Gourmet News

Newport Avenue Market Joins in Donating Peanut Butter for Kids

Published June 17, 2024

Some things are better together: peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter and chocolate…and peanut butter and children. It’s true: for growing bodies, peanut butter provides a whopping eight grams of protein per serving and acts as the main building block for strong muscles, bones and immune systems. But for students facing food insecurity, separated from reliable, low-/no-cost school-year meal programs, summer can be a time of hunger. Further, area food banks regularly run low on this precious and nutritious commodity.

Enter Newport Avenue Market and Kendall Auto Group, who stirred up a plan to blow the lid off their annual peanut butter donations to NeighborImpact—Central Oregon’s longtime nonprofit that supports neighbors in need of food, housing and other resources. An area-wide call to action mobilized generous shoppers and Kendall Auto Group patrons, and organizers collected a remarkable 9,700 jars of golden goodness—over 1,500 more containers than last year which, frankly, is just…nuts. A lot of nuts.

“No one wants to think of kids going hungry, especially during summertime, when life should be most carefree. But the old adage about many hands making light work is true; coming together, we were able to accomplish even more,” said Lauren G.D. Redman, CEO & president, Newport Avenue Market. “Having a dedicated, community-minded partner like Kendall Auto Group, plus many mission-focused neighbors, helped us make this enormous donation of a much-needed commodity. We’re always grateful to be a part of this annual event and are already planning on how to break the 10,000-jar mark next year.”

Some might say that’s spreading it on a little thick, but Redman and her community cohorts are committed to ensuring the sweetness of summer for area students who need it most—one sandwich at a time.

Located on the west end of beautiful Bend, Oregon, and locally owned since 1976, Newport Ave. Market serves as the food hub of Central Oregon, offering shoppers both mainstream and specialty grocery options, all in a vibrant environment. Their expansive selection of high-quality, in-demand food and beverage items keeps shoppers on their toes. The store employs over 180 “internal foodies,” and is 100% employee owned.

With an atmosphere where people in the community come together for all things food, not to mention a selection of over 500 brews to choose from, Newport Avenue Market has become the food hub of Central Oregon. For more information about Newport Avenue Market, please call 541-382-3940 or visit www.newportavemarket.com.

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Amcor Launches Bottles of the Year Program

Published June 10, 2024

Amcor, a global leader in developing and producing responsible packaging solutions, launched its Bottles of the Year program. Annually, Amcor Rigid Packaging Bottles of the Year will recognize the best in innovative and responsible packaging designs that meet the latest trends in consumer preferences in the beverage, spirits & wine, food & dairy, home & personal care and healthcare segments.

“We are excited to launch the Bottles of the Year program and celebrate the best in packaging design,” said Terry Patcheak, vice president of R&D, sustainability and project management at Amcor Rigid Packaging. “Our designers are constantly pushing the boundaries of what is possible with packaging, and we are proud to highlight their work through this program. With Bottles of the Year, our goal is to inspire and empower consumers, manufacturers, brands, and enthusiasts with elegant, thoughtful, and responsible packaging designs.”

Amcor’s designers and product engineers are known for their innovative problem-solving and ability to create features consumers and brands want – especially in a world that’s increasingly focused on responsible packaging. The bottle concepts featured in the Bottles of the Year program highlight eye-catching designs that cater to evolving consumer preferences and incorporate the latest technology in polyethylene terephthalate plastic to deliver a more responsible packaging choice.

A collection of five bottle designs, the Bottles of the Year are ready to be refined for commercialization. The designs highlight stand-out innovative packaging opportunities for brands in the beverage, spirits & wine, food & dairy, home & personal care, and healthcare industries. In addition to the specific design attributes, this year’s bottles have been thoughtfully created to deliver on key consumer trends including empowerment, simplification, value, identity and connection.

“The bottles featured in this inaugural release were designed to address some of the most pressing customer and consumer concerns,” Patcheak added. “For example, the bottle designed for the beverage segment is for our hot fill customers who have been waiting for a rib-less option all enabled through Amcor’s PowerPost base technology. Our spirits & wine bottle features Quantum technology in a 375 ml Nordic shape. Our designers carefully crafted a bottle for both customers that is easily distributed in multipacks thanks to a unique inner-locking design feature.”

The bottle designs featured in the Bottles of the Year program are the result of cross-functional collaboration among marketing, industrial design – ScorCreative the in-house studio design team – and product development. Individuals from these teams came together to fuse their cutting-edge ideas into innovative concepts that break through traditional norms, reaffirming Amcor as the industry leader in packaging innovation.

For more information about the Bottles of the Year program, please visit www.amcor.com/bottles-of-the-year.

Amcor is a global leader in developing and producing responsible packaging solutions across a variety of materials for food, beverage, pharmaceutical, medical, home and personal-care, and other products. Amcor works with leading companies around the world to protect their products and the people who rely on them, differentiate brands, and improve supply chains through a range of flexible and rigid packaging, specialty cartons, closures, and services.

The company is focused on making packaging that is increasingly lighter weight, recyclable and reusable, and made using an increasing amount of recycled content. In fiscal year 2023, 41,000 Amcor people generated $14.7 billion in annual sales from operations that span 218 locations in 41 countries.

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Aniai Introduces Alpha Grill for Foodservice Hamburger Cooking

Published June 10, 2024

Aniai, a leader in kitchen automation and AI solutions, announced its first North American showroom in Midtown Manhattan. Aniai’s flagship product Alpha Grill leverages advanced AI and robotics to automate the hamburger patty cooking process, enhancing efficiency and consistency in restaurant kitchens. Aniai has partnered with several notable, North American, quick-service restaurant brands to conduct pilots, with an anticipated rollout at multiple locations over the next year.

With the launch of its New York showroom, Aniai is excited to offer existing and potential restaurant operators a direct glimpse of its Alpha Grill in action.

“We look forward to welcoming customers and industry professionals to our New York showroom to witness the future of kitchen automation,” says Eric Hansen, head of sales, North America. “I genuinely feel that we’re at the very beginning of a significant paradigm shift within the foodservice industry- a shift that embraces robotics to improve the lives of employees by reducing labor intensity and providing myriad ancillary benefits for restaurant operators over the long run.”

For restaurant operators who want to see firsthand the future of kitchen robotics sooner, Aniai made its second consecutive appearance at the National Restaurant Association show in Chicago, where it showcased the Alpha Grill along with several enhancements, most notably, Alpha Cloud. Using cloud-based AI, Alpha Cloud can discern the color of hamburger patties and assess their quality in real-time through vision sensors that monitor the cooking process; promptly notifying kitchen staff about patty quality while ensuring rigorous and enhanced quality control.

“Seeing is believing,” said Aniai CEO Gunpil Hwang. “When introducing innovative technology that’s the first of its kind, it’s important that potential adopters can see it in action and to fully understand exactly how it can enhance their businesses. This is what we’re planning to accomplish with our New York showroom, a permanent extension of what we’ve offered at the NRA Show.”

Founded in 2020 and based in New York City, Aniai is a global innovator in automation and AI within the foodservice sector. The company’s mission is to empower restaurants to improve their kitchen operations by delivering intelligent solutions that increase production and enhance quality and service.

Aniai’s flagship Alpha Grill empowers restaurant team members to focus on crafting high-quality burgers while improving the employee experience by automating numerous mundane and repetitive tasks, including grill cleaning and cook time management. The semi-autonomous grill features a rapid cooking system with a double-sided grill capable of preparing up to eight hamburger patties at a time (or 200 patties per hour) and features an innovation self-cleaning function.

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