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GOURMET NEWS www.gourmetnews.com n JUNE 2016 n GOURMET NEWS 1 2 2 Taste the Cheesecake New York Loves Best Renowned New York bakery, Junior's Cheesecake and Desserts, is gaining trac- tion in the retail marketplace after opening a 103,000 square foot baking facility in Burlington, New Jersey that gave the com- pany the capacity to expand beyond sup- plying its own restaurants with cheesecakes that have been consistently voted New York's best. "We're really excited about the progress that Junior's has made in the past year. We have successfully transitioned our busi- ness from our Brooklyn facility to a state- of-the art facility in Burlington, New Jersey," said Alan Rosen, the company's third-generation Owner. "The best part is that we have more room to make our desserts the same way we have in Brook- lyn for more than 65 years. I can proudly say that the recipe has not changed one ounce." New York has voted Junior's cheese- cakes the best the city has to offer every year since the early 1970s, and Junior's is still using the same cheesecake recipe de- veloped by Rosen's grandfather, Harry Rosen, who opened his first restaurant on election day in 1950 with the idea that if Junior's was going to be a great New York restaurant, it needed to serve great cheese- cake. Junior's still operates four restaurants, soon to be five, as well as the bakery. Three are in New York City – one in Brooklyn, one in Times Square and one in Grand Central Terminal. The fourth is in Foxwoods, Connecticut, and there's one coming in Boca Raton, Florida. Junior's also has satellites in South Korea and in the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn. "Over the past year, we have found our- selves in both bakery sections and frozen sections, depending on the needs of the re- tailer. Wegmans, Kroger, Tops Friendly Markets, ACME Markets, Stop & Shop – we are well represented in the New York market, including upstate," Rosen said. "We are growing, but we still listen to the needs of our customers. In the past six months, we've gained retail distribution in over 1,500 stores, and we look forward to bringing to the whole coun- try what New Yorkers have known forever – you haven't really lived until you've tasted cheesecake from Ju- nior's." New for this year, Junior's Cheesecake is featuring its six-inch Apple Crumb Cheesecake, seasonal spe- cialties, and of course, tradi- tional New York cheesecakes in 10 varieties. In addition to cheesecakes, Ju- nior's Cheesecake and Desserts also offers layer cakes, loaf cakes, shortcakes and tiramisu as well as seasonal specialties for any sweet occasion. "We are a full line bakery," Rosen said. "We even customize items for special customers." For more information, go online to www.juniorscheesecake.com. Consumers Thirsty for Healthier Beverages By Greg Gonzales Need a quick caffeine boost and a blast of antioxidants? The ready-to-drink Matcha Love can do that. Maybe you prefer non- synthetic caffeine extracted from green cof- fee beans in fruit juice, along with a dose of vitamins — a company called Frava has you covered. Just like, "there's an app for that," beverages aren't just for hydration any more. "In general, consumers are getting the picture that empty calories are really causing our health problems in this country," said Chrissy Weiss, a registered dietitian who serves as Director of Marketing and Com- munications at Culinary Collective. "There's a movement. These big companies are seeing a decline in regular soda sales and that's been going on for a couple of years now. There's a wave of information and a health movement that's going on in this country. What we're seeing today is that there's this whole other wave of people looking for healthy hydration, something that gives them health benefits." Some of these beverages include plant waters, low- sugar or natural-sugar juices, non-dairy pro- biotic drinks like kombucha and ready-to-drink simple beverages, like tea and coffee. Category growth has opened the doors for new producers and expansion opportunities for larger ones, too. The tea market for in- stance, has grown by 15 times over since 2009. Loose leaf tea, ready-to-drink teas and cold-press coffee at home have become in- creasingly popular. According to Weiss, market success in functional and healthy beverages categories is similar. "People are seeing these beverages like an affordable luxury, like specialty cof- fee drinks. I think these appeal to a lot of people because they're willing to do some- thing that makes them feel good and buy a product that makes them feel better. … What people pay for these, even when a little pricier, they seem a little more affordable." Growth in better-for-you beverages may be coming at the expense of traditional soft drinks. The last two decades have seen soft drinks taking a hard fall, by more than 25 percent, according to the New York Times — by more than $1 billion, since 2011. On the other hand, healthier beverage categories' double-digit sales growth is expected to con- tinue for years to come. According to Nielsen reports, functional beverage sales in- creased by 6.9 percent in 2015 and will grow even more rapidly this year. The same report said that 90 percent of 2015 growth in juice beverages came from new product launches. Frantoio Grove Wins Best in Class in New York Competition By Lorrie Baumann Fifteen years ago, Jeff Martin was a Califor- nia real estate developer with 100 acres near Silicon Valley zoned for residential use on five-acre lots. Today, he's the creator of Frantoio Grove, one of the two American olive oils to win Best in Class awards at this year's New York International Olive Oil Competition, and he doesn't plan to go back to building houses for a living. Tasting notes for the medium frantoio oil from the United States noted "aromas of fruit, green grass, almond and notes of pear. Taste exhibits abundant fruitiness, green grass, sweetness, bitterness, vigorous pun- gency and notes of artichoke, with excep- tional harmony, a high complexity and a high persistence." Frantoio Grove oils have pre- viously won gold awards in the 2015 and 2014 NYIOOC and a silver award in the 2013 competition. Frantoio Grove made only about 4,000 gallons of the oil this year, with most of it destined to be sold by California retailers in the San Francisco Bay area. That market is big enough to use all the olive oil that Mar- tin's ever going to make from his 30-acre olive grove, which has the potential to pro- duce up to around 100 tons of olives when the 3,500 trees reach full production. The trees are all frantoio olives, an Italian varietal common in Tuscany that makes an oil with markedly more pungency and spice than the the mild, buttery-flavored oils favored by most California producers. That comes from a decision 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 attract – 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 density 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 Mar- tin'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 vineyard. Martin, thought, though, that California already had enough people growing grapes, and he wanted to do something a little different. The couple decided on olives, and then, still in pursuit of something a little different, they did a lot of tasting of various va- rietal oils and decided that they liked the Frantoio oil best. "I re- ally like this Frantoio fruit. Most of the oil grown in California is Mission or Arbequina, which make lovely oils. This is a little more pungent and has a different character," he said. "I knew that if I want to sell this stuff, it has to have distinctiveness in the mar- ket. The bad news is that I have to pick everything by hand, so it's a pretty expensive oil to produce." He planted his trees in 2005 and got his first har- vest of nine tons of fruit in 2011. For this year's oil, Martin's picking crew picked 50 tons of olives, all by hand, in late October and early November of 2015 and delivered 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 between 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 min- utes. It's not sitting outside waiting for my turn at some- body 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 expen- sive oil to cook, and then when you come off the flame, get a bit of an olive kick with this frantoio."