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GOURMET NEWS www.gourmetnews.com n JANUARY 2018 n GOURMET NEWS 1 0 8 A Green Leafy Fish Tale set in Saint Paul By Lorrie Baumann This is a story about what can happen when you tell stories about food. Also, it's a story about how a company is operating an urban farm in the heart of the city, so that the peo- ple of Saint Paul, Minnesota, have a new source of fresh, local food. But it's all hap- pening because people told their stories along the way. Telling stories to each other is so embed- ded in our humanity that it might very well be coded into our DNA. "We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories," points out Jonathan Gottschall in "The Storytelling An- imal." He goes on to write that, "... story is for a human as water is for a fish – all-en- compassing and not quite palpable." Some of the stories we tell are about how we get our food. The famous cave paintings of Lascaux and many other places, dating back as far as 27,000 years ago and longer, clearly depict animals hunted for food or for skins. While anthropologists debate the purpose behind these paintings, they can certainly be inter- preted as story prompts, not unlike the scripts for a Hollywood movie or even those out- lines with the Roman numerals that you probably wrote for your high school term pa- pers. The cave paintings at Lascaux and in many other places around the world make it easy to imagine people gathered around them to tell stories about the hunt for a com- munity's food — its dangers and its rewards — passing on the accumulated wisdom of a people to a new generation, with the paint- ings there to help sear those stories into their memories. Urban Organics' Origin Story Today, one of the storytellers in that tradition is David Haider. He's now the President of Urban Organics, which produces Arctic char and Atlantic salmon as well as nine different packaged salad blends plus a line of herbs that includes basil, cilantro and parsley at a reha- bilitated former warehouse in East Saint Paul, Minnesota. But when our story begins, not 27,000 years ago but in 2011, he was building back yard pools and water features, and he was getting sick of it. He was pretty good at it, but he just didn't want to be building water features any more. He wanted to do some- thing that made a difference in the world. Then one day, he came home after a day on the job, and his wife, Kristen, told him, "I think I may have an idea for you." She'd been watching television, and she'd seen a story about aquaculture – fish farming. "She called me and said maybe we should look into an indoor farm in the heart of the city," he said. As Dave Haider tells the story, he knew right away that aquaculture was the idea he was looking for. It called for many of the same construction skills he already had, and it was about a way to grow fresh food in the midst of an urban food desert. In the kind of aquaculture operation the Haiders were just beginning to learn about, fish are raised in tanks. They're fed several times a day, and they excrete waste into the water. That water, now rich with the nitrogen so necessary as a plant nutrient, is now pumped out of the fish tank, filtered to sep- arate out waste solids and then directed into a hydroponic farm. It flows through the roots of plants that take up the nitrogen they need to grow and it ends up in a sump. The result is a dual crop — fish and fresh green leafy vegetables — for local tables. Dave and Kristen both liked the sound of it, so Dave started calling friends and family to spread the news and ask for help finding a future fish facility. One of those was Fred Haberman, a longtime food activist and ad- vocate for organics who is also the Chief Ex- ecutive Officer and co-Founder of Minneapolis-based Haberman, a marketing agency that has worked with companies in- cluding Organic Valley, Annie's Homegrown and Earthbound Farm. Another was Chris Ames, who grew up in Saint Paul, and who is now the Managing Partner of The Land- mark Real Estate Group, which works closely with the city of Saint Paul on many development projects. He knew that the city owned some property that was sitting unused, and he knew how to negotiate with the city to purchase that property for redevelopment. "We decided we were going to buy one of these vacant prop- erties owned by the city of St. Paul," Haider said. "They had this Hamm's brewery. It was a good fit for us." The Hamm's Brewery The building that now houses Urban Organ- ics' aquaculture facility has a story of its own. The Theodore Hamm Brewing Company was established in 1865 by Theodore Hamm. The company went through a few changes of ownership and was eventually acquired by Pabst, which traded away the Hamm's St. Paul Brewery to the Stroh Brewing Com- pany. Stroh's operated the facility as a brew- ery until 1997 and then shuttered it. The property was sold to a real estate investor, who redeveloped part of the cluster of build- ings into the Howard Gelb office park and sold the rest of the property to the city of Saint Paul. For years, the city tried to convert those buildings into an Asian Pacific Cultural Center but was unable to raise state funding for the project, leaving the buildings to attract the interest — and the graffiti — of the city's urban explorers. Now the holes in the five- story building have been repaired, the interior is painted a tasteful gray, and it's brightly lit with the grow-lights that provide the "photo" for the farm's photosynthesis. "The facility is next door to artists' lofts and condos," Haider said. "They were excited and welcomed us with open arms. We're excited to be part of this community. I think it's a great fit for us." The Story Grows The Urban Organics facility in the old Hamm's Brewery is actually the company's second aquaculture operation. The first was a pilot project that was also located in a for- mer brewery, the Schmidt Brewery, also in St. Paul. That brewery was in production until 2002, and the site had been unused since 2004. Urban Organics had started there when the company put out a news re- lease announcing the venture. The story was picked up by the local National Public Radio station, which broad- cast it as part of a program heard by an executive of Pen- tair Aquatics Eco-Systems. The equipment for aquaculture, both for commercial use and for hobbyists, is a big part of Pentair's business, which has its U.S. headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota. "They thought there was an obvious synergy there. They said this was our expertise and our equipment," Haider said. "They've been a great partner of ours and continue to be a great partner in this larger facility as well." The Story Continues into the Future Urban Organics Pentair Group, formed in 2015, held the grand opening for its new fa- cility in the old Hamm's Brewery on June 1 of this year. The facility contains 14 large fiberglass tanks for the Arctic char and At- lantic salmon and is expected to produce about 350,000 pounds of fish annually. It takes about a year and a half for the fish to mature from the fingerling size that most of them were when they came to Urban Organ- ics, and Haider is planning to sell most of them to local restaurants. On the plant side of the building, the facility will produce about 500,000 to 800,000 pounds of green leafy vegetables per year. The produce goes to a couple of restaurants and is sold in retail stores as packaged salad mixes bearing the Urban Organics brand. "We also work with a local healthcare provider to provide pro- duce, not only to their cafeteria but to their patients as well," Haider said. The company currently employs 22, but Haider is expecting to have 50 employees by the end of the year as production ramps up. "I'm so grateful that I did find something that can provide local, sustainable organic food," Haider said. "What we're trying to do is make a difference for the world. I think we're onto something, and I hope that we're on a path to make great food. That's what I wanted with the career change – not just to find a new path, but to find a way to make a difference in the world." Tara Kirch Rejoins Best Cheese Corporation Best Cheese Corporation, importer and dis- tributor of Dutch cheese brands and owner of Artisanal Coach Farm, has announced that Tara Kirch has rejoined the company as Sen- ior Director of Marketing. With Kirch's re- turn, LeeMarie McGuigan assumes all supply chain and customer service responsi- bility for the total company with the title of Senior Director of Supply Chain & Cus- tomer Service. Best Cheese, a full subsidiary of Best Cheese Global Inc. (BCG) based in the Netherlands, markets and sells cheese and dairy products under brand names as Par- rano, Uniekaas, Coach Farm and Melkbus. It is based in Purchase, New York, and oper- ates an artisanal goat farm in Hudson Valley, New York. Kirch has spent over a decade in advertis- ing and marketing on consumer packaged goods and specialty food brands. She most recently served as brand manager at Harvest Hill Beverage Company, a Brynwood Part- ners VII L.P. company. Before joining Har- vest Hill, Kirch served as brand manager of pladisNA, a subsidiary of pladis global. Prior to three years with pladisNA, Kirch led the marketing for Best Cheese Corporation. "I am excited to rejoin Best Cheese Corpo- ration and the dairy industry," Kirch said. "I am looking forward to adding focus and ex- pansion to our current brands and building new brands to deliver on the demand of inno- vative specialty cheeses in the United States." Scientists Searching for Benefits of Berries Initial findings from several studies – includ- ing both human subjects and animals – on the potential health benefits of red raspber- ries were presented at the 2017 Experimental Biology conference in Chicago. Participants in short-term human trials experienced an improvement in glucose control and in- creased satiety, while longer-term animal tri- als revealed promising effects on the gut mi- crobiota after red raspberry intake. The observations from animal and in vitro studies provided insights that support future hy- potheses for red raspberry research exploring potential beneficial effects on pathways re- lated to reducing inflammation, obesity and type 2 diabetes risk. "We are excited about this new flurry of studies, which builds on previously published research aimed to better understand the po- tential health benefits of red raspberries," said Tom Krugman, Executive Director of the Na- tional Processed Raspberry Council (NPRC). "Our Council is committed to delivering the highest quality nutrition and health science that consumers can use to make informed choices when aiming for a healthy diet." While additional research, particularly in humans, is warranted, preliminary evidence from these studies suggests that the actions of essential nutrients, fiber and polyphenolic phytochemicals found in red raspberries may play a role in supporting key metabolic func- tions, including anti-inflammatory, anti-ox- idative and metabolic stabilizing activity. While this emerging research is promising, and contributes to the overall understanding of the health benefits of red raspberries, con- clusions cannot be drawn at this time.

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