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GOURMET NEWS JULY 2017 www.gourmetnews.com Supplier News SUPPLIER NEWS 1 2 BRIEFS Bellucci On-the-Go EVOO: The Great Flavor of Fresh With Bellucci's single-serving On-the-Go EVOO squeeze packs, the great flavor of fresh 100 percent Italian extra virgin olive oil is making a splash, one deli- cious drizzle at a time. Consumers of olive oil will ap- preciate the con- venience of having award- winning 100 per- cent Italian EVOO by the sin- gle serving, espe- cially when they can pop it straight out of a purse, backpack or desk drawer. On-the-Go EVOO gives office and school lunches, picnics and campfire cooking the opportunity for a healthy boost of flavor, and even meals out on the town can get an upgrade. Salads and sandwiches no longer need be doused in inferior dressings made of myriad non-nutri- tional ingredients, when a simple, de- licious drizzle of extra virgin olive oil is all they need. Meals for people leading active, h e a l t h - c o n s c i o u s lifestyles just got infinitely easier to make, and EVOO lovers can indulge themselves outside home kitchens without lugging a full bottle, when nuanced flavor on the fly is what they seek. Available in both 100% Organic Italian and 100% Classic Italian, Bellucci On- the-Go EVOO is milled cooperatively from olives grown on small family groves in rural Italy. Both blends have received awards at international tasting competitions. The company's commit- ment to freshness and traditional culti- vation and milling practices ensures a robust flavor profile, and the single- serving packs maintain the EVOO at its flavorful and nutritional best. All Bel- lucci EVOO, including On-the-Go squeeze packs, is fully traceable to its origin in the Italian countryside using the Bellucci App. The perfect drizzle to bring a ray of sunshine to any meal, Bellucci On-the- Go EVOO brings more pleasure and tastiness to food as far flung as the great outdoors. GN Top Note Tonic Earns a sofi as Best New Product BY LORRIE BAUMANN Top Note tonics are attracting attention among the fans of craft beverages, most re- cently with a sofi Award for Top Note In- dian Tonic Water, named the best new product in the cold beverages category by the Specialty Food Association this year. The company's other products include a Ginger Beer as well as a range of other Eu- ropean-style tonics in Bitter Orange, Bitter Lemon and Gentian Lime flavors. Top Note tonics are produced by La Pavia Beverage, LLC, founded in 2014 by Mary Pellettieri and her husband and part- ner, Noah Swanson and headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. "We decided to go into this business because we were very in- trigued by craft beer," Pellettieri says. "As I was concocting and crafting some syrups for that, using traditional recipes, I found that I liked the syrups just with carbonated water." Pellettieri's interest in beer was long- standing. She began her career at the Siebel Institute of Technology, a research institute and school of brewing technology founded in Chicago in 1868, where she was a chemist and microbiologist and taught sen- sory management. Her career has taken her from there to Silliker Labs, Goose Island Beer Company and then MillerCoors before she left the brewery giant to start her own company. After more than 20 years of working with craft beers, she was in an ideal position to recognize the potential of the beverage she'd created. "To me, it's more than just a mixer. It could be an herbal soft drink on its own," she said. "It's a radler [also known as a shandy] when mixed with beer." Pellettieri's experience had taught her to appreciate the tonics she'd tasted in Eu- rope, where the category was burgeoning with many more products and flavors than were being offered to the American market, where tonics tended to have harsher flavors that could mask the rasp of alcohol when they were mixed into cocktails based on mass-marketed spirits. But after distillers of craft spirits began producing smoother liquors, there was no longer as much need to hide the harsh taste of the alcohol. Pel- lettieri figured that created a gap in the market for mixers with bright, clean fla- vors, including the herbal elixirs that she loved. "We just saw that the category of sparkling beverage needing some innova- tion, some dusting up," she said. "I just thought: Why not someone who under- stands bitter, who understands beer? Why not me?" "The tonic category in the States has been sleepy," she added. "If you go to Eu- rope you'll see that it's much more of a bur- geoning category and much more diverse in its offerings." The Top Note product line started with mixable syrups that could be added to cocktails, stirred into sparkling water to make a soda or drunk on their own. "It's still a tonic, and there's still some bitterness to it, so I always warn people. Tonic lovers really love it," Pellettieri said. "It's still true to the tradition that a tonic is a bitter, sour and sweet beverage." The Top Note tonics pair well with the same kind of foods that complement other bitter beverages like an IPA beer or a dark espresso, and Pellettieri has recently ex- panded the line by packaging the tonics in four-packs of ready-to-serve bottles and adding a Ginger Beer that can be consumed either as a mixer or on its own. "We de- signed it with the idea that flavor is most important," Pellettieri said. "That's selling out faster than we can keep up with right now." The Top Note tonics are currently being distributed locally in Milwaukee and Madi- son, Wisconsin, where they're in both liquor and specialty grocery stores, but the products have also recently launched through KeHE. The Top Note Indian Tonic Water will be in the sofi Award showcase at the Summer Fancy Food Show, and Pellet- tieri plans to exhibit her line at the Winter Fancy Food Show in 2018. She says her production line is scalable for the orders that the sofi Award and the KeHE launch are bound to bring. "We're ready," she said. "We are ready. Everything's in place." GN Cargill Remains Committed to Fighting Climate Change Cargill Chairman and CEO David MacLennan said June 1 that Cargill remains fully committed to address climate change in its supply chains around the world. "We have no intention of backing away from our efforts to address climate change in the food and agriculture supply chains around the world and in fact this will inspire us to work even harder," he said after President Trump announced that he was backing away from the Paris Accord. "Caring about sustainability of the planet is not only the right thing to do for people and the environment, it is also good business." Rich Mende Joins Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board The Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board has named Rich Mende its new Director of Channel Programs. Mende joins WMMB with nearly 20 years of experience in retail sales management. Most recently, his experience included sales management roles at Dietz & Watson in Philadelphia, InnovAsian Cuisine in Tukwila, Washington, and Willow Brook Foods in Springfield, Missouri. Abdallah Candies Adds New Flavors to Line Abdallah Candies, a Minnesota-based candy company, has introduced new varieties to its highly popular "Old Fashioned Caramels" category. Known particularly for the premium caramel, Abdallah Candies' individually twist- wrapped butter caramel morsels are now also offered in new flavors such as chocolate- vanilla-sea-salt-twist, roasted-almond-coconut and toffee-almond caramel. Colorado Confectioner Answers Snack Demands with Sweet, Savory Treats Hammond's launched a range of delightful flavors for its new Mellow Fluff snacking marshmallows, including Toasted Coconut, Birthday Cake, Vanilla Bean, Key Lime, Snickerdoodle and Mocha Latte. These snackable marshmallows are packaged in six- per-case, 4-ounce re-sealable pouches that retail at $3.99 with strong profit margins and promotional programs. The next wave of the line's snacks will hit the shelves in the form of Mellow Pop and Mellow Crunch in early 2018. Mellow Fluffs began shipping in early March. New Human Studies Show Multiple Health Benefits From Consuming Mangos Emerging human studies on mango consumption have found potential health benefits associated with the superfruit including improved blood pressure, blood sugar control, and gut health. The research, conducted by of the Department of Nutrition and Food Science at Texas A&M University and the Department of Nutritional Sciences at Oklahoma State University, was presented during the 2017 Experimental Biology conference in Chicago.

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