Community Enhances Cheese Experience for Marieke Gouda
By Lorrie Baumann
As the market for quality cheeses grows, cheesemakers like Marieke Penterman of Marieke Gouda depend on professional cheesemongers to continue educating their customers about the products in their cases. That’s particularly important if, as some cheesemakers say, the cheese market is not driven so much by a definition of “local” that depends solely on geography as it is by a definition of “local” that connotes a community of like-minded people who share a cultural context. It’s cheesemongers who tell the stories that communicate that cultural context to their customers, Penterman observes. “It’s fun to see the cheesemonger community grow and develop a passion for the cheeses. It’s a kind of community,” she says. “Those people are so essential to the food industry. They represent us in the stores, and they talk about us, and they pass on that passion for cheese. It’s just phenomenal.”
Penterman herself experiences that sense of community among those who appreciate fine cheeses, she says. “When you go to a food show, it’s always fun to see people enjoy it, and it’s so rewarding and encouraging in what you’re doing.”
The awards that Penterman has won at many of those food shows are permanent symbols of how much her cheeses are enjoyed. Since she started making cheese in 2006, Penterman’s company, Holland’s Family Cheese, has won more than 100 national and international awards, including awards for all of its Marieke Gouda varieties. She has recently added Marieke Gouda Honey Clover, Marieke Gouda Cranberry (seasonal) and Marieke Gouda Jalapeno to her line. Marieke Gouda Bacon is the very latest flavor in the line, made in collaboration with Nolechek’s Meats, a butcher that’s local to Marieke Gouda’s home in Thorp, Wisconsin.
“They have been phenomenal. They put our Gouda in their brats and their hot dogs, so we thought we’d put their bacon in our Gouda,” Penterman says. “Bacon Gouda is really phenomenal!”
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“It was so smelly in the house. I cooked the herbs in those days in our home kitchen,” she recalls. The simmering fenugreek smelled so bad that she changed her mind about adding it to her cheese, but then her husband, Rolf, suggested that she go ahead, give it a try and see how it turned out. “He doesn’t like to waste things,” Penterman says.
The cheese was aging when Penterman got a call from the Dairy Business Innovation Center to alert her to a 2007 competition. She picked a cheese to enter, and she asked one of her team members to pick a cheese. Rolf picked a third cheese, the Marieke Gouda Foenegreek. “Rolf picked the Foenegreek, and right away it won a gold award at the 2007 championship, so it was pretty cool,” Penterman says.
American consumers’ enthusiasm for Marieke Gouda and for Gouda cheeses in general is elevating both the availability and the quality of fine cheeses in the marketplace as cheesemakers improve their products to meet consumers’ expectations, Penterman says. “You can see the consumer starting to realize what good cheese is. Consumers are willing to spend a little extra to taste good cheese and to support local farmstead cheesemakers,” she says. “Overall cheese quality has improved. Flavor profiles are getting better. People are traveling and tasting cheeses and returning passionate about cheeses. I think that in general the quality for sure made a big jump in the last 10 years.”
GrandyOats: Simple Food from Real Granolas
By Lorrie Baumann
If you happen to see Aaron Anker tooling around at the wheel of a Volkswagen bus, don’t let good manners keep you from calling him a granola to his face. He won’t mind. “We are who we are,” he says. “We make granola, but we also drive our VW buses, and when you meet our staff, you’ll know why we have all been called granolas at some time in our life. We are authentic. We are who we say we are.”
Anker is a co-owner and Chief Granola Officer at GrandyOats, a Maine maker of organic cereals and snacks that’s just finished its third straight year with more than 25 percent annual growth. Over the past year, the company achieved 28 percent growth and made 1.2 million pounds of organic granola, trail mix and roasted nuts and generated $5.3 million in sales.
GrandyOats is also just settling into a state-of-the-art 100 percent solar powered facility that will make the company the first net zero food production facility in New England. The new facility is located in Hiram, Maine, where it’s adding 21 to the only 39 jobs currently existing in the town of Hiram. “We are literally in the mountains, in the hills of Maine, way off the beaten path…. One of the things that’s happening in rural New England is that there isn’t much economic growth and people are migrating to the cities. A lot of these towns don’t have much going on,” Anker says. “We really enjoy being able to employ people. We get people who are excited to join us, who are excited to be part of the company…. We’re helping the community grow. It’s a really nice feeling.”
Anker joined the company in 2000 after co-owner and Head Honcho, Nat Peirce, a college friend from the University of New Hampshire bought the company and invited him to join the partnership. The two have pursued their goals of creating a healthy, good place for people to work and keeping the organic integrity of their products. Their ownership of the company and a strategy of gradual growth and reinvestment in the business frees them from having to meet investor goals as well, Anker says.
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When GrandyOats outgrew its previous facility and Anker and Peirce went looking for new premises that would allow them to fulfill a dream of powering their operations with solar energy, they were fortunate to find a disused elementary school made available by consolidation of the local school district. The 8.5-acre site included more than an acre of space where the students used to play soccer and kickball and that’s now used as the site for 288 solar panels that are expected to produce an average of 95.622 kilowatt hours of electricity annually. That’s enough to offset 145,000 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions each year. “We looked at all the different options for space, including some that would have required cutting down trees, but that wasn’t the granola thing to do,” Anker says. “Revitalizing an old building was.”
Everything in the new building is powered with solar electricity, including the ovens, the forklifts, the heating and cooling. “We won’t have any petroleum on premises at all,” Anker says. “We’re really excited about it, and we’re the first food production facility in New England to do that.”
With its new plant, the company is ready to expand its distribution into additional retailers in California, Arizona and Nevada under the leadership of a new Western U.S. Account Manager, Becky LaFord. GrandyOats is already being sold in the South Pacific region of Whole Foods, and the product line is doing well in independent natural food stores and co-ops as well as Hannaford, Wegmans and MOM’s Organic Markets. All of those retailers are good partners for the brand, which does best when it’s in the hands of retailers who care about the integrity of the products they sell, value transparency about how the products are made and are willing to educate customers to help them make good decisions, Anker says.
GrandyOats is also offered in 75 college and university dining halls. “It’s been really a fun segment for us,” Anker says. “It helps universities communicate their commitment to healthy, quality offerings they can feel good about. It’s been positive for the schools, the students, and has helped grow our business and brand.”
The company’s product line comprises more than 40 SKUs of trail mixes, granolas, roasted nuts, and hot cereals. The Classic Granola has 11 ingredients. The trail mixes generally have seven or eight. Those ingredients don’t include either refined sugars, canola oil or corn. “With our granolas, you’re never going to find any refined sugar. We only sweeten with honey, maple syrup, fruit juice and agave. We use fruits and nuts and wholesome grains,” Anker says. “For instance, our Instant Oatmeal Cup: Why make something simple like oatmeal complicated? Organic oats, cranberries, raisins and apples – delicious oatmeal with 35 percent fruit. You can add whatever milk you want, whatever sweetener you want. That’s our philosophy – pure, clean food, 100 percent organic…. We make good, clean food. We don’t think it needs to be overly complicated.”
Specialty Food Producer High on Hemp
By Greg Gonzales
When it comes to hemp-based foods, no company has been as close to the frontier as Manitoba Harvest. With its beginnings in the legalization of hemp in Canada, the company focuses on providing quality hemp foods and consumer education, and incorporates sustainability and forward thinking into its daily operations.
After hemp foods helped him lose weight and gain energy as a teen, CEO and Co-founder Mike Fata started Manitoba Hemp Alliance, a pro-hemp advocacy group that helped legalize hemp in Canada. Once the legislation passed in 1998, he and his partners began Manitoba Harvest Hemp Foods, helping to open the doors to an entirely new market and set the standard for the industry.
Manitoba Harvest products are all made from hemp hearts. These shelled hemp seeds have a somewhat nutty flavor, rich and creamy with a taste like sunflower seeds or pine nuts, and the versatility of the food makes it an easy addition to lax and rigorous diets, and everywhere beyond and between. Manitoba Harvest raw hemp hearts and hemp oil can be added to cereals, ice cream and salads. And the hemp heart bars make a convenient and healthy snack for kids, commuters, hikers or anyone on the go. The bars come in chocolate, vanilla and apple-cinnamon flavors to please multiple palates.
Food sourcing can get difficult when finding a seller, with a lot of questions about quality, contamination and farming practices, but Manitoba Harvest is the largest vertically integrated hemp foods producer. The company grows, manufactures and sells its own product lines, so it has control over product quality from seed to shelf and is the largest hemp seed contractor worldwide. In 2012, the company’s manufacturing facility received British Retail Consortium’s Global Standards Certification, and the products are also certified organic, GMO-free and all-natural.
The company is also a certified B Corporation, meaning Manitoba Harvest is held to higher standards of social and environmental performance, along with transparency and accountability. That includes taking good care of the team: All employees are paid 20 percent more than living wages, with bonus eligibility. On the sustainability side, 75 percent of the company’s printed materials use sustainable materials while half the energy used in corporate offices comes from renewable sources. The company also educates farmers about hemp’s potential, and encourages them to grow more hemp acres, which continues its efforts to spread the word about hemp foods.
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The buzz around hemp-based foods has been about their dense nutritional value, along with taste. A single 30-gram serving provides 10 grams of plant protein, 10 grams of omegas and only three grams of carbohydrates. Hemp hearts also provide iron and vitamin E. Their high nutrition puts them in the superfoods category, even surpassing chia and flax.
Not a lot of consumers are familiar with hemp foods beyond what they know about hemp fibers and psychoactive varieties of the cannabis plant. According to Kelly Saunderson, Manager of Corporate and Public Affairs, the best strategy is to let people try hemp foods for themselves. To prove it, Manitoba Harvest sent out 2 million samples. While attending various trade shows, Saunderson said she’s noticed a before-and-after kind of reaction to trying hemp hearts.
“You pour them in a sample cup, in their hand, and they get this look on their face,” she said. “You can kind of see the transformation on their face; they like it.”
With the company’s December acquisition of Hemp Oil Canada, Saunderson said to expect further company growth in coming years, along with new and delicious hemp food products.
To learn more about Manitoba Harvest and hemp heart products, go to manitobaharvest.com or call 1.800.655.HEMP.
