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GOURMET NEWS JUNE 2016 www.gourmetnews.com NEWS & NOTES 1 2 The Ad Council and the Natural Resources Defense Council have launched "Save The Food," a major national public service campaign to combat food waste from its largest source—consumers, who collec- tively waste more food than grocery stores, restaurants or farms. The initiative hopes to encourage consumers to reduce the amount of food they trash in their homes, thereby saving the water, energy and money that are lost along with it. "As it turns out, we can't blame the epi- demic of food waste on our kids' aversion to vegetables. We're all culprits here, toss- ing out staggering amounts of food in kitchens nationwide," said NRDC Presi- dent Rhea Suh. "But with small steps, we can save large amounts of food —and along with it, money and precious natural re- sources. The more food we save, the more we can share with hungry Americans, the more we can reduce climate pollution, and the more water won't go to waste." In the U.S., 40 percent of all food goes uneaten each year, at a cost of $162 billion annually. Consumers are responsible for 40 percent of this waste—more than any other part of the supply chain. It's a problem that costs the average family of four roughly $1,500 per year. This waste also has massive environmen- tal impacts. Food is the single largest com- ponent of solid waste in U.S. landfills, and about 25 percent of our nation's fresh water is used to grow food that gets trashed. On top of that, if global food waste was a coun- try, it would have the largest carbon foot- print after the U.S. and China, as a result of carbon pollution created from growing, cooling, transporting and disposing of un- eaten food. "Altering consumer awareness and per- ception around the issue of food waste could have significant environmental, so- cial and economic impact on our country," said Lisa Sherman, Ad Council President & CEO. "By taking just a few simple steps around food storage, preservation, and use, the home cook has an incredible opportu- nity to reduce waste and minimize their en- vironmental footprint." The 'Save the Food' PSAs were developed pro bono by SapientNitro. The TV ad chronicles the life of a single strawberry— from the farm to the supermarket to its ul- timate destination: the trash. Michael Giacchino's Academy Award Winning soundtrack from the critically acclaimed movie "Up" serves as the music for the spot thanks to a donation from Disney. In addi- tion to the TV spot, the campaign includes out of home, print and web advertising, all of which are running entirely in space and time donated by the media. The integrated campaign also includes new social commu- nities on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest and support from key partners in- cluding Getty Images, BuzzFeed, Social Na- tive, Upworthy and notable influencers like chef Tom Colicchio. "The new creative addresses a basic dis- connect in our homes. No one likes to waste, but the vast majority of Americans don't think about food waste as a problem," said Gary Koepke, Chief Creative Officer for North America of SapientNitro. "The Save The Food campaign not only high- lights the amount of food we waste in America, but also the effort and resources it takes to bring food into our homes. Ulti- mately the campaign will help change our social norms and behaviors around food waste." All campaign assets direct audiences to SaveTheFood.com, where they can learn more about the consequences of food waste and find resources on how to reduce the amount of food they waste themselves. This includes tips on making use of left- overs, properly storing different foods, and developing meal and shopping plans. "It's not just good food getting thrown away that upsets me as a chef," said Tom Colicchio, head judge on Bravo's hit reality cooking series Top Chef, chef/owner of Craft restaurants & 'wichcraft, and co- founder of Food Policy Action. "It's that everything that goes into producing that food—the land, the water, the climate pol- lution, the labor, and the love it takes to get it to the plate—all of it also gets wasted. We have a great opportunity to fix this prob- lem. Stopping food waste starts at home." The new campaign will be unveiled today at the 2nd Annual Food Tank Sum- mit in Washington, D.C., before top food industry academics, policy-makers, farm- ers, chefs, and other stakeholders. The effort is the latest step in a national trend to examine and reduce food prac- tices that result in waste. This past Septem- ber, the Obama Administration announced the nation's first-ever food waste reduction goal, calling for a 50 percent cut by 2030; days later the U.N. set a similar target in- ternationally. A report released last month by ReFED – a collaboration of over 30 business, government, investor, founda- tion and nonprofit leaders – identified con- sumer education campaigns as one of the best ways to cut U.S. food waste and put the country on track to its reduction tar- get. "Consumer awareness and education is the most important solution to reduce wasted food," said Priceline.com co- founder Jesse Fink, now food waste evan- gelist and Trustee of the Fink Family Foundation, seed funder of Ad Council and ReFED initiatives. "The Ad Council campaign will be the major contributor to attitude and behavioral change." GN Ad Campaign Calls Attention to Food Waste Summer Fancy Food Show Continued from PAGE 1 story. It's a very interesting olive oil," said Rossella Florio, Manicaretti's Mar- keting Director. "We have a very nice portfolio of oils from different regions in Italy." Manicaretti will also be bringing ex- pansions to the gluten-free pasta line im- ported from Rustichella d' Abruzzo, for which Manicaretti is the exclusive im- porter. The new products include pasta made from buckwheat, green pea and red lentil flours. Each is gluten free and or- ganic. "It's all about awareness and offer- ing more options that are equally delicious as durum wheat pasta," Florio said. Missing from the Summer Fancy Food Show this year will be Boat Street Pickles and Coop's Microcreamery. Boat Street Pickles' Pickled Cherries were a finalist in the Best New Product category at the 2015 sofi Award competition, while Coop's Microcreamery's Salted Caramel Sauce was a winner in the Dessert Sauces, Toppings and Syrups category. Neither company has a new product to launch this year. Boat Street Pickles' Pickled Cherries are selling well, and Chef Renee Erickson, the company's product developer, has been very busy earning a James Beard Award at The Whale Wins in Seattle. Erickson was named the Northwest's Best Chef 2016 by the James Beard Foundation. Coop's Microcreamery has pushed product development to the back burner while preparing to move into a new 1,200 square-foot facility, says Marc Cooper, the "Coop" of Coop's Microcre- amery. The new facility doubles the creamery's production space, and Cooper is hoping that his expanded capacity will help him catch up with an orders back- log. GN the olive oil that Martin's ever going to make from his 30-acre olive grove, which has the potential to produce up to around 100 tons of olives when the 3,500 trees reach full production. The trees are all fran- toio olives, an Italian varietal common in Tuscany that makes an oil with markedly more pungency and spice than the mild, buttery-flavored oils favored by most Cali- fornia producers. That comes from a deci- sion that Martin made way back when he was planning to build houses on that land. Under the existing zoning laws in Santa Clara County, where the grove is located, Martin could have built 20 houses on that land, each on five acres. But he knew that five acres was a lot of land for the Silicon Valley home buyers he was hoping to at- tract – too much land. So he agreed with the county that he'd group the homes onto smaller lots within 70 acres and dedicate the remaining 30 acres to permanent open space, keeping the overall population den- sity the same. Then he and his wife Pam had to figure out how to use that 30 acres. Under the open space agreement, agriculture was a permitted use, and the logical move might have been to plant grapes on the property, since Martin's family had been growing grapes in Yolo and Napa Counties since 1870 and his mother and brother are currently growing grapes in Sonoma County. Experts assured him that the land would work for a vine- yard. Martin, thought, though, that California already had enough people growing grapes, and he wanted to do something a little different. The couple de- cided on olives, and then, still in pursuit of something a little dif- ferent, they did a lot of tasting of various varietal oils and decided that they liked the Frantoio oil best. "I really like this Frantoio fruit. Most of the oil grown in California is Mission or Arbe- quina, which make lovely oils. This is a little more pungent and has a dif- ferent character," he said. "I knew that if I want to sell this stuff, it has to have distinc- tiveness in the market. The bad news is that I have to pick everything by hand, so it's a pretty expensive oil to pro- duce." He planted his trees in 2005 and got his first harvest of nine tons of fruit in 2011. For this year's oil, Martin's pick- ing crew picked 50 tons of olives, all by hand, in late October and early November of 2015 and de- livered it to Frantoio Grove's on- site olive mill within minutes of picking. The picking crew showed up for work at first light, about 6:30 a.m. at that time of year, to rake the olives from the trees and catch them in nets so they could put the day's first bin of olives on the mill's dock at about 7:15. That short time be- tween when the olives are ready to be picked and when they're crushed for their oil is critical to the quality of the product, Martin said. "It's critical for me to have the mill ready when my harvest is ready," he said. "When the fruit is driven up to the mill, it's in the crusher within minutes. It's not sitting out- side waiting for my turn at somebody else's mill." The other 70 acres in the parcel is still waiting for houses to be built on it, but it's probably going to be someone else who does that. Martin has moved on. "I used to be a house builder. I don't feel like a house builder any more," he said. "I've put a lot of energy into this olive grove, and I find it completely satisfying... Even the mundane things like bottling – it's sort of my mid-life crisis, in a way. It's kind of a cool industry." He's counting on Americans' tastes in olive oil to grow beyond the California extra virgins they're already familiar with. "I think Americans are ready for varietal difference. As a small niche player, there are people who are going to say yes to a spicier frantoio," he said. "This is an oil to finish with. It's fine to cook with it, but you might use a less expensive oil to cook, and then when you come off the flame, get a bit of an olive kick with this frantoio." GN Frantoio Grove Continued from PAGE 1

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