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News & Notes BRIEFS GOURMET NEWS JUNE 2016 www.gourmetnews.com NEWS & NOTES 6 Peoples Pantry Finds Forever Home Almost four years after Hurricane Sandy and numerous relocations, the Peoples Pantry, an independently-funded food pantry that opened after the devastating effects of Hurricane Sandy in Ocean County, has found a forever home at 1769 Hooper Avenue in Toms River, New Jersey. Goya Foods, the largest Hispanic-owned food company in the United States and celebrating its 80th anniversary, will provide a food donation of up to 1,500 pounds of food each week, totaling a donation of close to 60,000 pounds of food per year. Nespresso Expands Recycling Partnership With UPS Nespresso has expanded its partnership with UPS from 20 to 48 states to significantly extend the reach of its U.S. recycling program. By adding additional collection points in more locations across the country, it is now easier than ever for consumers to recycle used Nespresso capsules. Nespresso offers pre-paid recycling bags for consumers in 48 states to mail back used capsules to be recycled. Those consumers can bring their bag filled with used capsules to one of the 88,000 UPS drop off locations in the 48 states. Recycling bags can be given to UPS drivers or taken to The UPS Store, a UPS drop box, a UPS customer center, Office Depot or Staples locations or UPS authorized shipping outlets. Home Chef Secures $10 Million in Series A Funding Home Chef, a Chicago-based meal kit delivery service, announced it has secured $10 million in Series A capital, an investment led by Shining Capital and Guild Capital. This new financing enables Home Chef to continue expansion of its consumer services and open a distribution facility on the West Coast. Furthermore, the quickly growing company expects to raise additional capital in the near future. Home Chef is now delivering over 540,000 meals per month, and the team currently staffs more than 400 employees. 7 Million Seniors in the United States Are Seeking Help for Hunger The Feeding America nationwide network of food banks is preparing for an increase in the need for food assistance among older Americans. This dramatic rise has sparked Feeding America to actively encourage industry partners, federal and local governments, and the general public to speak up to solve senior hunger. More than 63 percent of older adult households served by the Feeding America network must sometimes choose between paying for food or paying for medical care or prescriptions. Sixty percent report having to choose between paying for utilities or paying for food, and 58 percent must choose between food and transportation. It is essential for older adults to have access to adequate amounts of nutritious food because of the unique health challenges they may face. Food Network personality Simon Majum- dar will attend the Fresno Food Expo this July as a special guest to discover and highlight the innovative and diverse food and beverage products from central Cali- fornia's San Joaquin Valley, including Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, Merced, San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Tulare counties. Majumdar's passion for food has taken him to all 50 states and dozens of coun- tries around the world. He has written three books including "Eat My Globe," "Eating for Britain," and his latest, "Fed, White and Blue," which catalogs his jour- ney to American citizenship. He also is a well-recognized personality on the Food Network, regularly appearing on shows such as "Iron Chef America," "The Next Iron Chef," The Best Thing I Ever Ate," "Cutthroat Kitchen," "Extreme Chef" and "Beat Bobby Flay." Majumdar also ap- peared as an expert commentator on Na- tional Geographic's major series "EAT: The Story of Food." Although this is not his first visit to central California, it was the success of the Fresno Food Expo that piqued his interest in the region prior to his first visit in September of 2015. "My mantra is 'Go everywhere. Eat everything.' During my last book tour, it was the smaller towns and cities that pro- vided the highlights and often the best things to eat," said Majumdar. "These towns and cities are often overlooked, sometimes unloved and rarely mentioned when articles are written about America's food revolution. I believe this region is a perfect example of that." To help set the stage for Majumdar's at- tendance, the Fresno Food Expo will host a new culinary portion as part of the pub- lic event on July 28, inviting restaurants from the central California San Joaquin Valley to help deliver a food tasting expe- rience truly reflective of the region. Par- ticipating restaurants will be tasked with creating an appetizer that integrates at least two locally sourced products from food or beverage producers exhibiting at the Expo. The idea behind the new culinary as- pect is to connect food growers and man- ufacturers from the eight-county region with restaurateurs who can bring the foods of the region to life. To further shed light on participating restaurateurs, the Fresno Food Expo will host five awards as part of the evening celebration, three of which will be judged by Majumdar himself. Awards will recog- nize restaurateurs in categories such as Best Integration of Expo Products, Best Food & Drink Pairing, Most Creative, Valley's Voice and The Buzz. Restaurateurs from the eight-county central California region are invited to apply to participate in the Fresno Food Expo's public event, and can download the application and participation require- ments at http://www.fresnofoodexpo .com/registration/public-tickets. Applica- tions are due no later than June 3, 2016. In addition, the Fresno Food Expo will be inviting adult beverage companies from its eight-county region to partici- pate in the public event free of charge to complement the evening's food tasting event. In addition to Majumdar's participation in the public event, he also will be side- by-side with regional, national and inter- national buyers, as well as local growers, producers and restaurateurs as they par- ticipate in a number of events surround- ing the 2016 Fresno Food Expo July 27-28, including site tours, an official opening reception for pre-registered buy- ers and Expo sponsors that will feature live cooking stations and the business-to- business event that offers the opportunity for local, regional, national and interna- tional buyers to connect with the Presi- dents and CEOs behind some of the nation's largest food industry companies. During this business-to-business portion of the show, Majumdar will join buyers in exploring products in every category and learn one-on-one from budding food entrepreneurs who migrate to the region. Registration is currently open for buy- ers and exhibitors who are interested in attending the Expo, as well as restaurants that are interested in participating in the new culinary aspect of the Public Event. More than 150 exhibitors and 950 key pre-qualified international and domestic buyers are expected to participate. Noted buyers already registered for the 2016 Fresno Food Expo include Whole Foods, Vallarta Supermarkets, Save Mart Super- markets, Food 4 Less, Tony's Fine Foods, JD Food, Saladino's Foodservice and more. Additional information is available at www.FresnoFoodExpo.com. GN Author, Broadcaster and Food Critic Simon Majumdar to Appear at 2016 Fresno Food Expo Blackstone Continued from PAGE 1 beautifully with a wide range of beers, and the peppery/herbal notes make a nice com- plement to a pinot noir or Syrah. The black rind was part of cheesemaker Liam Callahan's original inspiration for the cheese, he said. "There aren't that many aged cheeses that have a rind that actively contributes interesting flavor notes to it. It's more common for washed-rind cheeses, but with aged cheeses, it's just protecting it from the environment," he said. "For this cheese, the rind is more than something to nibble up to and throw away, more than a board-flavored musty component. The rosemary doesn't taste of rosemary, but it helps give a savory element to the rind. Plus, it looks cool. As soon as you put it out there, people say 'What's that?' They are drawn to the look of the cheese." The vegetable ash/rosemary/black pepper mixture is hand-rubbed onto the cheese in several stages as it ages over about 10 weeks. The ash helps control the acidity at the cheese's surface, but it also melds to- gether the different particle sizes of the rosemary and black pepper, Callahan said. "The very powdery vegetable ash just helped to hold it all together." Blackstone starts its aging on wood shelves, and then it's moved to wire shelves and then back to the boards, with the tran- sitions timed to respond to the moisture levels at the rind. "We're still playing with the tim- ing of those transitions to get the right moisture on that rind at the key moments when it needs it," Calla- han said. Distribution for the cheese is still ramp- ing up, and it's currently available almost exclusively in California, where it's selling readily for prices between $25 and $30 per pound. "It's a difficult cheese to make, and at retail, it's an expensive cheese that de- mands the right attention to it," he said. "But restaurants love to feature something that's so visual on the cheese board." "I never make more than about 120 wheels at a time. All of our vats are small, and it's hands-on," he added. "It's been fig- uring out how to ramp up production in a way that maintains the quality and consis- tency. It's really been a fun cheese to work on." Callahan expects Blackstone to reach a wider audience once more people have had the opportunity to taste it and as his pro- duction increases. "We're ramping it up through the summer and expect to see it in wider distribution by the end of the sum- mer," he said. "We are actively talking about it now, and samples are getting out there, and people are hearing from folks – they're really liking it so much.... We really do expect this to be a major cheese for us. It's so good, and we like it so much, and it's unique in the marketplace." GN

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