competitors', Pos- ner said. "These are the kinds of products that my mother would have served the fam- ily: great-tasting and affordable for the fam- ily. Not that she did anything different from all my friends' mothers; the only thing my friends and I knew growing up was just good, old-fashioned food," he said. "Frankly, there is no reason why anyone today should have to pay a premium to have better-for-you products." "We don't have anywhere near the cost structure of the large companies. We don't own any plants; instead, we use highly- qualified third parties to manufacture our proprietary product formulations, so we don't have the overhead and capital require- ments of a big company. We certainly don't make the multi-million dollar salaries of the executives of the large food companies. We don't have the requirement to deliver a 15 percent bottom line just to maintain share- holder value – we can make do on a much smaller percentage," he explained. "We want our products to be accessible to the masses.... For example, our award winning Sweet Chili and Omega Tortilla Chips come in a 9-ounce bag that retails for $3.99 – and even less on feature. A 5.5-ounce bag of competing better-for-you brands will cost about as much as Wholesome Goodness. Consequently, we're less expensive, averag- ing about 20 to 30 percent cheaper, ounce for ounce, than these other brands. When you divide our products' nutritional density by food budget dollars spent, we're really the best deal in town." The Wholesome Goodness product line includes snack chips and crisps; granola bars, snack mixes, and hot and cold cereals. Learn more at www.wholesome- goodness.com. GN BY LORRIE BAUMANN Wholesome Goodness is a brand based on three key tenets: that food should taste great, that food should be nutritious and that nutritious food should be affordable. Because it fulfills all three of these goals, Wholesome Goodness' product line aligns with the way that Millennial generation consumers want to eat today, according to company founders Jeff Posner and Rick Letizia. Posner and Letizia had 70 years of expe- rience in the food industry between them when they decided to leave behind their ex- ecutive positions in major food companies like Kraft and General Foods to strike out on their own with a brand reflecting their beliefs about how more nutritious foods can help address health problems related to diet. Posner himself suffers from high blood pressure, while Letizia has type-2 diabetes, so they are personally aware of the burdens that nutrition-related diseases place on health care costs, quality of life and longevity. From experience, they knew that major food companies use ingredients that make products cheaper to manufacture but may offer less nutrition to the consumers who used them. They wanted to go another way; to start a food business that would serve consumers' ever-increasing expectations for healthier foods. "Wholesome Goodness products emphasize positive ingredients like protein, antioxidants and whole grains, while de-emphasizing negative ingredients like saturated fats, added sugars and added Santa Cruz Organic Launches New Peanut Powder Santa Cruz Organic ® brings new innova- tion to the pantry staple with the release of Santa Cruz Organic Peanut Powder. Available in two delicious varieties – Original Peanut Powder and Peanut Powder with Milled Chia Seeds. The new peanut powder offerings also have a re- sealable pouch, making storage easy. Substitute traditional peanut butter with Santa Cruz Organic Peanut Powder in smoothies and favorite peanut butter recipes. With at least 80 percent less fat and 65 percent fewer calories than natu- ral organic peanut butter, Peanut Powder is an option for those looking for deli- cious peanut flavor without all the fat and calories of traditional peanut butter. Santa Cruz Organic Original Peanut Powder variety also has 7g of protein per serving, and is a tasty addition to any balanced meal. All Santa Cruz Organic products are Certified USDA Organic and Non-GMO Project ® verified. The suggested retail price of Santa Cruz Organic Peanut Powder is $6.49 – $7.49. Santa Cruz Organic Original Peanut Powder and Santa Cruz Organic Peanut Powder with Milled Chia Seeds join more than 60 Santa Cruz Organic products; all made with Certified USDA organic ingredients. $7.99. GN Bare Snacks Debuts Fresh Packaging Bare Snacks ® , creator of delicious Snacks Gone Simple ® , has just launched a fresh new look for its entire portfolio of crunchy baked snacks, which highlights the brand's dedication to simple, clean ingredients. Featuring a modern inter- pretation of a slate board background coupled with a stylized new logo made from its baked fruit chips and striking real food visuals, the new packaging was developed to create an iconic brand block on-shelf and drive strong taste ap- peal while putting the simplicity of the snacks front and center. The new look for bare Banana Chips, Coconut Chips, and cornerstone Apple Chips started shipping to retailers nationwide at the end of January. "In an effort to better communicate the simplicity of our truly good-for-you snacks, we wanted to create a clean brand look that more accurately reflects our commitment to simple, real ingredi- ents that still deliver the satisfying crunch of a chip," said Dana Ginsburg, Director of Marketing at Bare Snacks. "Our modern packaging makeover per- fectly expresses our brand promise to consumers in a fresh new way that puts our ingredients front and center." Bare Snacks' new packaging features beautiful photography of real apples, co- conuts and bananas on the front panel, as well as a refreshed logo made from the same fruit in chip form for each corre- sponding line. In addition, the new back- label design prominently displays ingredients front and center in large font and notes "The Bare Facts" for each product, such as containing no added oil or preservatives, as well as third party certifications like the Certified B Corp seal and Non-GMO Project Verified logo. To further communicate the simplicity of bare snacks, each bag also includes an il- lustration of a whole piece of fruit tran- sitioning to slices and finally baked crunchy chips to accurately depict the minimally processed product inside. Made with whole-food ingredients and real, fresh-picked fruit that is sliced and baked to crunchy perfection rather than fried, bare snacks are a tasty and health- ier alternative to traditional chips. All bare snacks are Non-GMO Project Veri- fied, gluten-free and contain no added oil or preservatives. Bare snacks are available nationwide in natural and grocery stores including Whole Foods Market, Sprouts and Safe- way as well as national retailers such as Target, Costco and Amazon with sug- gested retail prices ranging from of $0.99-$4.99. GN

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