Who's News in Catering for December 17, 2022

Accolades

With the food industry being hit hard with effects of inflation, supply-chain issues and more, Sterno is showing recognition for employees who keep the industry moving forward. The iconic food brand has announced its first-ever Sterno Bring the Heat award winner, Alexis Baker. This honor recognizes Baker’s devotion and resiliency across her experience in the food space along with her dedication to giving back to her community. Mixing her love for culinary arts and passion for fighting food waste, Baker leads the Food Recovery Meal program at CitySquare in Dallas, TX. The program repurposes food donations from local businesses to provide 12,000 healthy and low-cost meals a week to low-income individuals in need in the South Dallas area. Baker says, “There are programs like the Food Recover Program and individuals out in the industry who are trying to create solutions for this real problem, and I hope others will fall into that place as well.” 

With queso oozing in popularity on menus nationwide, this fall Land O’Lakes Foodservice collaborated with the global culinary community, Chef’s Roll, for a craveable contest, asking chefs, “How Do You Queso?” The second annual competition called on chefs to share their own creative take on a recipe incorporating Land O Lakes® Extra Melt® White Cheese Sauce. To qualify, participating chefs could enter a new recipe or spotlight a cheesy dish they were already menu-ing. Each participant received a sample box of the Land O Lakes® sauce. Chefs submitted 133 recipes ranging from Queso Fondue to Fried Tamale Tots With Street Corn Queso to Chicken Shrimp and Broccoli Alfredo Soup, showcasing how Land O Lakes® Extra Melt® White Sauce can support or enhance a wide array of dishes.

Products on the Market

Spirits Brand Incubator company, Sidewalk Side Spirits, on the heels of their highly successful launch of their Gambino's King Cake Rum Cream, announces the creation of Hardhide Ponchatoula Strawberry Whiskey. Hardhide Ponchatoula Strawberry Whiskey is a blend of 3-year wheat bourbon, American light whiskey, Cocktail & Son's Lemon Strawberry Syrup, and fresh Ponchatoula Strawberries. It's blended at 86 Proof in New Orleans at the Porchjam Distillery. Not an underproof, sugar bomb of artificial flavors like so many others, Hardhide is a flavored whiskey for whiskey lovers. Delicious in Lemonade, on the rocks, or in a Strawberry Old Fashioned, Hardhide makes for a tasty, smooth cocktail. Perfect for home entertaining or any bartender's tool kit. 

The Finnish company Foodiq – which aims to provide sustainable solutions to solve the future of food – has developed a groundbreaking new ingredient that can finally allow plant-based food alternatives to go global. The ingredient – called Fabea+ – comprises fermented fava beans and offers a more nutritious, sustainable, and scalable alternative to mainstream ingredients used in the plant-based market, such as soy, pea or oats. This brand-new ingredient offers a clean slate for the production of virtually any plant-based product, with no unwanted side flavors and zero trade-offs when it comes to taste or texture. Fava beans are usually only used as isolates and concentrates, but this fermented powder form is new and unique to the industry, while the use of fermentation as a process makes a truly “tasteless” taste profile possible.