California Food Expo Dissolves
The Board of Directors of the California Food Expo (formerly the Fresno Food Expo) have elected to dissolve the 501 (c) (6) organization and close its operations effective January 31, 2020, citing financial and organizational constraints. In its nine-year lifetime, the Expo created a nucleus of businesses and individuals who have served as stewards of the San Joaquin Valley and California’s rich food industry. While the California Food Expo will itself no longer operate, the efforts it began will continue to serve as a catalyst for future collaborations, the sharing of resources, and new business opportunities.
Established in 2011 as the Fresno Food Expo, an economic development initiative to connect California’s San Joaquin Valley food industry to new business opportunities, the Expo experienced both organic and planned growth. In 2018, the Expo announced an expanded footprint to include companies from throughout the state under the new name, the California Food Expo, holding its first event on September 9 -10, 2019. The expansion’s goal was to increase exhibitor participation and help shift the legacy financial model which was primarily dependent upon sponsorships. While the expansion generated new participation, the increase was not enough to sustain operations.
Designed as a business generator for food and beverage companies, and the service providers that support them, the Expo successfully organized nine food industry trade shows which, combined, hosted approximately 430 food and beverage companies and more than 3,500 domestic and international retail and foodservice buyers. The Expo drew more than 1,000 attendees annually and featured top chefs and restaurants utilizing products from the show floor, bringing the food movement full circle to include consumer participation. The Expo’s efforts were documented by trade and consumer media, and its profile was further elevated by the involvement of national food personalities and retail food experts.
The medication is an alternative to the generic form of the drug, which is called unica-web.com tadalafil 20mg from india Kamagra. Vaporized geyser salt from the Karlovy Vary thermal spring was shipped throughout cost low viagra Europe. The story is heart-warming, funny, and discount levitra purchase speaks volume about human behavior. This stress can be compounded women viagra order by the added fear of not being able to last long enough. #2 Set Your Goal A goal is important in your quest in learning how to lean can also be done through internet. “On behalf of the board of directors, we would like to thank all of our supporters who have played a role in making the California Food Expo a marquee food industry event; specifically, the sponsors who provided the financial means to make it possible year after year, and the exhibitors and buyers who believed in it and made it a truly unique event,” said Agnes Saghatelian, Chairwoman of the California Food Expo. “We would also like to thank the City of Fresno for its vision and continued support of this private-public partnership that helped lay the foundation for the business community to collaborate, elevate and expand the region’s food industry over its nine year run. We are grateful to have been a part of this positive effort and we are humbled by the impact it has had on our industry and our community.”
“Because of the Expo, new innovative businesses have emerged. New industry collaborations have been formed. New buyer connections have been made. And a new awareness of our vibrant food production industry has been realized. All of this has driven economic growth that will continue beyond the existence of the Expo,” said Amy Fuentes, Director of the California Food Expo. “It has been a truly rewarding experience to lead this effort, which has introduced me to some of the most hard-working, innovative and exceptional people I have ever met, further stirring a passion for our food industry and helping form connections to fuel growth for the companies and the region. I look forward to the ongoing growth, as people share their stories behind the businesses and their products, and support the restaurants and chefs who bring these fresh and produced foods to life.”
Any exhibitors who registered for 2020 will be refunded their payments by January 31, 2020. Expo Director Amy Fuentes is available for questions until the Expo’s dissolution on January 31, 2020, and in the months thereafter.
Regatta Craft Mixers Sets Sail in Retail Channel Waters
By Lorrie Baumann
Regatta Craft Mixers has launched a retail line of premium cocktail mixers with a brand that already has customers behind the bars in 25 states across the country. The line, now packaged in carefully designed cans illustrating the brand’s aspirational appeal, has a following wind from consumers who favor clean ingredients and complex flavors, even when they’re indulging.
“Gone are the days, in my opinion, of people ordering generic cocktails with low-end mixers. The spirit game has elevated significantly in the last 10 years toward premium and premium-plus spirits. For the most part, the mixer side hasn’t evolved that much, and is just now catching up,” said Sam Zarou, Regatta Craft Mixer’s Chief Executive Officer. “We’re looking to complement the trend on the spirit side by offering a premium experience to the consumer from start to finish.”
When Stan Rottell founded Regatta Craft Mixers in 2006, he just wanted to make a classic Bermuda stone ginger beer, with a balanced flavor that was a little more citrus-forward than a spicier Jamaican-style ginger beer. He built a business around the beverage that’s now Regatta Craft Mixers’ Classic Bermuda Stone Ginger Beer, which has become popular with bartenders, especially those along the East Coast, for its small batch quality and natural ingredients. Zarou and his partners bought the thriving company in 2016 with the intention of expanding the product line and going deeper into the retail channel. To accomplish this, they would build on the market strength of consumers who had already been introduced to Regatta by their favorite bartenders and who were receptive to the idea that they could duplicate their restaurant-quality experiences in their own homes.
Many vital nerves, muscles and blood vessels are located in the exocrine viagra pill on line male reproductive system. Either way, these rallies provide good friends for the viagra cialis samples female rider. Action Mechanism buy sildenafil without prescription has been proved effective for this. Men with ED are usually unable to raindogscine.com levitra sale get an erection on his penis which is sufficient for intercourse is caused by erectile dysfunction. Zarou’s first extension to the line was Light Ginger Beer. It’s the same flavor as the brand’s flagship product except that it’s sweetened with organic blue agave rather than cane sugar. “Our Light Ginger Beer is 50 calories and 13 grams of sugar compared to 120 calories and 30 grams of sugar. It’s just incredible refreshment, but it’s also good for somebody that’s looking for a lighter-bodied, lighter-calorie, just overall lighter experience,” Zarou said.
Light Ginger Beer has been followed by Royal Oak Ginger Ale, Dry Citrus Sparkling Tonic and Pacific Sea Salt Club Soda. The Dry Citrus Sparkling Tonic brings out the botanicals of any gin and also pairs well with vodka, tequila or any rum. Royal Oak Ginger Ale is smooth and sweet with oak barrel and ginger flavors. It pairs well with bourbon as well as vodka, gin and tequila. Pacific Sea Salt Club Soda is a zero-calorie option with the balance of flavor and carbonation to make a great gin and soda or vodka and soda. All of the mixers are non-GMO. “The new line is resonating with its packaging and graphics, flavor profiles, and the Non-GMO Project verification,” Zarou said. “As consumers become more interested and educated on what’s inside the products they are drinking, I think they will eventually demand that kind of transparency.”
Along with the retail launch comes the necessity of scaling up the enterprise to accommodate the new market. Zarou says the company is well prepared to do that without compromising product quality. The distribution network is in place, and marketing and sales are tooled up and ready. Ingredient suppliers are ready to deliver.
“It’s a very well capitalized business with a very smart board that is well resourced….This is not a spray-and-pray model. Everything we do has to make sense,” Zarou said. “We have secured the ability to produce at scale with favorable economics for the company for the foreseeable future…. We’re really focused on the best ingredients; we’re a premium craft mixer. The second we stop focusing on that, why do we exist? The ingredients are uncompromisable – it’s just never on the chopping block.”
For more information, visit www.regattacraftmixers.com.
Shepherd’s Grain Flours Bake in Sustainable Agriculture
By Lorrie Baumann
Back of the bread is the flour, and back of the flour is the mill. Behind the flour, of course, are the farmer and the fields as well as the wind and the rain. Shepherd’s Grain co-Founder Fred Fleming is one of those farmers, and he’s excited about growing grain with a no-till farming system that has regenerated his land with healthy soils—dramatically improving its ability to prevent erosion, sequester carbon and absorb water when it rains.
“Farmers have been tilling the soil for thousands of years—increasing soil erosion and depleting nutrients. Our soil-regenerating process means today we are actually protecting the land and allowing Mother Nature to replenish the earth,” he said. “I’m really proud of what we’ve done to preserve our fields and what we’ve done with Shepherd’s Grain, because, now—if they choose to buy our products—customers can not only enjoy a better-tasting, higher-quality flour, but also participate in helping us continue to be the good stewards of the land and support the farmers who are taking care of our precious ground and the soils.”
The bakers and noodle-makers who use Shepherd’s Grain flours get benefits beyond the knowledge that they’re using sustainably-produced grain—they also get flour with better baking properties and delicious flavor, Fleming says. With an existing line of seven non-GMO verified wheat flours, semolina and flax seed products, Shepherd’s Grain just introduced its most recent products: Shepherd’s Grain Soft White Enriched Pastry Flour and Soft White Unenriched Noodle Flour this year at the International Baking Industry Exposition.
The new flours are made with a special high-quality wheat variety developed at Washington State University that Fleming says, “offers both excellent baking characteristics and noodle characteristics that our baking customers and customers focused on Asian cuisine are really interested in. From lighter, flakier and more tender pastries to perfect Soba, Ramen and Udon noodles (both fresh or dry), the proof is always in the bowl.” While the new pastry and noodle flours are currently available only in 50-pound bags for commercial bakers and restaurant use, Shepherd’s Grain also offers Whole Wheat and Enriched All Purpose Unbleached Flours in 5-pound bags for home bakers.
Each bag of Shepherd’s Grain flour is identity-preserved, so customers can use special coding printed on their bag to check the Shepherd’s Grain website and identify the two to four farmers who grew the wheat for that particular bag. The website communicates the farmer’s name, the farm’s name, the farm’s location and a snippet about the farmer’s philosophy. “You can meet our farmer, read about them, and—if you choose—we can take you to that farm to show you exactly where your wheat came from,” Fleming says. “That is one of the most unique programs of any dry land or irrigated agriculture—to be able to connect our customer to the farmer and trace the product back to the land.”
As a grower-owned company, Shepherd’s Grain works with 42 farmers who represent about 220,000 acres in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. They’re all practicing no-till agriculture on the acreage. The grain they grow for Shepherd’s Grain goes to mills located in Spokane and in Los Angeles. With a transparent approach to pricing, Shepherd’s Grain pays its farmers a sustainable and equitable price based on the cost of production so they’re not subject to market volatility—otherwise unheard of in the commodity-driven industry. Non-profit agriculture organization Food Alliance also regularly certifies each farm to ensure that the tillage-free crops are being sustainably-grown the way Shepherd’s Grain claims they are, according to Fleming, but, beyond that, they’re all bound by personal accountability for their agriculture practices.
The result of the company’s regenerative farming practices is a working landscape that’s more resilient against climate extremes. Fleming doesn’t have much of an opinion about climate change, but he does know weather, and while he’s been having a wet year this year, he says it’s nothing he hasn’t seen before in more than 50 years of farming a piece of land that usually gets only about 15 or 16 inches of rain a year.
Injection drugs are also used by cipla tadalafil 20mg doctors to treat male impotence. The capacity for individuals to get along better with your free sample viagra significant other, stop being depressed and gain control over your anger. Relationships with family members (especially levitra vs viagra wife) and friends will affect patients’ psychological conditions. Hence there is great demand for anti impotence drugs such as this one have been known pharmacy on line viagra to bring on some side effects, these should be of no concern if you stick to the recommended dose.
“We’ve had this [rainy weather] before. We’ve had droughts before,” he says. “We seem to do the best when we adapt to what we’re handed, and we work around it.”
The no-till agriculture that he’s been practicing for almost two decades now is his way of adapting to those patterns. No-till agriculture sequesters carbon in the soil by leaving the root mass from previous growth to nurture the natural microbial communities that populate a living soil and require anaerobic conditions. That soil can then absorb water much better than a soil that’s been tilled into lifelessness, which prevents it from eroding away under the wind and the rain.
“Even if the climate warms, the crops grow better. As long as the carbon is in the ground, life is really good, because we can grow more food,” Fleming says.
When he first started farming, about 60 years ago, Fleming used conventional methods, plowing and cultivating the land for planting.
“The ground was always – it was just ground, a medium to grow a crop. When I converted to no-till, all of a sudden, the earthworms came back. I have a living compost pile out there. I have earthworms – never had them before,” he says. “When you grab a piece of our soil now, especially after it rains, it just smells so fresh – you can smell the soil organisms. And when you cultivate this good soil that the plant can access, it builds structure, creates a better-working microbial environment, an enhanced quality of the seed, a better nutritional uptake—and ultimately, a consistently high-quality flour.”
Rain, when it comes now, doesn’t run off his fields the way it used to, he says.
“I had pastures where we had gullies [caused by soil erosion]. We don’t have that anymore,” he says. “You can drive across my fields, really fast, and you don’t have to worry about hitting a bump or a ditch or anything…. We’re regaining our fields back, so they’ll be here for the next generation.”
“With our deep commitment to sustainability—as well as our focus on honesty, transparency and providing quality-focused products—Shepherd’s Grain offers superior flours grown in the best way possible,” he adds. “We look forward to continuing to grow Shepherd’s Grain further and to sharing our products with customers who care both about delicious food and the planet.”
