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GOURMET NEWS NOVEMBER 2016 www.gourmetnews.com Supplier News SUPPLIER NEWS 1 1 BRIEFS Non-Dairy Yogurts Earn Non-GMO Project Verification All flavors of Dream ® Non-Dairy Yogurt have earned verification from the Non-GMO Project, a mission-driven nonprofit organization dedicated to building and protecting a non- GMO food supply. These products include Almond Dream ® and Coconut Dream™ refrigerated non-dairy yogurts that contain live and active cultures. Available in a wide range of flavors including Vanilla, Strawberry and Mixed Berry. Vegetarian Options from Got Meals Got Meals debuted four vegetarian meal helper dishes at Natural Products Expo East. These refrigerated ready-to-eat meals are packed in single-serve pouches that can go right into boiling water, or the meals are microwaveable for 30 seconds. They're all natural, with no preservatives and no sugar added, and each offers seven ingredients or less Varieties include Candy Chicken Broccoli & Yam, Ginger Carrot & Buttery Mushroom, Saute Cannellini Beans & Celery and Fire Steamed Brussels Sprouts. For more information visit www.gotmeals.com. Vegetable Fermenting Kits from Perfect Pickler Perfect Pickler Vegetable Fermenting Kits are nearly foolproof and odor-free, and they're packaged to be sold from a clip strip in the produce aisle. Nearly 50 percent of Americans have changed their diets to accommodate their digestive systems, and Perfect Pickler gives you an easy way to accommodate customers' desire for probiotics while boosting your produce sales. The Master System includes everything needed to ferment vegetables in a wide mouth Mason jar except the jar itself, while the Master System -XL Mouth even includes the jar. For more information visit www.perfectpickler.com. Green Chickpea Legume Bowls Packaged in Convenient Built-in Bowl Vana Green Chickpea Legume Bowls are heat- and-eat meals featuring green chickpeas and packaged in innovative built-in pouch bowls so your customers can grab them off your shelf and take them directly to work for their lunches. They're shelf stable, gluten free, non-GMO and vegan. There are four flavors, each built around green chickpeas, which are high in protein and fiber: Chipotle, Black Beans and Sweet Corn; Chimichurri, Coconut and Butternut Squash; Kale, Potato, Rosemary and Tomato; and Coconut, Lime, Cilantro, Bell Pepper and Sweet Potato. For more information, visit www.vanalifefoods.com. Schaller & Weber Cured Meats and More Schaller & Weber has been making quality sausage for nearly a century, and its authentic flavors have become a mainstay in the best beer gardens in America. Varieties offered include Cooked Bratwurst, Knackwurst, Weisswurst, Nurnberger Brat, Bauernwurst and Andouille Sausage as well as many more. Vegetarian Food Producer Raises the Bar for its Employees BY LORRIE BAUMANN The new minimum wage at Atlantic Natu- ral Foods and its parent company AFT Holdings is now $10 an hour, after Owner and Principal Doug Hines got tired of wait- ing for improvements in government sup- port for small businesses and decided he was just going to take things into his own hands to improve working conditions for his 100 or so employees. "The only way to take the future into our hands for ourselves and our employees was to act ourselves," he said. The company's plant is located in Nashville, North Carolina, and it also op- erates a distribution facility in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. The state's mini- mum wage is $7.25, and the local econ- omy is in transition away from its historic base of tobacco agriculture. Small busi- nesses have been leaving the county, tak- ing local jobs with them. The region's unemployment rate and its rate of food insecurity rose and haven't come back down as the nation's overall economy has improved after the Great Recession, Hines said. "You go down the road now, and nobody's left," he said. "These are blue collar people who need places to work." Hines, who acquired Atlantic Natural Foods from the Kellogg Company in 2014 and who just made the final payment to purchase the 101-year-old plant-based protein brand, including the Loma Linda ® and Worthington Foods labels, had been talking to his Congressional representa- tives about how the federal government could help his small business, so that he could afford to offer more to his employ- ees. He got some vague promises, but nothing ever really happened. "Govern- ment hasn't been able to deliver economic progress for an agriculture community that needs better jobs," he said. "We're one of the larger employers in the town of Nashville." Finally, he decided that if he was going to move his company forward to produce the new expanded range of products he had in mind for the company, he was going to need to keep his work force on the job, which meant that he was going to have to make sure they were making a living wage. "I'm a capitalist, but you have to have social responsibility if you're going to be a com- pany that's going to grow in the future," he said. "You have to produce safe, high-qual- ity products, and to do that, you have to have the people." He called his staff together on Septem- ber 17 to make the announcement that the company's minimum wage would henceforth be $10 an hour. Workers who'd gotten promotions over the years that took their paychecks above the pre- vious minimum wage also got raises to keep them ahead of this new wage. In ad- dition, Atlantic Natural Foods will retain a complete benefit program, including comprehensive health insurance, paid va- cation and holidays and a 401k retire- ment plan that's available to all employees. In all, about 75 percent of his work force ended up getting raises, and Hines is hoping that will keep them on the job as he moves the company towards developing new product lines within the company's range of shelf-stable plant pro- tein-based meal solutions. "It's a value al- ternative. It's shelf-stable," he said. "We're looking to create products that are microwaveable and don't have to be sold from the freezer case." The new line, to be announced in 2017 will offer vegetarian meal options for con- sumers who want healthy products without genetically modified ingredients that de- liver flavors similar to beef, pork, chicken or tuna that will help them live long and healthy lives. "We felt that it's critical that we have an associate base that will be able to participate in developing these prod- ucts," Hines said. "We're going to be able to put this protein into a heat-and-eat meal that you'll be able to take to work with you." "Small business doesn't get a lot of atten- tion out here, but we want to deliver the message that it's good for all of us," he added. Since 2014, AFT Holdings subsidiary Atlantic Natural Foods has successfully managed the Loma Linda and Worthing- ton shelf stable business along with Kaf- free Roma™, a coffee alternative, and neat ® , a gluten and soy-free nut-based protein meat alternative and the neat line of vegan egg substitutes, integrating the business into a diverse portfolio that in- cludes a tuna fleet in the western Pacific, a tuna vessel support service group, a spe- cialty food processor in Maine and other businesses across the globe. GN Cypress Grove, the artisan goat cheese company known best for its flagship cheese, Humboldt Fog, says "out with the old and in with the new" with a brand re- fresh that was unveiled on October 1. The award-winning goat cheese company has dropped the "chevre" from its name to em- brace its all-American background as well as opted for new labels, which provide a more comprehensive look and feel for each of its cheeses and convey a sense of Cypress Grove's rich 30+-year history. Cypress Grove was founded in 1983 by Mary Keehn, a self-proclaimed hippie, in an effort to provide wholesome nourish- ment for her children. She asked her neighbor if she could buy two goats for milk and the neighbor replied with a grin, "Honey, if you can catch 'em, you can have 'em." So a determined Mary went out with grain each day and eventually lured two goats to her property and began making cheese with the excess milk. After traveling to France to taste, test and learn, she dreamed up the idea for Cypress Grove's first iconic cheese, Humboldt Fog, while asleep on the long overseas flight home. The rest, as they say, is his- tory. The brand has grown tremendously under the direction of Cypress Grove President Pamela Dressler, and has won more than 100 cheese awards both na- tionally and internationally. Each of Cy- press Grove's 14 fine cheeses bear playful names, all with their own story, including: Truffle Tremor ® , Humboldt Fog ® , Bermuda Triangle ® , Lamb Chopper ® , Midnight Moon ® , PsycheDillic ® , Sgt Pep- per ® , Ms. Natural ® , Herbs de Humboldt ® and Purple Haze ® . One of the key changes to come out of this brand refresh was the removal of the French word "chevre" from the company's name. "We place incredible importance on maintaining the same standards and values that we always have—now we just have a fresh aesthetic to showcase them," Dressler said. The new, streamlined look will in- crease brand awareness and help customers discover each and every tasty flavor, re- minding consumers of Cypress Grove's many cheese varietals beyond the crowd fa- vorite and Original American Original™, Humboldt Fog. The revamped look also represents Cy- press Grove's commitment to the growing goat cheese industry in America and proves that cheese does not have to be complicated to be memorable and deli- cious. The artisan cheese company built a state-of-the-art, technologically-ad- vanced goat dairy to mentor other com- mercial goat dairies and teach them about the connection between herd health, high-yielding animals and high-quality milk. To Cypress Grove's knowledge, on average its goats produce more goat milk per head than any other commercial dairy in the United States. GN Cypress Grove Drops Its Chevre

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