Oscar Mayer Debuts ‘Cold Dog’ Frozen Pop
Oscar Mayer has debuted the first “Cold Dog,” a bun-derfully odd and surprisingly delicious frozen pop flavored like the beloved Oscar Mayer wiener.
Stemming from Oscar Mayer’s “Stupid or Genius” campaign – focused on all the wonderfully odd ways to enjoy the iconic wiener beyond grilling – the Cold Dog sparked a sizzling social media debate. While a cold hot dog may be polarizing, tens of thousands of fans relished the idea of a hot dog-flavored frozen pop and crowned the Cold Dog “genius,” so the brand made it a reality.
Oscar Mayer, a Kraft Heinz Company brand, is teaming up with Popbar, a premium frozen desserts company known for handcrafted gelato on-a-stick to create the Cold Dog, boasting both refreshing and smokey, umami notes of Oscar Mayer’s iconic wiener – all topped with a signature swirl of “mustard.”
Now available for just $2 at select Popbar locations, hot dog lovers can taste the frank-tastic new invention in Long Beach, New York City, Alpharetta-Atlanta and New Orleans while supplies last.
“After the overwhelming fan excitement for our beloved Cold Dog, it was a no-brainer to make this hot dog-inspired frozen pop a reality,” said Anne Field, Head of North American Brand Communications, Oscar Mayer. “For more than 130 years, Oscar Mayer has been sparking smiles and bringing levity into everyday moments, and we are thrilled to bring fans another wonderfully odd way to enjoy our iconic wiener while beating the summer heat.”
Oscar Mayer’s iconic 27-foot hot dog on wheels dons an icy makeover to sample Cold Dogs. Fittingly outfitted as a frozen pop truck, the Wienermobile features frosted windows, icicle-inspired decorations and more as it travels the hot dog highways to popular summertime destinations in NYC and the Jersey Shore now through August 27.
For more information and where to meat-up with the Wienermobile this week, visit OscarMayer.com and Oscar Mayer on Instagram.
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Standard Meat Promotes Tom Allen to Chief Operating Officer
Eight-year Standard Meat Company veteran Tom Allen is the new chief operating officer, said Ben Rosenthal, co-president and CEO of the Dallas-Fort Worth-based meat company.
Standard Meat is a family-owned meat processing and packaging company with plants in Dallas, Fort Worth, Saginaw and Ponder, Texas. The company is a global supplier of custom meat portioning and packaging solutions for the foodservice and retail industries.
“Tom has done an incredible job with our Saginaw facility,” said Rosenthal. “Beginning in 2014, he served as the vice president and general manager of the facility, during which sales have almost quadrupled. His experience led us to tremendous growth in Saginaw; now, his insight and vision will focus on our entire operation and not a single facility.”
As chief operating officer, Allen will oversee all company operations. His focus will ensure the facilities operate efficiently and effectively and are on track with Standard Meat’s strategic goals.
As part of senior leadership, Allen will lead the development of Standard Meat’s five-year strategic growth plan. He will ensure the company’s ongoing and future success across all facilities and within individual departments.
“Tom had extraordinary experience in the meat industry before joining us at Standard Meat Company,” said Ashli Rosenthal Blumenfeld, co-president. “He has worked in many of the most important meat-producing locations across North America. His stellar performance in Saginaw is only a preview of what he will do as chief operating officer.”
Before joining Standard Meat, Allen worked for Cargill, ultimately leading a pair of beef processing facilities. In those facilities, he supervised thousands of employees and oversaw harvesting as many as 6,000-head of cattle per day. Allen holds a bachelor of science in business degree from Oklahoma State University.
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Novel Farms Reveals First Marbled Cultivated Pork Loin
Novel Farms, Inc., a food technology startup based in Berkeley, Calif., has unveiled what it says is the first-ever marbled cultivated pork loin.
Cultivated meat is poised to help relieve the strain on our food system by providing a supply of animal protein while offering human health, environmental, and animal welfare benefitsm, according to the company.
While the vast majority of cultivated meat companies focus on making sausages or burgers, producing meat that mimics conventional meat cuts is currently extremely difficult — only a handful of companies in the world have been able to showcase pork or beef structured prototypes. Novel Farms now joins this select group by creating a cultivated pork loin that displays the marbling and texture of a real muscle cut.
Novel Farms solves the structuring problem by developing a proprietary microbial fermentation approach to produce low-cost, edible, and highly customizable scaffolds. Its tissue development platform gives an important and unique advantage by not only providing the company with the capability to structure meat from any animal species, but also doing it in a very cost-effective way.
While scaffolding biomaterials such as alginate need to undergo costly functionalization to ensure effective cell attachment, their scaffolding process completely bypasses this step, reducing production costs by 99.27 percent and thus accelerating the path to the commercialization of their products at price parity, accoring to the company.
The founder team, Nieves Martinez Marshall and Michelle Lu, met while working as postdoctoral scientists in the Molecular and Cell Biology department at the University of California at Berkeley prior to launching the company in 2020. Their combined experience of over 30 years in research was key in the ideation of an elegant and unique structuring approach for producing cultivated meat, which has been awarded a highly competitive grant from the National Science Foundation through the SmallBusiness Innovation Research (SBIR) Program (phase I) in 2021.
“Our goal is to accelerate the widespread adoption of cultivated meat and its benefits by producing ‘hard-to-resist’ whole muscle cuts,” said Marshall. “Therefore, we need to be able to fulfill consumer demand by delivering cultivated meat with the same fibrous texture and mouthfeel as conventional cuts from an animal.”
Novel Farms has raised $1.4 million in a pre-seed round with participation of Big Idea Ventures Joyance, Social Starts, Sustainable Food Ventures, Good Startup, CULT foods and strategic angel investors.
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