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tranquil pale gold and gray color way. The rug is available in three sizes: 5 feet by 8 feet, 8 feet by 11 feet and 9.6 feet by 13 feet. For more information visit www.meva.us. WellnessMats' new Studio Collection challenges preconceptions about the "anti- fatigue mat" with striking scalloped and semi-circle shapes in stunning designs and a myriad of colors. WellnessMats are inherently antimicrobial, easy to clean and stain resistant, so Studio is ideal for the kitchen, especially for a smaller kitchen, but these mats will also work in any other room in the home. They'll be in Building C at the Winter Market, and if you miss them there, you can also see them at www.wellnessmats.com. Park Designs is offering its Farmhouse Inspired F lour Sack Dishtowels in Building C this winter. Made of 100 percent cotton, these flour sack fabric dish towels feature designs that pair nicely with the trend for farmhouse-style living. There's a Duck, Rooster, Pig and a Cow, each themed with the lyric f rom a nursery song. They each measure 19 inches by 28 inches and retail for $8. If you miss them at the show, visit www.parkdesigns.net. Vestiges offers a kitchen towel collection featuring geographical designs created in collaboration with students f rom the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. These 100 percent cotton pique towels are printed with environment- f riendly inks for high quality products that can help you add local flavor to your product assortment. See them in Pavilion 1 or get more information by emailing mary@vestigesinc.com. Last but not least, be sure to stop by and see the kitchen towels and aprons offered by Peking Handicraft Inc. on the tenth floor of Building C. As an example, take a look at the Bloom Apron, designed by Bonnie Christine. It's hand printed on 100 percent cotton and features dart detail on the f ront. It measures 28 inches by 32 inches and retails for $29. The Bloom Kitchen Towel, also designed by Bonnie Christine, carries out the cheerful spring floral theme and features crochet trim. The suggested retail price for the towel is $10. If you miss them at the show, email sales@pkhc.com. KN GENERAL NEWS www.kitchenwarenews.com n JANUARY 2017 n KITCHENWARE NEWS & HOUSEWARES REVIEW 7 Gourmia Releases Electric Spiralizer Kitchen appliance manufacturer Gourmia™ has announced the latest addition to its product line: The Electric Super Spiralizer (GES580). Designed for both speed and safety, the Super Spiralizer delivers performance and efficiency, allowing users to create anything f rom buckets of healthy pasta-like vegetable spirals for low-carb, gluten-f ree diets, to garnishes and curly f ries, and does so quickly and easily. It 's a contemporar y replacement for the old-fashioned manual spiralizer. "O ur new Gourmia Electric Super Spiralizer is one of the only electric spiralizers on the market, everything else is manual," says Sam Ash, Gourmia chief marketing officer. "Foodies and epicureans will love being able to make plated-food presentations as enticing as professional chefs. Likewise, busy moms will love its convenience and ease of operation as well as moms of finicky kids, who aren't quite sure about eating those funny looking things called vegetables." This little beauty offers a f resh, healthy approach to creating ever ything f rom buckets of healthy pasta-like vegetable spirals to attractive garnishes. It will even make quirky curly fries for the picky eaters on your list. With both noodle and ribbon blades, it can spiral all kinds of foods like sweet potatoes, squash, beets, apples, carrots and zucchini. This results in healthy food instead of calorie-inducing, carb-loaded pastas, rice and potatoes. It comes with a wide-mouth feeder tube and removable, easy-to-clean container. The Gourmia GES580 Electric Super Spiralizer is available on Amazon, Kohl's and BJ's for a holiday sale price of $39.99. For more information, visit www.gourmia.com. KN Wandering the Human Zoo with a Market Researcher Guide BY LORRIE BAUMANN Around 52 million American consumers are people that market researcher Mar yellen Molyneaux says are among those motivated by health and sustainability. This population, which she calls LOHAS consumers, is particularly important to retailers because they're well- educated, they're well-off, and they tend to put their money where their values are. To understand this better, let's think first about what market researchers actually do for us. If you picture your municipal zoo, but then imagine that the various enclosures are populated with human consumers rather than other kinds of exotic animals, the market researchers are like tour guides. When you come into the zoo as an interested but casual observer, these tour guides meet you at the gate and explore the zoo with you. Many of today's market researchers would draw your attention to enclosures with signs that label them as creatures like "Baby Boomers" or "Millennials." They'll say things that sound like this: "Notice that the Millennials are young adults. You'll see that some of them are carrying their young but others haven't yet begun to reproduce. Don't they all look happy accessing the internet with their smart phones! Now over here in the next enclosure, you' ll see the GenXers, and you'll notice that they're about to enter what we think of as middle age, which means that they're thinking more about their health. Look at them wandering around the health and beauty aisle that we've set up inside their enclosure to help them feel that they 're in familiar surroundings." If you should happen to draw Molyneaux as your tour guide, though, she'll draw your attention to subgroups of creatures that she sees within each of these generational enclosures, and what she'll point out is that in each of the various enclosures, there's a group of people who just seem a little cooler than the rest. It's that coolness that draws her interest, and she can see it being acted out when they spend their money. She's especially interested in watching these particular creatures make their purchasing decisions because, when the other creatures in their enclosure see what these cool creatures are buying, they start wanting to buy those things too. This means that what these cool creatures are buying is about to become a trend. Molyneaux calls these cool creatures LOHAS. They're the market segment that, irrespective of the generation in which they 're found, are greatly motivated by their concerns for health and environmental sustainability. "When you think about conscious consumption, LOHAS consumers lead the pack and will continue to do so. They're the ones who buy with their values," Molyneaux said. "Not only do they buy with their values, but they become brand champions." When she's not acting as our tour guide in our imaginary zoo, Molyneaux is the President and Managing Partner of the Natural Marketing Institute. Her market consulting company has been advising businesses about how to leverage information about consumers interested in health, wellness and sustainability since 1990, and she's been collecting proprietary trend data since 1999. LOHAS consumers now comprise 22 percent of all American consumers, and where they lead, others tend to follow. "Adoptions of attitudes and behaviors come first to LOHAS, but then their attitudes are flowing into the mainstream groups," Molyneaux said. "To be able to understand these consumers is important.... These are the consumers that set the bar." LOHAS consumers have education and more money than other market segments, and in general, they favor the organic label. While more than 60 percent of American consumers have used an organic product in the last year, LOHAS consumers use more organic than anyone else. Two thirds of them believe that organic foods are safer to eat, and 71 percent of them believe they're safer for the environment. That compares to 63 percent of all organic users who believe that organic foods are safer to eat and 64 percent of all organic users who believe that organic foods are safer for the environment. Three-fourths (76 percent) of LOHAS consumers believe that it 's important that their store carry food grown on farms that practice sustainable agriculture, compared to half of the general population who share that belief. LOHAS consumers are growing in their perceptions that organic foods and beverages are safer to eat, more nutritious, f resher and better-tasting than conventional foods and beverages. In the decade between 2006 and 2015, the number of general population consumers who believed that organic food is safer to eat grew f rom 41 percent to 50 percent, and the number who said that organic food is more nutritious grew f rom 35 percent to 45 percent. Similar gains were observed on the questions of f reshness and taste. LOHAS consumers are more likely than the general population to prefer vegetarian meals. While 30 percent of the general population is trying to cut down on meat consumption, 40 percent of LOHAS consumers are doing that. "They're very into protein sources and the effect of protein sources on sustainability, including the sustainability of agriculture," Molyneaux said. We see the general population beginning to follow that trend: 41 percent of general population consumers now say they want more plant-based protein in their diets, and one out of five general population consumers say they're consuming more plant-based protein than they did a year ago. The LOHAS consumers are also thinking about how their preferences for products made without toxins or artificial ingredients can apply to more than just food, and they 're driving demand for personal care products and cleaning products. They're already requiring that manufacturers meet their demands for transparency around the issues of health and sustainability. " They don't expect perfection. They expect progress. You can be transparent about the progress you're making, what you're trying to accomplish, what the next thing is," Molyneaux said. "That goes f rom operating your store in a more sustainable manner to conserving waste to serving social needs. There are so many platforms that can be addressed and that should be addressed, using these consumers as your springboard." KN

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