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GENERAL NEWS KITCHENWARE NEWS & HOUSEWARES REVIEW n JUNE 2017 n www.kitchenwarenews.com 10 Freezing food just got easier with the Inmyel Freezer Cube. Designed to f reeze and efficiently store homemade heat-and- eat meals or meal ingredients in quart- size zipper closure freezer bags, the Inmyel Freezer Cube is perfect for any household. It 's simple to use and environmentally- f riendly, allowing consumers to cut food waste in their homes. According to a recent report by the United Nations Environment Program and the World Resources Institute, about one third of all food produced worldwide (around U.S. $1 trillion) is lost or wasted in food production and consumption systems. In the United States, 30 to 40 percent of the food supply is wasted, equaling more than 20 pounds of food per person per month. In addition, according to a report from Value Chain Management International, Inc., Canadians waste $31 billion of food every year, and 47 percent of that is wasted in the home. "Many people throw away hundreds of dollars' worth of food over the course of a year that could otherwise be made into meals and f rozen for a later date," says Sharon Jones, founder and CEO of Inmyel Inc. " Vegetables past their prime and leftover proteins can easily be made into a f reezer-f riendly soup or stew, and f ruits into a ready-to-go smoothie, with the Inmyel Freezer Cube." The Inmyel Freezer Cube's sides and shelves feature multiple airflow holes to speed up the f reezing process and help preserve food quality. Designed to fit most standard home f reezers, the cube can f reeze up to five-quart size bags of food that are easy to store, thaw and reheat for a quick, convenient meal. "Replacing manufactured f rozen entrees with homemade heat-and-eat meals f rozen flat in quart-size zipper closure bags not only saves space in the f reezer, but consumers are left with less packaging to recycle after they have enjoyed their meal," said Jones. The Inmyel Freezer Cube also allows people to make healthier food choices. While food manufacturers offer convenient heat-and-eat meals, they are often costly and don't always offer the best nutritional choices. Buying food ingredients in bulk and making recipes ahead of time allows people to save money and eat healthier. Once made, the heat- and-eat meals serve to be a convenient, healthy option for those who may want to simply eat healthier or portion control their meals. The Inmyel Freezer Cube is also an asset for those who find it challenging to cook for one person, juggling family responsibilities, or tr ying to manage their diet. "Today's consumers are focused on healthier eating. Preparing homemade meals allows them to control the ingredients that make the meal," says Jones. "Making and f reezing meals ahead of time with Inmyel Freezer Cube is also a great way to create calorie-controlled portions for weight loss plans." For more information, visit www.inmyel.com. KN Inmyel Eases The Freeze BY GREG GONZALES Jacent, North America's new retail merchandising service, announced its official launch in March, at the 2017 International Home + Housewares Show. Formed by the merging of two industry pioneers — ATA Retail Services and LaMi Products — Jacent now offers a deep assortment of impulse products, a masterful merchandising team and retail intelligence. The result is a newly inspired shopping experience for consumers and increased sales for retailers. "ATA, pre-merger, was really a pure play impulse merchandise company that mastered one thing, and that was focusing primarily on the grocery channel in North America, supplying impulse programs that were end-to-end within the retail environment, developed over 25 years," said Ty Bennet, Jacent's President of Sales. LaMi was focused on the East Coast and ATA was rooted in the West Coast. There was some overlap, but bringing them together meant they could offer a better, seamless, national presence, said Bennet. "In other words, now we're filling in the void that each company wanted to fill in but couldn't before." Jacent delivers a nationwide presence as well as a single touchpoint for many already-shared customers. The company will design and implement strategic impulse merchandising programs for these retail stores. Jacent will also offer new retail insights and services, such as merchandising, store audits, surveys, display setups, seasonal merchandising execution, fulfillment, and much more, which will help stores run at peak efficiency. The benefits of the merger reach to both customers and suppliers. Current retail customers will enjoy an even wider product assortment as a result. "We can cater to first-generation Hispanic retailers, all the way up to premium retailers like Whole Foods, and then on up into retailers with sophisticated assortment requirements, like those in Canada, where in some cases the assortments have to have French and English incorporated — and not only French and English, but they want upscale and value," Bennet said. "There's a lot of complexity across the retail spectrum we can cater to now, whereas smaller competitors can go to market with one assortment that has a one-size-fits-all kind of approach — we can have a much more tailored mix to fit their needs." In addition, the company's buying power will increase, making Jacent more important to suppliers and driving down costs for customers. The combined database of retail intelligence will also enable the company to serve customers — current and new — even more strategically and efficiently. "We supply somewhere around 14,000 stores with our full-service program today," said Bennet. "We did the sourcing for that, so if you think about how ATA had 8,000 stores pre-merger, LaMi had about 6,000, we almost double our buying power. That allows us to sit in f ront of our retailer, knowing that when we're sourcing for that many stores, we're sourcing for seven times that." As retailers face consolidation, shrinking margins, the onset of big data and increasingly tech-savvy shoppers, Jacent's service is designed to help stores remain cutting-edge and competitive in a changing industry. "All item assortments that we sell our retailers are provided in collaboration with the retailer," Bennet said. "They're very much active in selecting the items with us that we display throughout the store. The library of goods has expanded tremendously. What the retailers will see is a change to the assortment that's more fine-tuned and better cultivated to their needs." Shoppers will also benefit f rom a more interesting, productive retail atmosphere. The name Jacent is derived f rom the word adjacent, speaking directly to the work and expertise that makes the company a key industry player. Jacent places items next to — or adjacent to — other items to inspire retail decisions and create a more enjoyable shopping experience. "Consumers are shopping in the bread aisle, buying bread over and over — if you make the experience fun, and you put a cute little sandwich cutter that cuts the crusts off bread or forms it into the shape of a diamond, those are fun, whimsical experiences for the consumer that costs them $1.99 and enhances their shopping experiences," Bennet said. "In other words, we create a sort of treasure hunt effect throughout every aisle of the store. It makes the shopping experience less mundane, less routine." The team at Jacent already foresees major growth in the months and years to come, with plans to branch out into new retail channels and continue enhancing the consumer's shopping experience. By 2022, the company plans to partner with 30,000 retail outlets across multiple channels and countries, generating revenue of more than $500 million. " We are passionate about inspiring shopping experiences across North America. Its big thinking, with a purpose far beyond basket-building," Bennett said. "It's about surprising people with merchandise, enabling discovery and brightening millions of people's days, day after day. We are enhancing a shopping process that, at times, can seem like a repetitive chore." KN Two Retail Pioneers Merge to Form Jacent Just seven months after shipping Joule®, a small and powerful sous vide immersion circulator, Seattle-based startup ChefSteps® announced it is celebrating a major milestone. "We're thrilled to share that the community of Joule owners has wildly exceeded our expectations and cooked over one million meals since the launch of Joule at the end of 2016," says Chris Young, ChefSteps CEO and Co-Founder. "It's clear that Joule owners love to cook with Joule, with over 40 percent of owners cooking at least once per week, every week." The company surpassed the one million mark this month, after launching the product in late September 2016. At this rate, Young predicts Joule owners will cook over five million meals by the end of this year. Joule is controlled by a smartphone — or just about any other internet-connected device — through a content-rich mobile app that earned early critical acclaim. Winner of the Red Dot Design Award, Joule was listed as one of Wired Magazine's "Best Gear and Gadgets of 2016," and reviewers lauded its video-based, step-by-step guides and unique features like Visual Doneness™ — swipeable videos that show you how your meat, chicken, fish, or vegetables will turn out at an array of temperatures. And Joule is the first kitchen product that regularly improves through frequent over- the-air updates. The company is continually adding more content centered around the interests of the community, and have also responded with exciting new ways for them to interact with Joule: hands-free cooking with Amazon Alexa, communicating with Joule through Facebook Messenger, and starting Joule directly f rom recipes on ChefSteps.com. The heating speed has been improved to get dinner on the table faster, and introduced a silent-running update for when you're cooking through the night. "At ChefSteps, we're devoted to listening to our community and shipping updates that make their experiences better," says Young. "The one-million-cook milestone is a chance to celebrate the success the community is having with Joule, but also an opportunity to really listen to them, to understand their problems and successes, and to respond by improving our products to make them even happier in their kitchens." Joule is currently available on ChefSteps.com, Amazon.com, SurLaTable.com, and in select Sur La Table stores. The Joule app is available to download for free through the App Store and Google Play. For more information, visit www.chefsteps.com/joule. KN ChefSteps Celebrates One Million Meals Cooked with Joule

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