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GOURMET NEWS MARCH 2018 www.gourmetnews.com FROM THE EDITOR 2 WWW.GOURMETNEWS.COM PUBLISHER Kimberly Oser SENIOR ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Jules Denton-Card jules_d@oser.com EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Lorrie Baumann lorrie_b@oser.com SENIOR ASSOCIATE EDITOR Robin Mather robin_m@oser.com ASSOCIATE EDITORS Jeanie Catron jeanie_c@oser.com Micah Cheek micah_c@oser.com ART DIRECTOR Yasmine Brown GRAPHIC DESIGNER Jonathan Schieffer CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGERS Sarah Glenn sarah_g@oser.com Caitlyn McGrath caitlyn_m@oser.com CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Tara Neal tara_n@oser.com CIRCULATION MANAGER Jamie Green jamie_g@oser.com PUBLISHING OFFICE 1877 N. Kolb Road P.O. Box 1056 Tucson, AZ 85715 520.721.1300 Fax 520.721.6300 SUBSCRIBER SERVICES Gourmet News P.O. Box 30520 Tucson, AZ 85751 520.721.1300 G OURMET N EWS ® OSER COMMUNICATIONS GROUP FOUNDER Lee M. Oser MEMBER OF: Periodicals postage paid at Tucson, AZ, and additional mailing office. Gourmet News (ISSN 1052-4630) is published monthly by Oser Communications Group, 1877 North Kolb Road, Tucson, AZ 85715; 520.721.1300. Publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material or prices quoted in newspaper. Contributors are responsible for proper release of pro- prietary classified information. ©2018 by Oser Communications Group. All rights re- served. Reproduction, in whole or in part, without writ- ten permission of the publisher, is expressly prohibited. Back issues, when available, cost $7 each within the past 12 months, $12 each prior to the past 12 months. Back orders must be paid in advance either by check or charged to American Express, Visa, or Master Card. Gourmet News is distributed without charge in North America to qualified professionals in the retail and dis- tribution channels of the specialty foods and hardgoods trade; paid subscriptions cost $65 annually to the U.S. and Canada. All foreign subscriptions cost $150 annu- ally to cover air delivery. All payments must be made in U.S. funds and drawn on a U.S. bank. For subscriber services, including subscription information, call 520.721.1300. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Gourmet News, 1877 North Kolb Road, Tucson, AZ 85715. We're seeing and hearing a lot of messages about food waste lately as activists on the issue point out that wasted food is a major contributor to global warming. The good news here is that food waste is a fairly tractable problem that all of us can do something about. That means that when you teach your customers how to do their part, you'll be perceived as part of the solu- tion rather than part of the problem. We know that demand for variety and abundance of food creates waste at home. Many of our adventurous eaters are also novice home cooks who don't know much about how to store food or how to repur- pose ingredients when they bought the whole head of lettuce for the four leaves they needed for the lettuce wraps they had on their menu plan. That is, even if they knew that they should make a meal plan before they shopped for groceries. As much as 55 per- cent of food purchases are unplanned, which leads to over purchasing and food spoilage. Nearly 80 percent of food waste comes from perishable foods, which in- clude prepared fresh deli items, meats, fruits and vegetables, seafood, milk and dairy, and some grain products such as bread and bakery items. Pound per pound, fruits and vegetables are among the least expensive and fastest spoiling foods, con- stituting over 40 percent of total food waste. Seafood and meat, which are more expensive to buy, are wasted less often. I've been doing a lot of thinking about this lately because I've been buying my veg- etables through a local program called Pro- duce on Wheels – Without Waste, or POW-WOW. It's managed by a food bank that operates in the communities along the U.S.-Mexico border. The food bank inter- cepts produce that comes across the border for sale in the U.S. but is then rejected by its intended buyer. Sometimes this is be- cause it's all an odd size. Sometimes it's be- cause it's not pristine. Sometimes there's no visible reason at all for the rejection, so I speculate that the farmer's yield was a little better than expected, so he's got more to sell than the market could handle. What- ever the reason, this food is donated to the food bank, which distributes it first to those who really need it and then sells the rest at bargain prices to the rest of us to raise cash to fund its operations. From week to week, I never know what I'm going to be getting, but, since the point is to avoid waste, I have to be prepared to han- dle whatever I end up with. I have a lifetime of cooking and food preservation experience to draw on, but even so, I've been a little surprised at how much stuff I have actually had to buy over the past several weeks to make the best use of it all. There was a Saturday afternoon run to the store to pick up a few extra trays for my dehydrator. I've had to replenish the bags for my FoodSaver vacuum sealer. I bought a couple of cookbooks so I'd have new pickle recipes after I'd made and canned about as much bread and butter squash as I figured I could use in a year. I've had to buy pickling spices and produce from my grocery store to round out the in- gredients for some of those new recipes. Last weekend I had to make an emergency run to the store for more wide-mouth pint jars after I decided to ferment the green beans instead of adding them to my freezer. I even bought a new solar dehydrator to take advantage of some of that global warming, and I can hardly wait until In- stant Pot is ready to ship its new Max model that's rated for pressure canning – the information that this is just about to launch was one of the most exciting things I heard at the International Housewares As- sociation's show preview for the press. Folks, what we have here isn't just a problem – it's a market opportunity. You too can help your customers get excited about performing makeovers on ugly pro- duce with home canning lessons, dehydra- tion demonstrations and fermentation fiestas. They'll leave your store knowing that you share values that matter to them. That's how you engage the Millennials in the Age of Amazon. GN — Lorrie Baumann Editorial Director FROM THE EDITOR

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