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GOURMET NEWS JULY 2018 www.gourmetnews.com NEWS & NOTES 1 0 Las Vegas Market Hosts Eighth Gift for Life Fundraiser Las Vegas Market will host the 8th annual "Up on the Roof" gala charity event bene- fiting Gift For Life, the sole charitable or- ganization for the gift, stationery and home décor industries, on Monday, July 30, 2018, during the Summer 2018 Las Vegas Mar- ket, running July 29 to August 2, 2018. The 2018 fundraiser will be themed "ERASE HATE: A Celebration of Love," in connec- tion with the 20th anniversary of the death of murder victim Matthew Shepard, an event that shocked the nation and galva- nized support for the gay and lesbian com- munity. "Las Vegas Market is deeply committed to the industry's chosen charity, Gift For Life, and its critical mission to raise funds for HIV/AIDS treatment, prevention, edu- cation and advocacy," said Esther Ossei- Anto, Senior Marketing Manager, International Market Centers and a newly- appointed Gift For Life board member. "This year, our supportive efforts take on a new dimension, with the theme of 'ERASE HATE: A Celebration of Love,' me- morializing the 20th anniversary of Matthew Shepard's murder, a turning point in the American conversation about hate and how we as a people address our fears around things we do not know or under- stand. Las Vegas Market is proud to lend our voices to this dialogue and to demon- strate our continuing dedication to the in- dustry charity." Judy Shepard, Matthew's mother, will be attending the Summer 2018 Las Vegas Mar- ket and the Up on the Roof benefit. Leading multi-line sales agency Fine Lines will host a special "meet-and-greet" with Shepard on Monday, July 30 from 12 to 4p.m., in its showroom on C10, including a special signing of her book, "The Meaning of Matthew, My Son's Murder in Laramie and A World Transformed." "In today's environment, more than ever, it is important that we remember Matthew, the impact of his murder and the tremen- dous work, love and passion that resulted," said Matt Katzenson, Fine Lines Chief Ex- ecutive and Vice-Chair of Gift for Life. Fine Lines is the sales and marketing representative for Chavez for Charity, a supplier of signature colorful bracelets, necklaces and earrings that are sold to raise awareness and funds for critical causes worldwide, including a special Matthew Shepard 20th anniversary commemorative bracelet to be introduced at the Summer Market. "Supporting The Matthew Shepard Transparency Continued from PAGE 1 most of the time, it's just junk – junk being sold in the store. They're asking the ques- tions about food." "We're starting to see a resurgence – peo- ple who are saying, 'What's going on? We need real stuff.'" he continued. "America is on this journey right now. Part of it's about being healthy, but a lot of it's a values journey,"said Glenn Rudberg, Chief Marketing Officer of Ethos Market- ing, which provides marketing advice to the consumer packaged goods industry. "It used to be that good marketers forgot their values and focused on their ingredients.... Now consumers want to know where their brands stand. You can't be in the middle anymore." "Consumers want that connection. They want that transparency. They want to know what they're buying," he continued. "They support small. They're distrustful of large. They're somewhat distrustful of govern- ment. They're wanting brands that can con- nect to them on a personal level." The consumer packaged goods industry is transforming the foods they're offering to grocers to comply with those consumer de- mands, Rudberg said. "Chobani, for in- stance, is trying to speak to a consumer at a higher level than just putting 'Blueberry' on a package. Smoothie King is reformulat- ing the line. They're reinventing their busi- ness," he said. "You're seeing brands reformulating with pure maple syrup rather than maple flavor.... You know that these larger brands are starting to take notice.... Campbell Soup is heeding the warning and recasting their tried and true recipes, mov- ing towards cleaner food. You know that it's hitting the mainstream." The Consumer Point of View Consumers may couch their broad con- cerns about food in the language of health and wellness, sustainability or trans- parency, and part of the problem is that those terms themselves mean many differ- ent things to different people. For grocery retailers, the definition of 'sustainable' is making sure that they have the ability to source from their suppliers for extended periods of time, ideally in perpetuity, said Andy Harig, Senior Director, Sustainability, Tax & Trade at the Food Marketing Insti- tute. "Farmers have been focused on that since time began. They are much more at- tuned to the impacts of weather and cli- mate change, he said. But for the consumer, especially the Mil- lennial consumer, sustainability might have something to do with how the farmer and the grocer treats their work force or how the rancher and the processor treat the an- imals that are the sources of protein, eggs and dairy products. "We're seeing the defi- nition of sustainability broadening out into corporate and social responsibility. It's a broader view, and it's a view that every as- pect of the supply chain needs to be taken into account and needs to be sustainable," Harig said. "Supply chains that depend on exploitation of individuals are not just a matter of conscience but also a matter of economic sustainability. There's an emerg- ing view of what the term encompasses, driven in part by the Millennials, who have grown up with the idea of sustainability at the forefront of consciousness. It's some- thing they expect to be embraced." While manufacturers are struggling to provide transparency by including more in- formation on their product labels and mov- ing information that consumers say is particularly important to them to the front of the label, those labels themselves some- times leave consumers with more questions than answers, according to Leah McGrath, a supermarket dietitian who finds herself at the other end of some of those questions. "Some people are confused and con- cerned," she said. "They don't know what they should be paying attention to, what they should be avoiding. A lot of them have a lot of concern and guilt about what they're reading on the labels." Sometimes the problem is just that con- sumers don't understand some of the acronyms and jargon they're reading on the labels – they might think that the "G" in "GMO" has something to do with gluten because they may not know what either of those terms actually means, but they know they've heard about both of them as some- thing to avoid, she said. She explains to them that sometimes what's most impor- tant is that they look beyond the confusing label claims to consider the essential iden- tity of the product they're considering. "A non-GMO, gluten-free corn dog is still a corn dog," she said. The View from the Supply Side According to the Specialty Food Associa- tion, in its 2017 report on the state of the specialty food industry, claims of sustain- ability are getting more attention from the supply chain. Close to 40 percent of man- ufacturers were producing sustainable products as of the 2017 report, up from 22 percent in the previous year. "Among retail- ers, sustainable products accounted for 16 percent of product sales, and share in- creased notably this year," according to the report, which predicted that "sustainable" will be the claim most interesting to con- sumers in the next three years. Manufacturers are still working hard to come up with label language that con- sumers can understand and that will appeal to them as they're making their purchasing decisions, according to Severin Weiss, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of SpecPage, which is in the business of pro- viding innovative solutions for the recipe- based manufacturing industry. "We have seen in the past that ingredients lists were sometimes too complicated for consumers to understand," he said. "We're now seeing labels with four ingredients, so you don't have to be super-educated to understand all the chemical components." He advises manufacturers to provide on their labels the basic information that con- sumers want and will understand – a few ingredients, allergy information and coun- try of origin along with the nutrition infor- mation mandated by the government. "That builds trust because it is complete in- formation that he is looking for – it's not just an ingredient list that he doesn't under- stand at all." He suggests also that manufacturers use images wisely, on every medium in which they're attempting to communicate with their customers, since today's technology- savvy consumers are becoming more vi- sual, and they use pictures as a source of information to an extent that hasn't always been true. "There are only a few catalogs that have really good pictures, and the pic- ture really speaks to the consumers," he said. "Technology today is available, and depending on the device, he needs to have an optimized picture. The picture has to work on a mobile device, and it has to be informative." "If I look at how I choose consumer prod- ucts, it can be hard to read the data sheet, and then how can you trust the data?" he continued. "Nice picture, clean label, all the information that the consumer is looking for, including nutrition, allergy, country of origin – that builds a lot of trust.... If a con- sumer sees a label with the information that it's produced at the farm around the corner, that's a different level of information from 'Produced in the U.S.' 'Produced at an or- ganic farm in Oregon' – that's a different message, and that message builds trust." As a Nebraska Farmer-Rancher, Hilary Mar- icle is the beginning of the supply chain for consumers in the market for beef, pork and lamb as well as food processors who depend on corn and soybeans as ingredients for their products and other ranchers who feed them to their animals. She thinks that one way grocers can help consumers navigate their confusion is to help create links be- tween consumers and farmers. She points out that social media provides a means of doing that without asking consumers to leave the store and drive down a dirt road until they find a farmer out standing in his (or her) field. She says she herself builds her social media around her children's activities on the farm, and there are many other farm- ers who have an active presence on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram, in part because they understand that consumers are hungry for information about where their food comes from, and they think it's important that they provide information that reflects the farmers' reality. "If our industry would see that story, that with us it's a family operation, that would increase trust level," she said. "It's not nor- mal for us to throw open the gates [to cu- rious visitors] because there are safety concerns." But now, modern communica- tion technology has provided a means to show curious consumers more about the origins of their food without exposing them to the dangers of being around 1,000- pound animals or heavy farm machinery, she said. "We are learning we have to open the gates.... Even with all its imperfections, such as the weeds not being mowed or the barn not being freshly painted, consumers want to see what we're doing." GN Foundation has been a key part of Chavez for Charity's DNA from day one," said Julie Chavez, Founder/Chief Creative Officer of Chavez for Charity. "Years later, the impact of Matthew's story continues to be an emo- tional topic and a catalyst for opening dia- logues on fear, love and acceptance. We are grateful to The Matthew Shepard Founda- tion for being a true partner, and could not be more proud to stand behind such an im- portant cause. The 20th anniversary of Matthew's murder has certainly been a meaningful reminder of why we do what we do. In 2018, our primary focus is the 'Erase Hate' initiative and sharing Matthew's story with the world." Judy Shepard, President of the Matthew Shepard Foundation, said, Continued on PAGE 22

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