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GOURMET NEWS JULY 2018 www.gourmetnews.com SUPPLIER NEWS 1 7 Brooklyn Whatever Continued from PAGE 1 she answered. The name stuck. "Nobody ever, ever for- gets the name," she says. "It turned out well for us." Her line of Shpickles, which does not in- clude pickled cucumbers or any use of dill at all, is based on the Mediterranean tradi- tion in which she grew up. "I know how to pickle – that's what we do," she says. "They're all sugar free. They're made with non-GMO vine- gar. There are only four or five ingredi- ents in each item. They're the pickle, the water, the garlic, the spices and vinegar. That's all. End of con- versation. And love." "That's why they're so attractive to peo- ple," she adds. "They taste clean. They don't have that sugary af- tertaste to them. Not necessary." The line includes pickled Broccoli, Okra, String Beans, Carrots, Jalapeño, Brussels Sprouts, Sweet Tiny Beets and Cauliflower & Beets. All except the Sweet Tiny Beets, which do include some sugar, are certified vegan, and Brussels Sprouts is the best seller. Shama plans to bring out Pickled Garlic soon, and Pickled Water- melon Rind may be on the horizon, since Shama's been hearing requests for that from her customers. "We'll pickle anything except cu- cumbers. We will never pickle a cucumber," she says. "Every- body else does it. I don't need to do it.... We're defi- nitely better, but we have nothing to do with cucumbers." Shmolives is a mix of black oil- cured, Gaetta, Cerignola Green, Cerignola Red, Cerignola Black, Kalamata, Casgelvetra Green, French Green Provincial and Green Cracked olives in balsamic vinegar, garlic, olive oil, herbs, spices and sea salt. There again, Shama includes love on the ingre- dients list. Shnuts, seasoned mixed roasted nuts, are doing well in minibars across the country and come in four varieties: Sweet & Savory, Creole, Ghost Pepper and Curry. Shpreads include Hot Pepper Jam, Cherry Jalapeño Jam, Apple Butter and Jalapeño Jam as well as Peppery Peach, Rockin Raspberry and Blazing Blue- berry Shpreads. A Family at Work The company started three years ago when Rachel was get- ting bored with retirement from her social services career as an educational advocate for disabled children, and her son Abe, now 30, was looking for his career niche. "I just thought, how hard could it be to be in business?" she says. "Little did I know that it's really difficult. But I wanted to build something for my son. There was nothing I could leave him in the so- cial service world." Today, she and her son are partners in the busi- ness, which is very much a woman-owned business, and Eddie, her husband, pitches in as well. Rachel takes care of the back-end business and does some of the selling. Abe handles the warehousing and ship- ping, and Rachel says that building the business to- gether has enhanced their mother-son relationship, "with respect.... When products go in; products go out – he's the guy." Eddie does sales. "We're married coming up on 40 years in December. Now we work together. We're learning how to do that," Rachel says. "We've become a very, very good team. He's a seasoned, seasoned sales- man – been doing it his whole life. Won- derful guy." "It's a fun little company we have going on here. I never thought I'd have so much fun," she adds. "It's really hard work, but to watch somebody take one of our prod- ucts and put it in their mouth and watch their eyes light up – there's nothing like it." For more information, visit www .brooklynwhatever.com. GN Jana Foods Launches Organic Kingdom Line of British Cheddar This year at IDDBA 18, Jana Foods, LLC in- troduced Organic Kingdom – a new line of premium USDA-certified organic British Cheddar—expertly handcrafted and sourced from the birthplace of Cheddar in Somerset England. "We are very excited to offer the Organic Kingdom line to the U.S. Market. It is the only USDA-certified organic British cheese available in the U.S." said Jennifer Larsen, Marketing Manager for Jana Foods. "The organic milk is sourced from cows that are free to roam and graze on lush pastures in the heart of the Cheddar region of England. This is what gives our Cheddar its distinct and deliciously bold taste." The Organic Kingdom line offers four different flavorsome varieties that range from smooth and creamy to bold and com- plex. Flavors include: Mild Organic Ched- dar, Mature Organic Cheddar, Extra Mature Organic Cheddar and Vintage Organic Cheddar. Each variety is available in a conve- niently sized 7-ounce package, with color coded branding that calls out the com- pany's organic message and helps con- sumers recognize their favorite flavors. All Organic Kingdom cheeses are made from non-GMO milk containing no antibi- otics, growth hormones, or pesticides. GN Cambozola Black Label Named Best in Class at World Championship Cheese Contest Cambozola Black Label, a specialty soft ripened cheeses with delicate blue veining produced by Käserei Champignon, a fam- ily-owned cheese producer in Bavaria, Germany, was awarded the World Championship Cheese Contest's "Best in Class" in the category for blue veined cheeses with exterior molding. The secret, according to Fly- nne Wiley, Chief Executive Offi- cer of Champignon North America, the exclusive importer of the cheese in the U.S, is the quality of the milk and the care- ful affinage by the cheesemakers. "It all starts with fresh milk and cream that comes from local farms in Bavaria. Cows in this region have ample room to graze – by law, farms must limit the number of cows to no more than two per hectare – and during the summer months are taken to high elevations to graze on alpine grasses. The low-stress lifestyle and nutrient rich diet results in high quality milk that in turn creates ex- cellent cheese texture and flavor." Cambozola Black Label has elegant blue marbling and a gray exterior mold- ing, unique among soft ripened cheeses today. This gray mold is actually a natu- ral characteristic of Penicillium camem- berti, the surface mold commonly used to make soft ripened cheeses, but largely abandoned by cheesemakers in favor of the white bloomy variety that is the norm today. Cambozola Black Label was among one of 3,402 cheeses that had been entered in the 2018 World Cham- pionship Cheese contest, organized by the Wisconsin Cheese Maker's Associa- tion. The contest, held in Madison, Wis- consin in early March, gathered the world's top judges to taste cheeses from 27 different countries. In addition to the top honor of Best in Class, Käserei Champignon also took home a second place award for its Rougette Bavarian Red cheese in the open category for soft-ripened cheeses and a third place award for Champignon Mushroom in the open class for flavored soft-ripened cheeses. "The cheese makers at Käserei Champignon are truly masters in the art of cheese production and innovation," Flynne notes. "The awards Käserei Champignon has won over the years is certainly recog- nition of excellence in their craft." Käserei Champignon is an award-win- ning cheese maker with over 100 years of tradition of cheese-making with quality milk from the Bavarian Alps region in Germany. Since the early 1980s Champignon North America, Inc. is the import, sales and marketing arm of Käserei Champignon in the U.S., with North American headquarters located in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, just min- utes away from New York City. GN

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