Oser Communications Group

BY LORRIE BAUMANN The Salvation Army has opened a 27,000-square foot neighbor- hood grocery store in a Baltimore neighborhood that had been a food desert. The new store, opened on March 7, has the aes- thetics of a specialty grocery, but it's designed as a non-profit enter- prise with ambitions to serve the community in ways that go be- yond purveying food. "It's the first Salvation Army grocery store ever, since our founding in 1865," said Salvation Army Major Gene A. Hogg, who oversees the project. Despite the lack of grocery retail experience, DMG Foods merges skill sets that Purveying the Milk of Human Kindness in an Urban Food Desert the Salvation Army acquired through its long history of setting up canteens in disaster areas, op- erating rescue shelters and run- ning thrift stores. Hogg added: "We have some retail experience." The DMG is an acronym for a Salvation Army motto: "Doing the Most Good." The neighborhood in which the store operates is an unstable inner-city environment in which residents are subject to poverty, drug use and unemploy- ment as well as food insecurity. According to the Maryland Food Bank, which partners with the Salvation Army to provide serv- ices at DMG Foods, more than 682,000 people in Maryland don't get enough to eat, and one in nine Marylanders are food insecure. Baltimore City itself has a food in- security rate of 23 percent and 25 percent of Baltimore residents live in a food desert according to St. Vincent de Paul Baltimore. Nearly half of the Marylanders who don't get enough to eat are working – they just don't earn enough to feed and provide shel- ter for themselves and their chil- dren. Many of those Baltimore residents do much of their shop- ping in neighborhood bodegas and convenience stores where their food options are limited, BY LORRIE BAUMANN A new kind of shared kitchen has opened in Pasadena, California as part of a plan to build two or three in southern California by the end of this year and then 40 or more by the end of 2019. The Kitchen United facility is de- signed to give restaurateurs and caterers a place to produce fresh food that they can offer for take- out or home delivery. The facility offers back-of- house services, including inte- grated point of sale software, order interfaces and a delivery driver waiting area, so that essen- tially all that's left for the restau- Shared Kitchen Smooths the Path for Food Entrepreneurs Continued on PAGE 8 Continued on PAGE 6 Continued on PAGE 6 rateur to do is to manage the ac- tual food. Kitchen United even handles the cleaning and sanitizing of the space as well as equipment mainte- nance. "We want people to come in and do what they do best, cook and make amazing dishes. We will provide all of the ancillary serv- ices, cleaning, and equipment. We have all of the equipment that they can use," said Kitchen United Chief Culinary Officer Massimo Noja de Marco. "We take care of all of the cleaning, the maintenance, the sanitizing. They pay an hourly charge, and then our staff takes care of sanitizing and resetting for the next user." The facility's equipment in- cludes spaces equipped with prep tables, ranges with ovens below, grills, griddles, convection ovens, mixers, pots and pans and smallware. "All they need to do is bring their knives," Noja de Marco said. The 12,000-square-foot facility in Pasadena has two faces, both operating out of the same shared kitchen facility, which includes three large 1,800 square-foot kitchens and also a shared space that offers 15 distinct work sta- tions – six for cold preparations, eight for hot preparations and one for baking. The shared space can be rented by the hour by artisanal And the sofi Award Goes to... BY ROBIN MATHER Trade shows are always busy, ex- citing places, but some are more important than others for snack- ing retailers. As lines blur be- tween snack and meal, retailers need to understand how to posi- tion these category-hopping products in fresh, new ways. They'll find that and more at the industry's only show focused specifically on the specialty candy and snacks industry. "What I get out of the show every year is what's new and dif- ferent, whether it's the major Continued on PAGE 6 Sweets and Snacks Expo Opens May 22 players or the small companies trying to break through," says Jeff Spear of Jacksonville, Florida, whose Studio Spear is a global branding agency specializing in food and beverages. "I'm also in- trigued by seeing what the inter- national producers are showing that might catch on. We all know fruit leather, right? But I saw tamarind leather last year, and that was new. Sometimes it's as simple as new formulations. I also saw some items that combined sweet with cayenne, which I had- n't seen before. The expo is a place to see all those things in one place." With five acres of booths and more than 850 exhibitors, the Sweets and Snacks Expo will be held May 22-24 at McCormick Center, Chicago. Registration is now open at www.sweetsand snacks.com. Nearly 18,000 people will at- tend the show this year to visit the booths of more than 850 ex- hibitors, and learn about the lat- est trends in better-for-you and BY LORRIE BAUMANN The two best cheeses entered into this year's sofi Awards competi- tion were made by Rogue Cream- ery and Vermont Creamery. Rogue Creamery won a gold sofi Award for Organic Rogue River Blue, which won from among 68 entries in the category for cow milk cheeses, while Vermont Creamery's Cremont, an aged mixed-milk cheese, won from among 65 entries in the category for non-cow milk and mixed-milk cheeses. Vermont Creamery also won the best new product award in the non-cow milk category for its Fresh Goat Cheese Log with Clover Blossom Honey and a sil- ver award in the dairy and dairy alternative category for its Creme Fraiche. Medlee Foods, LLC, won the gold award for the best dairy or dairy alternative product with its Red Chile Seasoned Butter. Nduja Artisans Co. won the gold award for charcuterie with Finoc- chiona. The announcements came on April 11 in videotaped presenta- tions by Specialty Food Associa- tion President Phil Kafarakis. Gold, silver and bronze awards were given on the basis of taste VOLUME 83, NUMBER 5 MAY 2018 n $7.00 NEWS & NOTES n Hershey Announces Cocoa for Good, the Company's Half-Billion Dollar Sustainable Cocoa Strategy PAGE 5 RETAILER NEWS n Bluescreek Farm Meats Turns 25 PAGE 8 SUPPLIER NEWS n Creative Chill from Coolhaus PAGE 11 EVERYDAY INDULGENCES n DeBrand Chocolate Indulgences Collection PAGE 15 NATURALLY HEALTHY n Bobo's Poised to Break out from Boulder PAGE 16 News ..............................................5 Ad Index .......................................19 Calendar.......................................19 www.gourmetnews.com G OURMET N EWS T H E B U S I N E S S N E W S P A P E R F O R T H E G O U R M E T I N D U S T R Y ® EVERYDAY INDULGENCES: Artisan Salt Company SEE PAGE 15 SUPPLIER NEWS: Davis Chocolate SEE PAGE 12 HOT PRODUCTS: Norseland SEE PAGE 18

• Cover