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NATURALLY HEALTHY www.gourmetnews.com n MARCH 2017 n GOURMET NEWS N H 1 4 8 Barney Butter Spreads the Product Line By Lorrie Baumann Barney Butter is a brand of almond butter with a range of products that meet the needs of parents who want to give their children with peanut allergies the same kind of child- hood joy that peanut butter provides. "There are a lot of people out there who need that," says Dawn Kelley, who owns the company with her husband Steve Kelley. "They want their children to have the expe- rience of having peanut butter, like they did when they were growing up, but they need their children to be safe." The nuts are California grown, and the al- mond butter is made in Barney Butter's own peanut-free plant in Fresno. "That's very rare in the spread space," Dawn says. "We use all local almonds – all of our growers are within 60 miles of our plant." The Barney Butter product range includes both the smooth and crunchy varieties you'd naturally expect, as well as Bare Smooth and Bare Crunchy, which don't include added sugar or salt. There are also varieties with tasty additions: Vanilla + Espresso, Honey + Flax, Cocoa + Coconut and Raw + Chia. Many of these varieties are offered in single- serving snack packs as well as in jars. Barney Butter isn't just for spreading on bread, according to Dawn, who says that she makes extensive use of her products. "I use it in everything. Any Asian cooking that has a peanut base to it, I'll substitute almond but- ter for that, and it's delicious," she says. Even sandwiches don't have to be just al- mond butter and jelly – she's fond of panini made with brie and pear and almond butter. For breakfast, she stirs it into oatmeal. "I even stir it into a cup of coffee," she says. "A teaspoon in coffee instead of almond milk. It's a thicker consistency than using almond milk, and it's really yummy." Dawn got involved with BARNEY, the com- pany behind the brand, at the same time that she met her husband, Steve Kel- ley. She was President of a California technology company that she was about to sell on behalf of the private equity company that owned it. He was living in Maine, and along with his best friend from college, had just bought a tiny California almond butter company. The two of them were introduced by a mutual friend. "I met him, and we fell in love. At one point, he looked at me and said, 'I don't know if I should hire you or marry you,'" she says. "I was in the process of selling the company I was running, and Bar- ney Butter was a natural fit for me … I'd been eating almond butter since the days I was grinding it my- self, and it fit the profile of the kind of company I wanted to be a part of. I needed to feel like we were making the world a better place." Dawn and Steve married six years ago, and have been running the business together ever since. They've now grown the company into the third-largest almond butter brand in the country. Despite some curiosity in the marketplace about whether the couple bought the com- pany just to develop and then resell it, their current intentions are to continue to grow the brand with almond-only extensions to the product line, Dawn says. "We see a lot of runway left for our brand. There are still a lot of things left that we personally want to ac- complish." Welcome to the Humane Race Selling free range and pasture raised eggs to consumers is not necessarily an easy propo- sition, because generally speaking, con- sumers need to be educated on the benefits first. Many recent articles and reports are show- ing that consumers want food production that involves the humane treatment of animals, which is a core value of egg production at Egg Innovations and for the Blue Sky Fam- ily Farms brand. Heightened consumer awareness has prompted companies such as McDonald's, General Mills, Marriott, Kroger and many more to move to sourcing cage free eggs over the next 5 to 15 years. Egg Innovations considers this a step in the right direction, but it's not enough. There is a higher standard still in the pro- duction of what Egg Innovations calls "Eth- ical Eggs for the Humane Race" – free range or pasture raised eggs, which is 100 percent of Egg Innovations production. The com- pany is taking a giant step well beyond cage free because it believes this is what Ameri- can consumers really want – and soon will come to understand. The challenge, however, is that labeling in the U.S. egg industry can cause confusion for consumers. More than 90 percent of eggs sold in the United States are conventionally mass-produced in facilities with birds con- fined to cages. Now, "cage free" has become the latest buzzword in egg production, but cage free means the chickens never go out- side and spend their lives inside a barn. What's more, Egg Innovations' independent survey of more than 1,000 American egg purchasers found that nearly three-quarters (73 percent) did not know that cage free hens spend their lives inside a barn. On the other hand, every one of Egg Innovations' cer- tified humane free range and pasture raised chickens is free roaming outside on pas- ture. With room to roam, free range and pas- ture raised chickens can engage in foraging, scratching, dust bathing, flapping their wings and interacting socially. In other words, these production practices let chickens be chick- ens. Free range and pasture raised eggs repre- sent a return to how things used to be done, generations ago when small backyard chicken flocks were quite common. Egg In- novations has taken that tradition and applied innovation to achieve something that's unique in the industry: scalability. As it scales production, it's also ramping up consumer education at a time when animal welfare concerns are driving more purchasing decisions in the grocery store. People need to know that phrases such as "farm fresh," "all natu- ral" and even "organic" that may conjure up images of serene farm settings have no meaning in terms of humane treatment. When it comes to humanely raised eggs, Egg Innovations is challenging con- sumers to "think outside the barn," because cage free hens just can't. Visit Egg Innovations/Blue Sky Family Farms at booth #4082. For more informa- tion, visit www.egginnovations.com, www.blueskyfamilyfarms.com or call 800.337.1951. For sales assistance, call Steve Hagopian at 314.392.3835 or email shagopian@egginnovations.com. Principe Delivers True Italian Tradition Founded in 1945, Principe is a third-genera- tion, family-owned Italian company with more than 70 years of tradition, experience and unique know-how. The company, fa- mous for its innate ability to always move forward and constantly innovate while main- taining sacred respect for tradition, has quite an interesting history. After losing everything in WWII, the Dukcevich family was forced to flee its native home of Croatia and take refuge in Trieste, a multi-cultural port city in Northeastern Italy. This area, in the region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, is located on the Aus- tro-Hungarian border and is enveloped by the Alps. Noticing the unique culture and eating habits of their new home city, the Dukcevich family began producing and sell- ing traditional recipe frankfurters and cooked and roasted hams to the locals, and the rest, as they say, is history! But they didn't stop there. Today, Principe is a leading top quality producer of one of Italy's most prestigious food products: Prosciutto di San Daniele. Principe's ever-growing portfolio of prod- ucts includes various agings of Prosciutto di San Daniele, Prosciutto di Parma and Pro- sciutto Italiano, an ample selection of cooked and roasted hams, Mortadella from Bologna, Roasted Porchetta and Pancetta, Speck IGP Alto-Adige, Bresaola, Cotechino and many other authentic regional Italian deli meats. Principe not only imposes higher restrictive standards on its products than most regulatory boards do, but also demands direct control over every step in the production process, from the development of free range natural farms to in-house de-bon- ing and curing. This metic- ulous quest for perfection and constant innovation al- lows for dependable, con- sistent, top quality products and an exclusive, completely closed food safety system. With proprietary animal farms, six production plants, two slicing facilities and export to more than 40 countries around the world, Principe has become an industry leader for Italy's premium deli meats. In 2016, Principe Foods announced a spe- cial collaboration in the U.S. with the Ventre family, to introduce a new portfolio of do- mestically produced salumi. The Ventre fam- ily has generations of experience making salumi, from its laborious roots in Southern Italy, to the streets of Brooklyn, working with family and friends in the pork industry. They grew up making traditional Italian- American recipes and transformed their style to include also regional Italian, global and modern fusion techniques and flavors. Just like the Dukcevich family, they too are pio- neers and leaders in their fields – the fit was natural! The new domestic line, made in the metro New York area, complements the imported portfolio with a vast selection of top quality antibiotic-free, all-natural, no- nitrates/nitrites salami, hams, sausages and unique specialty items. Convenient pre- sliced formats are coming soon. While the Dukcevich family was adamant to secure a solid future for generations to come in their new Italian homeland, they could not have predicted just how successful they would be, both in Italy and around the world. Today, the Principe brand is synony- mous with best-in-class quality, passion, in- novation, food safety and taste. Bertozzi's Spreadable Italian Cheese Starts with Premium Whey Bertozzi Corporation of America is launch- ing the Gran Festa line of spreadable Italian cheeses. Imported from Italy, Gran Festa comes from the Bertozzi Creamery, a family-owned dairy established in 1901. Artisanally crafted using high-quality whey, freshly ground spices and crispy veg- etables, Gran Festa comes in three varieties: Garlic & Herb, Pink Peppercorn and Sweet Chili … and more flavors to come! The spreadable cheeses come in 8-ounce cups, with a 2-table- spoon serving containing about 40 calories, 3.5 grams of fat and 1.5 grams of protein. The spreads are made from the most nutritious part of milk: whey. The gluten-free, preserva- tive-free spreads have a light and airy texture and mouth- feel with a rich, creamy flavor profile.

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