Sprout Organic and CROSSMARK Announce Partnership
Sprout Nutrition and CROSSMARK, Inc. announced a new nationwide partnership to bring organic whole foods to babies, toddlers and all family members. The partnership gives Sprout expanded category presence and broad access to retailers with consumer insight capabilities while broadening CROSSMARK’s presence within the baby and organic family snack categories.
With this agreement, Sprout is investing in proven capabilities that will drive growth of the Sprout brand nationally. Sprout gains a knowledgeable sales force with a solid track record in the organic space and access to more than 5,500 retail merchandisers across the country. Retailers will benefit from collaborative planning to bring dynamic innovation and category/shopper insights to the rapid growing organic segment of the baby category.
The partnership with CROSSMARK is an important part of a major new brand investment by Sprout, under new ownership of private equity firm North Castle Partners, and a new CEO, Rick Klauser, a 10-year veteran of Gerber. The brand revitalization was ignited earlier this year with a packaging graphic redesign, the launch of 15 new products and a major marketing investment to drive retailer and baby category growth. Sprout also plans to build on its momentum, by adding new items in the fall, including Sprout Smash, an organic fruit puree snack expanding the brand into the squeezable snack category. The improved speed-to-shelf capability will allow parents to find healthy, whole organic foods at their favorite retailers.
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“Securing national distribution and strong retailer partnerships are both strategic priorities for us. Our new relationship with CROSSMARK represents a significant building block to achieve this important milestone,” said Rick Klauser, CEO of Sprout. “Organic baby food is a Millennial mom’s expectation for what’s best for her baby. Parents are setting a higher bar for product quality and clean, honest, labeling. It’s no surprise that this would influence the expectations parents have for premium organic purees that we deliver through our honesty pledge: non-GMO, only whole fruits and vegetables (never concentrates, preservatives fillers or thickeners), and transparent labeling.”
“CROSSMARK is honored to work alongside Sprout as they continue to grow and set the standard in organics. Our analytics capabilities and retail representation across the country will help Sprout drive an increasing presence nationwide as they bring ‘real, honest and pure’ products to market and give parents increasing confidence in their choices,” said Steve Schuckenbrock, CEO of CROSSMARK. “This partnership is a win- win.”
Artisanal Cheese Partnership Springboards Creativity for Cabot Creamery
By Lorrie Baumann
Cabot Creamery’s partnership with Cellars at Jasper Hill won an American Cheese Society first-place award for Cabot Clothbound Cheddar Select and another first place for Cabot Clothbound Cheddar last July and now is inspiring new Cabot Creamery cheeses created for distribution in mainstream grocers, says Craig Gile, New Product Manager for Cabot Creamery.
The recipe for the clothbound cheddars was developed jointly by Cabot Creamery food scientists and Cellars at Jasper Hill Cheesemaker Mateo Kehler and was designed to make a cheese with a sweet, nutty finish. Cabot Creamery’s large production capacity made it possible to produce large quantities of the cheese – as much as 5,000 pounds a month, depending on market demand, which peaks during the winter holiday season. The cheese is aged for a few months at Cabot Creamery and then sent over to The Cellars at Jasper Hill for affinage, packaging and eventual sale to specialty cheese shops, where it fetches around $25 a pound for wheels aged 12 to 14 months. The difference in scale between the two companies means that while Cabot Creamery can make massive amounts of cheddar cheese for the mass market and take advantages of the economies of scale that come with that kind of production, which depends a great deal on consistency, The Cellars at Jasper Hill can take a small percentage of that product and lavish a great deal of attention on it to produce a product that commands a premium price for its uniqueness. Cabot Creamery also gains access to the artisanal cheese market as well as the cachet of having its name on award-winning cheeses sought after by cheesemongers. “Not only do we get a link to that artisanal cheese world, it gives Cabot the reputation that we’re able to make the artisanal cave-aged product as well,” Gile said.
As the partnership has prospered, though, it’s had some additional effects as Gile, who moved over from managing Cabot’s warehousing and grading to new product development, has had the chance to share knowledge with Jasper Hill Cheesemakers Mateo and Andy Kehler. “We’re each pursuing different areas of what we’re trying to do, and we’ve learned a lot from them,” Gile said. “We’re getting a lot of insight into what the artisanal base is looking for and finding paths to the customers that shop at these cheese shops.”
“I really like what that whole cheese shop environment brings to us,” he continued. “It’s a place to launch new cheeses, to get honest feedback about what you’re working on, to get their feedback from customers…. What I like about the cheesemonger role is that we have people selling it who have passion about the product and can tell the story about it. It’s another challenge for us to come up with products that are exciting…. You have to convince cheesemongers that you have an exciting, interesting, and high-end product.”
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The Cabot Creamery Founder’s Collection includes Cabot Private Stock, which has the familiar tang of the New England-style cheddar that consumers expect from Cabot Creamery but with a stronger Northeastern bite to it.
Adirondack is made in the New York facility acquired with the 2003 acquisition of McCadam Cheese Company by Agri-Mark, the dairy farmer cooperative behind Cabot Creamery. Aged 1.5 to two years, it’s similar to Cabot Private Stock but made with the McCadam original stock cheese with its tangier citrus bite that lends a unique flavor profile compared to Cabot’s Vermont cheddars.
Lamberton is similar to Cabot Clothbound Cheddar, except that it’s packaged in plastic rather than with cloth bindings. The name is a nod to one of Cabot’s original founding farmers, and the cheese has a buttery sweetness overlaying the traditional flavors of a strong yankee cheddar.
The last is Orne Meadows, which is completely different from most milk cheddars. It has powerful nutty notes redolent of a Grana-style Alpine cheese with a subtle New England sharpness to it. “That one, we don’t actually call it a cheddar on the package,” Gile said. “ We just say it’s a unique Vermont cheese.”
Dairy Farmers in Step with Local Food Movement
By Jorge Gonzalez-Garcia
Two California dairy farmers are finding a new way to turn the fluid milk they produce from a product they can sell at commodity prices into a gourmet product that commands a premium price from consumers eager to enhance their experience of food.
Noel Rosa and his brother, Rolland, own and operate Rosa Brothers Milk Co., based in Tulare, in the heart of the nation’s richest agricultural area. Rosa Brothers is very much a family operation, with seven members actively involved. The farm employs 35 workers, covers 600 acres, and manages a herd of about 1,000 Holstein dairy cows.
The Rosa family connection to this rich farmland goes back seven decades. “The farm was started by my grandfather in 1953, continued by my father, and now by my brother and I,” says the 47-year-old Rosa. “That’s a span of more than three generations that our family has been here working the farm and producing dairy products.”
In the fall of 2012, Noel and his brother took a big chance and built a creamery to produce and distribute specialty products like whole milk and flavored milk in glass, and premium ice cream. The idea was to distribute the products to local retailers. A small store was added next to the creamery for local visibility and direct sales.
The brothers made the move for a couple of reasons. One was in response to severe swings in commodity prices in 2009. “They can be very tough financially for a medium-sized dairy farm like ours,” Noel explains. “We needed to create more stability in terms of product, pricing and sales revenue.”
The other reason was the growth of the local food movement in his area. Rosa saw that it was picking up steam. “Our research showed that consumers preferred milk in glass bottles,” Rosa says. “They love the taste, they like that it comes from a local farm, and they support bottle recycling. What we’re doing is a natural extension of the growth of the farm to table movement right in our own area.”
A hundred miles to the northwest, in a small valley next to the river Merced near the town of Winton, lies PH Ranch, home of Top Line Milk Company. It used to be a working cattle ranch. Now it’s the dairy farm owned and operated by Paul van Warmerdam and his wife Sonya. They farm 860 acres, have 55 employees, and manage a herd of about 2,500 Holstein cows.
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Van Warmerdam and his wife had talked about expanding into premium dairy products in years past. Then came 2009, with wild swings in commodity prices. “2009 was a bad year,” he says. “We had record low milk prices and high feed prices, and a lot of people left the business.” That experience reinforced their goal of building a successful dairy business that could withstand fluctuations in the commodity market, and that they could leave to their children. Moving into specialty milk seemed like a creative way to do that.
They also considered glass bottles for their milk, but opted instead for white plastic bottles to reduce ultraviolet light exposure and extend shelf life. “We made that decision for a number of reasons,” says van Warmerdam. “We didn’t want to be the third or fourth glass milk bottle company. Also, we wanted to be able to sell into smaller convenience stores. The extra space needed to handle glass returns can be an issue. So those were all factors.”
Top Line Milk emphasizes its low and slow pasteurization process. “Low and slow is our slogan,” says van Warmerdam. “The milk comes out of our cow, we add the minimum of heat to meet pasteurization standards, and it goes into the bottle. It cannot be any fresher or tastier than that. And that was our goal from the beginning.”
Van Warmerdam is now looking to build out his distribution network. “We would like to grow regionally to the Bay Area, and then Sacramento and Fresno,” he says. “We’re in a niche market, so our rollout will be slow and strategic.” Closer to home, he plans to take advantage of traffic passing by his place by setting up a drive-through window for a couple of hours a day so customers can buy directly.
For Noel Rosa, wholesale growth has been solid. “In our first full year of creamery operations, we grew from zero to 70 retail outlets,” he says. “And we won new product of the year in 2013 at the Fresno Food Expo. That gave our sales a boost.” This year Rosa Brothers is selling product in 225 stores in its area.
Industry insiders do not see explosive growth for the specialty milk market, and they caution against unrealistic expectations. “We project slow, steady growth for this segment of the market,” says Murray Bain, Vice-President for Marketing at Stanpac, the large Canadian container manufacturer which supplies bottles to premium milk producers. A California Dairy Advisory Board report for 2015 shows that milk in glass bottles amounted to less than two percent of total sales for the entire state.
Noel Rosa understands the challenge of operating profitably in a niche market. And he takes the long view that as long as there are customers who prefer milk in glass, support the farm to table movement, and are willing to pay a little more for premium quality, he will have buyers for his products.
