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Restaurant Daily News 4 3 Tuesday, May 22, 2018 NestFresh Helps Grocers Meet Demand for Humanely Raised Eggs By Lorrie Baumann Consumer demand for humanely pro- duced eggs is increasing, and producers like NestFresh are responding with eggs that meet consumer demands for trans- parency in how the hens laying those eggs are treated. NestFresh is a brand based in Denver, Colorado, that specializes in cage-free eggs. "At the very minimum, all of our hens are cage free. ... They're free to move about the barn. All of our barns are built with furnishings and enrichment to encourage the natural behaviors of the hens: perches, nest boxes, dust-bathing areas," said Brandy Gamoning, Marketing Manager for NestFresh. "They can social- ize, preen, run, jump -- all of those things." According to the American Egg Board, cage-free hens are a growing seg- ment of American flocks, with the trade group estimating that the percentage of cage free hens in American flocks grew by 31 percent between October 2016 and October 2017 and, as of October, repre- sent almost 16 percent of American flocks of laying hens. Retail sales of fresh eggs have remained nearly flat this year, according to data compiled by Nielsen, but sales of cage free eggs were up sharply while sales of eggs from caged hens were down almost as sharply, sug- gesting that consumers shifted their egg- buying preferences in favor of cage-free eggs over the past year. NestFresh, founded in 1991 as a fam- ily-owned company dedicated to the pro- duction of eggs in a way that reflected their values of humane animal care, sources and distributes organic-certified eggs, Non-GMO Project Verified eggs and pasture-raised eggs from more than 20 small family farmers. "We work with fam- ily farms all over the country," Gamoning said. "That allows us to produce eggs that are regional, that are as local as possible for retailers and consumers." The company is the first to market with a Non-GMO Project Verified egg. "The majority of hen feed is corn and soy, and GMOs are prevalent in those ingredi- ents. We worked with the Non-GMO project and with federal regulators on egg labeling. We worked with suppliers to make sure that they could source the food and that farmers could meet the standards for avoiding contamination," Gamoning said. "We were the first to do it and the first to have that third-party certification." Third-party certification that reas- sures consumers that they're getting eggs that reflect their values has always been an emphasis for NestFresh, according to Gamoning. "When we look at all the claims in the egg category, there were a lot of claims that didn't have clear defini- tions. Consumers were confused," she said. "We have always been committed to third-party verification and certification of our claims." NestFresh's organic eggs are certi- fied organic by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Humane care certification for pasture-raised eggs is provided by Humane Farm Animal Care, which audits each of the farms to ensure that the farms meet standards for minimum square footage of pasture space for the hens, ade- quate food and water and space inside the barn as well as no use of added hormones or antibiotics. All NestFresh hens are free of any antibiotics of added hormones, Gamoning said, who added that the com- pany is absolutely committed to valida- tion of its claims and the resulting tran- parency that adds to what the consumer is getting. The result is a product range that enables NestFresh to provide grocers with custom product mixes to ensure that they're able to give their shoppers exactly what they want – evolving what that means as their shoppers' demands change. "With all of our work being the leader in humane and sustainable egg pro- duction, we're really experts in the egg category," Gamoning said. "We're always evolving and innovating what humane and sustainable really mean. ... We're always learning about what that means and what the next step is." Barry Callebaut Unveils Ruby Chocolate First there was milk chocolate and dark chocolate. Then white chocolate came along. Now Barry Callebaut is offering the fourth type in chocolate, ruby, which is made from the ruby cocoa bean. Ruby chocolate has an intense taste and characteristic reddish color. The bean from which it is produced has a specific set of attributes, including a fresh berry fruitiness and the capacity to reveal the reddish color in processing, which Barry Callebaut managed to unlock through an innovative process that took many years to develop. The beans themselves are grown in many areas of the world. According to quantitative research performed by independent international market and consumer agency Haystack, ruby chocolate meets a consumer need no chocolate ever did before. The invention of ruby chocolate is the work of global research and development centers of Barry Callebaut, based in France and Belgium – part of a global network of 28 research and development centers – the Jacobs University, and over 175 years of expertise in sourcing and manufacturing. This fourth type in chocolate offers a totally new taste experience, which is not bitter, milky or sweet, but a tension between berry-fruitiness and luscious smoothness. No berries, berry flavoring or color is added. Ruby chocolate has been tested and val- idated through extensive consumer research run by independent global research agencies Haystack and Ipsos in the UK, US, China and Japan. As part of these studies, ruby's consumer appeal and purchase intent have been tested, indicating consumers would buy ruby chocolate at different price points. Peter Boone, Barry Callebaut's Chief Innovation and Quality Officer, said: "Barry Callebaut has established itself as a pioneer and innovator in chocolate and cocoa, globally. Consumer research in very different markets confirms that ruby chocolate not only satisfies a new con- sumer need found among Millennials, hedonistic indulgence, but also high pur- chase intent at different price points. We're looking forward to working with our part- ners on introducing this innovative break- through to the market and making the new ruby chocolate category available to chocolate manufacturers and consumers around the world as the fourth reference next to dark, milk and white chocolate." Following the Call of the Wild Sausage By Lorrie Baumann Business consultants are fond of pointing out that threats and opportunities are often two sides of the same situation, and on an even more cliched note, you'd have very little trouble finding a poster that advises you that when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade. If you want to fol- low that line of thinking down a well-trav- eled metaphorical pathway, you'll have no trouble at all making the mental leap from half a million feral hogs rooting up crops in Louisiana to gourmet sausage. So let's talk gourmet sausage. Meet Charlie Munford, Mississippi Farmer and the Founder and Owner of Charlie's Sausage. After earning a mas- ters degree at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, he came back to Louisiana to take over his grandfa- ther's 300-acre farm, Two Run Farm, in Vaughan, Mississippi, where he's been raising animals that he harvested and butchered, along with animals from other local farms, for sale to local customers and then eventually to New Orleans chefs. In 2014, he purchased the Springfield Slaughter House, a state- inspected facility. As a farmer who was also buying ani- mals from other farmers to process in his slaughterhouse, Munford was talking to those other farmers, and he started hearing that they were having problems with feral hogs. According to the Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries, feral hogs are present in all of Louisiana's 64 parishes. The population has been estimat- ed at 500,000, and the department esti- mates that, because these hogs are so fer- tile, about 75 percent of them should be harvested each year just to keep the popu- lation stable. "Other farmers started telling me they were spending lots of time and money catching these wild hogs to keep them out of their crops," Munford says. "I started talking to other farmers, who were saying that the hogs were a nuisance.... They're an invasive species, and the popu- lation has been expanding rapidly over the last 15 years, with land use change and the lack of hunting pressure. It's great for peo- ple to have another option." At right about that same time, the chefs to whom he was selling the local meat he was processing for them started asking him about wild boar sausage. "I had my ear to the ground listening to these chefs," Munford says. You see where this is going. "That was in 2014," Munford says. "We started planning it out and started the harvesting program in 2015.... The Louisiana Department of Agriculture & Forestry gave us a lot of help setting up a harvest program, so that it could be legal and under inspection." Over the course of a year of planning, Octavia Fortier, the company's Executive Chef and Chief Executive Officer, devel- oped recipes for three authentic varieties of sausage that she made from combinations of the wild boar meat and pork shoulder ground coarsely and mixed with earthy spices. The three flavors are Original, Green Onion, and Mild. Her technique borrows from the wisdom of Munford's business partners at Wayne Jacobs Smokehouse in LaPlace, Louisiana, known for their andouille sausage. "She probably did each recipe 50 times before being satisfied with it," Munford says. The pork shoulder that's added into the boar meat ensures the flavor of wild game while keeping the sausage afford- able, since wild boar costs about three times of the price of conventional pork by the time Munford pays the licensed trap- pers, transports the meat to his processing facility and accounts for comparatively low yield of the carcasses. "You'd think it'd be cheaper, but it's not," he says. The sausage is smoked in a custom- built stainless steel smokehouse that sits inside the processing plant. Outside the plant, a fire-box burns seasoned water oak firewood, and a vacuum system draws the smoke over the sausage so that the smoke penetrates the natural casing, the heat ren- ders the fat and the meat is preserved. "We make it the traditional artisanal Cajun way – hard wood fire, smoky, like with a fireplace," Munford says. "We actually burn logs in a low-heat fireplace, so it's a traditional, natural method. It takes a lot longer, but the flavor is so superior when you do it that way." Charlie's Sausage retails for $4.99 for a 12-ounce package. While distribu- tion is currently distributed regionally, it's now produced under U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection, so it's available for sale outside Louisiana. A portion of the profits from the sale of the product goes to conservation of the Gulf South longleaf pine forests, which are threat- ened by development. In partnership with organizations like the Longleaf Alliance, preservation of the native longleaf pine forests will save a vanishing ecosystem that now occupies less than 3 percent of its historical range and that provides important wildlife habitat for a variety of species, including game birds, deer and fox squirrels, according to Munford. "We're just trying to keep the boar under control and make a really delicious prod- uct," he says. "It's all been driven by our customers, and they're the reason for it." For more information about wholesale availability, contact Via Fortier at 855.601.2RUN or via@tworunfarm.com.