US Foods to Open Fourth Foodservice Store
US Foods Holding Corp. will open a CHEF’STORE in Spartanburg, S.C. Located at 300 W. Blackstock Road, the 33,000-square-foot foodservice store will join three existing locations across South Carolina.
CHEF’STORE is a one-stop-shop for restaurant operators, food industry professionals, community groups and at-home chefs to stock up or replenish ingredients and supplies in various sizes and offerings. The store will offer more than 4,000 restaurant-quality products at competitive prices, including fresh meat, produce, dairy, deli items and frozen seafood. Customers will also be able to shop for baking ingredients, beverages, catering essentials, janitorial supplies and other restaurant essentials. CHEF’STORE is open to the public seven days a week and no membership is required.
The three existing locations are in Charleston, Myrtle Beach and Columbia. The new Spartanburg foodservice store is scheduled to open in Fall 2022.
US Foods acquired Smart Foodservice Warehouse stores in April 2020 to accelerate growth in the cash and carry market and rebranded all Smart Foodservice Warehouse stores to US Foods CHEF’STORE in February of 2021. With the addition of the Spartanburg location, US Foods will have 83 CHEF’STORE locations across the continental United States.
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Lifeway Foods Expands Humanitarian Efforts for Ukraine Relief
Lifeway bottle proceeds benefit Ukraine relief.
Lifeway Foods, U.S. supplier of kefir and fermented probiotic products to support the microbiome, continues to stand with the people of Ukraine by expanding humanitarian relief efforts to support those in need. Building on the company’s ongoing efforts, Lifeway will release a specially marked charity relief bottle with 100 percent of profits going toward humanitarian aid for Ukraine relief with a commitment of up to $1 million.
Lifeway has spearheaded several fundraisers, including the recent Chicago Chefs Cook for Ukraine presented by Lifeway, which raised $700,000 for World Central Kitchen, founded by Chef José Andrés. The fundraiser brought together 73 of Chicago’s top chefs for a tasting event to raise funds for Ukrainian relief. Lifeway is also currently working with the Consulate General of Ukraine in Chicago, US-Ukraine logistics companies, local European Consulates, as well as countless volunteers to get vital donations to Ukraine.
“Lifeway was founded with a mission to bring an ancient Slavic superfood, kefir, to the U.S. It afforded my family the opportunity to participate in the American dream, fulfill entrepreneurial aspirations and pursue basic human freedoms,” said CEO Julie Smolyansky, a former refugee from Kyiv. “We, as a company, are devoted and committed to supporting humanitarian efforts and providing aid for those in need, including relatives of Lifeway employees that have been directly impacted. The courage of the Ukrainian people is an inspiration to us all and we are proud to support those impacted as long as necessary to help recover and restore wholeness.”
As a staple product in Ukraine and one of Lifeway’s customer favorites, Lifeway’s Plain Whole Milk Kefir will be offered as a special charity relief item and is anticipated to be available beginning in June.
“We are grateful for our many retail and distribution partners for their enthusiastic response in bringing this special product to shelves across the United States and for their commitment to stand with the people of Ukraine,” said Smolyansky.
For further information on Lifeway’s efforts or to donate to Ukraine relief, please visit: https://lifewaykefir.com/ukraine.
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Smallhold Opens First LA County Indoor Mushroom Farm
In May, Smallhold will begin delivering locally grown, USDA Certified Organic specialty mushroom varieties s to Southern California from its 34,000 square foot facility in Los Angeles County. This West Coast expansion, alongside existing farms in Brooklyn and Austin, furthers the 5-year-old company’s mission to build a hyper-local solution to a broken global food supply chain.
Smallhold is launching in more than 90 stores, including Whole Foods, Erewhon and Lassen’s. Southern California customers will also be able to order Smallhold mushrooms online via ecommerce players Good Eggs, Imperfect Foods and others. Acclaimed restaurant Kismet, known for celebrating fresh and vegetable-based Mediterranean-inspired dishes, is officially Smallhold’s first culinary partner in Los Angeles.
With the opening of this newest farm in Vernon – less than a mile outside of downtown Los Angeles – Smallhold now operates four commercial farms across the United States for a total footprint of more than 75,000 square feet. The goal is to not only to feed more than 2 million people in 2022, but to use mushrooms to change the way people think about their environment, sustainability and biodiversity.
When COVID first took hold of the country in 2020, Smallhold was on the shelf in a single grocery store in Brooklyn, N.Y. Now, Smallhold can be found in approximately 400 retailers and restaurants, including Whole Foods, Safeway-Albertsons, Central Market, and top restaurants including Mena, 232 Bleeker, Hungry House, and Maison Yaki in New York City as well as Uchi, Comedor, and Intero in Austin. This growth has been driven by consumer demand for lower impact, cleaner, better for you produce that will help our society deal with the impacts of traditional agriculture and climate change, the company said.
“This is a huge step for Smallhold, a business we founded five years ago inside a shipping container under the Williamsburg Bridge,” said Andrew Carter, CEO and co-founder. “Having grown up in Los Angeles myself, it’s exciting to bring our mushrooms to my environmentally conscious, culinary-focused hometown.”
Smallhold brings increased choice to consumers by growing harder to find mushroom varieties including organic lion’s mane, blue oyster, yellow oyster, king oyster and more. The average U.S. mushroom case is dominated by button, crimini and portobellos, ignoring an entire kingdom of texture, flavor, and nutrition, the company said.
By building hyper-urban farms in key regions and exclusively using compostable cardboard packaging, Smallhold reduces food miles traveled, improves mushroom quality and extends shelf life – all while drastically reducing carbon footprint, food waste and plastic usage. In comparison, 68 percent of mushrooms consumed in the United States are grown and shipped from Pennsylvania. Almost all Shiitake mushrooms are grown off logs originating outside of the United States, the company said.
“Educating and sparking curiosity about mushrooms is an integral part of our mission,” Carter said. “We want people to ask where their food comes from, think about their diet, and reconnect with the planet. This means installing our Minifarms in unexpected places like The Standard Hotel, or having Smallhold mushrooms on the menu at places like Eleven Madison Park — all while concurrently placing locally grown packaged mushrooms in grocery stores across the nation. We want people to have multiple touchpoints and opportunities to taste delicious, quality mushrooms.”
Smallhold’s indoor farms use proprietary systems to create optimal conditions for organic mushroom growth while ensuring maximum efficiency of water and energy usage. A patented system captures hundreds of thousands of data points per day, giving them the ability to imitate natural environments. This results in higher organic mushroom yields, lower resource use and allows a certified organic, hyperclean, efficient operation. Smallhold mushrooms also grow off byproducts from the lumber industry (mostly sawdust) and then 100% of spent substrate is composted or donated.
Smallhold has composted more than 2 million pounds of spent substrate. The goal is to compost 8 million pounds by the end of the year. Additionally, the Smallhold Community Compost Program provides spent substrate for free to the public through partnerships with community growers, hobby mycologists, compost enterprises, farmers, ranchers and others looking to celebrate fungi and build soil fertility through the power of mycelium.
In Los Angeles, Smallhold is part of a groundbreaking mycoremediation field study testing locally adapted and sustainable solutions for brownfield (AKA contaminated site) cleanup in L.A. County. Led by PhD candidate Danielle Stevenson at the University of California and in partnership with the City of Los Angeles, the study has been using Smallhold’s spent substrate blocks since December 2021, monitoring effects at contaminated sites including a former rail yard, auto shop, metal shop, and others. The results could reclaim contaminated land for future sustainable use and prove to have far reaching ramifications in the field of mycoremediation.
In Los Angeles County, Smallhold continues its practice of hiring locally, always paying above the living wage and partnering with regional non-profits and groups.
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