Oser Communications Group

GOURMET NEWS DECEMBER 2016 www.gourmetnews.com NEWS & NOTES 9 Terra's Kitchen Continued from PAGE 1 ensure that they're both tasty and nutritious, and variety is a key, with more than 40 sea- sonal offerings on the company's website at any given time. Customers can filter the menu offerings according to several dietary regimes so that the choices they're offered meet their own needs, whether that's Paleo, vegetarian, gluten-free or just generally nu- trition-conscious. Most of the meal choices are priced between $10 and $15 per serving. Ingredients for the meals are prechopped and packaged for shipment in a reusable vessel that the consumer unpacks at home and then puts back outside for pickup the next day by the same service that delivered it. The vessel is delivered back to Terra's Kitchen, where it's sanitized and reused. There's no outer box or gel packs to make the kind of excessive packaging waste that many critics of meal delivery services have pointed out as a conflict with environmen- tal sustainability. Individual ingredient items, organic or non-GMO when possible, are packaged in recyclable plastic contain- ers – 4-inch by 4-inch plastic boxes of the kind that consumers are used to seeing as packaging for deli salads in their supermar- kets. Consumers may recycle the plastic containers either by returning them to the vessel to be delivered back to Terra's Kitchen or putting them into their own municipal collection, or they often find other ways to use the containers, McDevitt said. The minimal packaging drops the amount of packaging waste for a Terra's Kitchen delivery to about 8 ounces per week, or about 25 pounds per year, which compares to about 450 pounds a year for some of the company's competitors. Along with every meal, as part of the com- pany's brand pillars, the customer gets a table talk topic that's designed to spark con- versation. Topics range from light-hearted philosophical questions to nutrition infor- mation about the actual meal the consumer is eating. "We do what we can to spark con- versations around the table," McDevitt said. "We have a lot of fun helping table talk." The company's focus on balance and convenience means that every meal offered can be prepared in less than 30 minutes. McDevitt says this reflects that the com- pany is conscious of the time and effort needed to prepare a healthy meal and aware that its customers are looking for help managing both their time and their nutri- tion. "Everybody knows how they should be eating, but it's very difficult to take those steps," McDevitt said. "We take the major- ity of the prep work out of the meal by sending everybody pre-cut ingredients." Terra's Kitchen ships from both the East and West Coasts to cover the entire nation. Subscribers order weekly meal deliveries for up to four or five weeks. They can to go back and alter their choices ahead of each shipping date, and they can choose the days of the week on which they'd like their ship- ments to arrive. "The benefit is that you can do all of your meal planning for a month in a 10-minute sitting," McDevitt said. The average customer is likely to order two or three dinners and two or three grab- and-go items to pack for office lunches. Terra's Kitchen does not yet offer traditional breakfast items. The company requires a minimum $65 order for each shipment. "You're signing up for meals to come in the container, which comes in a weekly basis, but you can skip weeks and only have it come on the weeks that you want it," McDevitt said. "We are very much aware of our clientele. The most typical consumer is a busy, two-income family with young chil- dren, both working, both very busy. We're also having tremendous success in the empty nester market as well, those people who have time on their hands and are just looking for a more convenient way to gather around the table together for dinner – other than going out to dinner." He added that, "It started for the purpose of helping families getting together around the table, and we're having tremendous success with that." GN Melinda's Sweeps Ketchup Category at Scovie Awards The 2017 Scovie Awards judging panel of top culinary experts honored Melinda's with five awards at its annual competition recognizing the best spicy and savory food products in the business. The Scovie Awards (the Academy Awards for all things spicy) ranked Melinda's spicy ketchups first, second and third place. Melinda's Ghost Ketchup claimed the top spot, followed by Habanero and Jalapeño. "It's a shame they didn't award fourth and fifth places too, because our Chipotle and Black Pepper Ketchups feel left out!" said David Figueroa, Melinda's Co-founder and Head of Brand Marketing. The accolades didn't stop there. Melinda's Mango Habanero Hot Sauce took top honors in the all-natural hot sauce cat- egory, followed by Melinda's Garlic Ha- banero in second place. "We knew we were taking a bit of a risk putting Melinda's up against all the new and trendy craft brands that have been popping up everywhere, but we were confident that our perfect balance of heat and flavor would be rewarded," said Figueroa. "Sweeping the ketchup awards, and nearly doing the same in the all-natural hot sauce categories, is such a tremendous honor. We cleaned up!" Dave DeWitt, founder of the Scovie Awards and the National Fiery Foods and Barbecue Show, noted that 131 total com- panies from 34 states and five countries (USA, Canada, Hungary, Croatia and Aus- tralia) entered the 2017 competition. Melinda's spicy ketchup product line was first introduced to the market in 1998. Its recipes combine fresh chile peppers and real cane sugar instead of the high fructose corn syrup favored by the mass-market brands. Melinda's ketchups are kosher-cer- tified and contain no artificial preservatives or colors, zero gluten and no GMOs. Melinda's hot sauces are derived from vegetables and fruits – unlike most sauces that are primarily vinegar – and expertly crafted to perfectly balance heat and flavor. Melinda's packs the heat at four different levels – X for Hot, double X for Extra Hot, triple X for XXXtra Hot and four X for the XXXX Reserve – giving fans the options that are best for them and what they're cooking. The company's extensive product line features Passionately Crafted Pepper Sauces™ with exotic ingredients from around the world. Flavors range from tangy and mild – like Garlic Habanero and Mango Habanero – to downright incendi- ary, including Red Savina, Ghost Pepper, Naga Jolokia Pepper and Scorpion Pepper. Melinda's upside-down squeeze ketchups are available at Central Market and Wal- mart stores, and are expanding rapidly at retailers nationwide. Melinda's pepper sauces are served at thousands of restau- rants and retailers from coast to coast, in- cluding Whole Foods, Kroger, Albertsons, Central Market, H-E-B and Walmart. GN

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