Consumers are eating better at home than ever before.

One of the issues we have noted during the pandemic is that there are a lot of underserved regions of the country where distributors just haven’t picked up the ball. There are several grocers in the Western US who are now developing a trade in Artisan Foods as we have developed a vehicle to service them. At the same time many merchants across the country could use some help

We’re thrilled to see hope that COVID-19 is on the wane.

We’re all anxious to get away from the pandemic blues but the on premise trade will be a long time getting back to normal if it ever does. So much of their employee base has moved on to other jobs and the training of new employees is difficult and time consuming. They are literally starting from scratch in the kitchen, behind the bar and with their servers. It is going to take a while for the on-premise trade to get back to normal if it ever does.

It is the single biggest reason we have seen this meteoric growth the last 2 years in the popularity of Artisan Foods from Europe. Pasta, Sauces, Ingredients, Estate Bottled Olive Oils, Vinegar, Meals in a Jar and more. The ingredient lists are stellar as are the makers. These foods have all caught the public’s fancy. It doesn’t matter whether it is Honolulu, LA or Ridgway, CO people are cooking at home and discovered that it is healthier and tastier cooking with the right ingredients.

It’s even more prevalent in the Adult Beverage Trade. America is drinking more and better than ever before. Cocktail Culture is a successful enterprise in a handful of larger liquor stores and 18 or so boutique sized shops that specialize in the category. It’s something we know well as we supply these stores with upwards of $500K in bar provisions annually.

At the same time Cocktail Culture is the most underserved category in the beverage business. Consumers are looking for better ingredients to replicate the cocktails they used to be served in bars and restaurants, but distributors and merchants are largely still championing the cheap unimaginative mixers that have been on the shelves for decades.

When it comes to food and drink, we believe there is a serious opportunity for distributors and merchants to change their stars.

These are the Importers and Makers we Broker to Distributors.

• Elevation Artisan Meats

• Italian Harvest Regional Artisan Foods from Italy

• Ritrovo Selections Regional Artisan Foods from Italy

• Kozlik’s Canadian Mustard

• Bunches and Bunches Moles, Green Sauce and Ginger Snaps

• Wyoming Authentic Beef Jerky, Sticks & Bites

• SOBAR World First Protein Bar Designed by a MD, PhD Food Scientist 

• Dirty Sue #1 Premium Olive Juice and Garnishes  for
  Dirty Martinis and More

• Nickel Dime Craft Cocktail Syrups

So Elevation has done a good job of keeping up with demand to this point even though the brand has been growing steadily the last 2 years in chains like Spec’s Finer Foods, AJ’s, Whole Foods and even COSTCO.   As much as I love the butcher paper burrito it is a time consuming and expensive luxury.  Starting in April we are moving to the nitrogen flushed “flow pack” you see above.  For the time being we will still be cryovacing the chubs but as we get more comfortable with the new machinery that could change.

Chad’s crew did a really great job with the art work and the change in colors with each flavor along with the topographic pattern were both great ideas!

This is a handy guide to Nduja and what you can do with it!

A Guide to _Nduja _ Italy_s Funky, Spicy, Spreadable Salume.pdf

Creamy White Beans With _Nduja , Kale, and Gremolata Breadcrumbs Recipe

Nduja Scrambled Eggs

Pasta With Spicy _Nduja -Tomato Sauce Recipe

Spicy _Nduja Mayonnaise Recipe

Wyoming Authentic is a hot property at retail…  Not only is it health food compared to its competitors, it is selling well head to head with many other brands even though it is more expensive.  Their first chain was Natural Grocers Storewide 8 years ago…7/11 in the Northeast came on bord in the NE and now other regions and it is doing great… Last year it was Publix storewide and it took off there also.  I’d say people everywhere want to eat cleaner better foods and when it comes to Jerky and Beef Sticks it is Wyoming Authentic!

Artisan Regional Foods from Italy

Italian Harvest… Starts with 6 of Italy’s best Artisan Pasta Makers

This book of makers is truly Small Batch and Artisan from all over Italy.    Think Real Artisan Pasta, all the ingredients to make  Authentic Sauces, Prepared Sauces and Regional Delicacies. We have been successful helping clients build a store set that sells through with remarkable consistency.

The best thing about the store set we recommend is that it is a visual thing. You don’t even need to demo it just display it properly. 

Artisan Pasta is all about Italian Organic Durum Wheat & Ancient Grains, a slow traditional production process, shapes and colors.  Your better customers will love the pasta.  They’ll taste the difference with Italian Harvest and they will come back to buy it time and again!

These are shockingly good and so easy…new product from Marella that is the best pasta maker in Italy.  It is an all in one pasta and sauce…. add 4 cups of hot water and a TBS of  olive oil then stir for 18-30 minutes depending on the ingredients (Heirloom Lentils take a bit longer) and also accounting for altitude (we live at 4600 ft.) and it is ready. I finish with a drizzle of bright Olive Oil and a touch of salt and some grated cheese. 

Plus there are new edition on the website….  ItalianHarvest.com Click to View

John Blount who created Italian Harvest  grew up in Italy and speaks the language like a native which sadly I did not pick up from my parents.  In his misspent youth he hitchhiked and rode his motorcycle all over Italy.  This gave him a good sense of the food culture. His intimate knowledge of the peninsula has had a positive influence on the way he selected the products for the catalog. As further proof Italian Harvest has won close to  50 SOFI Awards.

What I like most about Italian Harvest’s book is that is that it covers the basics of Pasta, Risotto and the the raw ingredients around which professional and home chefs can create really delicious authentic meals. Most of the classic recipes are really simple but they are ingredient centric.  You just cant replicate the terroir where these ingredients come from.  Plus their farming practices are better.

The makers themselves represent the Slow Food movement at it’s best never straying from tradition in order to save a few pennies. Everything in the book is the real deal.

It is all  about the flavor, mouth feel and texture when it comes to these artisan foods. One of the tell-tale signs that you are looking at “Real Artisan Pasta” is that in its uncooked state it has a rough texture.  You can feel it just by running a finger nail over it, even through a cellophane wrapper.  Industrial pasta by comparison feels very smooth to the touch. Once they’ve have had pasta of this quality consumers tend to adopt it. 

My older sister is a master of Italian Emigrant Cooking having picked it up from our mother who had an encyclopedic knowledge of the subject having frown up in NYC in a family that owned Italian Markets.  Anna Marie fine tuned her style with a number of classes in Italy.  Today she just loves showing off our mother’s recipes made with ingredients from Italian Harvest to her friends in Florida. 

Funny thing is you don’t have to be a total geek to tune into it.  Your better customers will figure it out the first time they try it!  I actually have had customers tell me “it tastes more like real food than pasta”.  

Ranise (below) is one of the best Olive Oil producers on the planet (96 Points in the Flos Olei Guide). The olive varietal they are famous for is Taggascia  grown in the hills above the Med in Liguria.  It makes a very pretty olive oil and they are great snacking olives.  The family are sensational farmers and all the little jars are just packed with flavor!  Basil or Ligurian Pesto is a regional specialty which means it doesn’t get any better than this.

Long story but we have had to deal with a certain amount of Gluten Intolerance.  So for a couple of years and intermittently there after we were forced to experiment with Gluten Free Pasta. Most of it tasted like cardboard. 

It was a happy day when we discovered La Rosa Gluten Free Pasta.  Slow extrusion through bronze dies and 2-4 days of drying at low temperatures just like our other Artisan Makers in the book but made with Organic Corn and Rice.  They are a really wonderful maker and you’d be doing your customers who require Gluten Free products a huge favor.

This is a really important sub-category in your pasta set as the number of consumers that are gluten intolerant is vast. 

Ritrovo Selections…

This is our second incredible book of Regional Artisan Foods from Italy that we offer on an ACCOUNT by ACCOUNT basis around the country.  We are essentially working with them in areas where they have little or no distribution filling in holes so to speak.  

The first time we went to the Fancy Food Show in 2009 the only interesting booths in the Italian Aisles were Ritrovo and Italian Harvest everything else was tasteless.  Ritrovo does a really great job of sourcing from all over Italy but there are particular categories that really get my attention.

Better Vinegar is very popular.  In fact they are the most popular items in olive oil specialty shops eclipsing the sales of olive oil.

Ritrovo Selections offers selection of vinegar and ultra-premium olive oils that can give you an edge on these popular foods in both quality and price points that your clients will appreciate.  

Ritrovo Selections Balsamic Vinegar

Ron and Ilyse have been Sommeliers for a very long time so naturally they have a great palate for food and drink.  However their real talent is having the ability to collaborate with the with the makers in creating new and or improved versions of the regional foods. 

The vinegar they offer is a good example of that.  V Aceti is a sensational maker.  They own their own vineyards and the vinegar they produce is Certified Organic. This is something you don’t see very often.

There are a couple of off the wall flavors in the range and that comes from Ilyse.  The Turmeric Balsamic Vinegar is not only great with a variety of Italian and Asian dishes it makes wonderful Cocktails and Mocktails.

They also offer an Organic Balsamic and a White Balsamic Vinegar in their Sofia Bottle that are excellent quality at a killer price point on the shelf.  About $19-$20 at 40+% GM.

The Maletti 6 year Condimento made with 100% grape must is my all time favorite in the $30-$35 price range on the shelf. Not a whole lot of difference other than the price tag between this and a 12 year Tradizionale.

They also offer a range of Wine and Balsamic Vinegar from Acetorium that are great specialty shop item.  These are a bit pricey but are exquisite condiments. 

Last is a new Barolo Wine Vinegar that at $12.50 w/s and at the same quality as the Acetorium vinegar is a total bargain…

Ritrovo Offers One of the Better Selections of EVOO in the Country… Best of all there are a lot of Bargains that will work at retail in both Specialty Shops and Grocery Stores.

The big questions particularly with grocers is how to establish an upgraded olive oil set in your stores. Most importers will tell you to jump in price and quality to olive oils in the $30-$40+ range. These are usually finishing oils that are much bigger and bolder than the typical American addicted to sweet and creamy flavors are used to. 

Having hand sold and done hundreds of seminars on the subject I recommend taking smaller and more digestible steps.  The mid $20 price range and below are a better place to start. In addition with out sampling due to social distancing guidelines, moving through even a case of expensive olive oil can take time. More than once I have seen olive oils in the $35-$50 range on store shelves that are many years past their best buy dates.  These instances were in very nice stores grocery and specialty with excellent clienteles.

Today after 9 months of consumers being sequestered in their homes and spending more time on their computers than ever before due to COVID-19, we are seeing a different pulse in shopping behavior. Consumers are looking for better tasting and healthier foods to replace the meals they used to treat themselves to in restaurants. Online the media is giving them a whole new game plan and they are moving beyond the basics of how they normally fed themselves at home…

The prices in the images are MSRP at 40% GM+.

Real Ultra Premium Olive Oils at under $20 a half liter is a magic price point for the category.

Their award winning Casina Rossa pasta sauces with their distinctive package are an absolutely sensational retail items at a premium price point in the category.  The catalog is full of items like this.

Private Label by Ritrovo Selections

If you prefer promoting your own brand Ritrovo affords you the opportunity to showcase some really incredible foods to your customers.  This includes olive oils, organic wine and balsamic vinegar and the sauces you see above.

Ritrovo Selections Pasta

Included in the book are Organic, Gluten Free and Alternative Grain  Pastas…

• Meals in a Jar, Antipasti…  What really turns me on about Artisan Foods from Italy is the fact that the makers just don’t cut corners to save time which all combines to produce goods that are rich in flavor.  Ritrovo’s catalog is full of them!

• • There has been a revolution going on the last 3 years that is changing to way people eat in this country.  Whoever thought you could walk into a Wine, Raw or Tapas bar and order a glass of wine and a $100 tin of Spanish Cockles perhaps served with charcuterie, cheese and a crusty loaf of bread?  Forget the chef lets give the cheese monger a raise!

  • An example are the Tuscan white beans in Truffle Oil which make a wonderful side dish for all sorts of grilled meats and seafood.  As an appetizer run it through the food processor and spread it on croistini or jus a crusty slice of bread..  It’s a simple and nutritious treat.

    Most of Ritrovo’s olives are packed in Olive Oil rather than brine.  it gives the olives a special quality and we will use the oil to finish meats and make dressings and marinades.  

  • Due to the stellar ingredients the tapenades, bruschetta, spreads and of course the Antipasto Della Casa only require a little crusty bread to make them happy

• Truffle Products, Salts and Seasonings…  Ritrovo has a really great ingredient list that includes a range of truffle products including their award winning Truffle Salt.  Some are really unusual like their Pine Nuts from Tuscany, Wild Oregano from the mountains of Campania along with Wild Sicilian Fennel and Bay Leaves.

• Much More…. There are about 300 skus in the book!

Condiments…

• Kozlik’s Canadian Mustard

• Bunches & Bunches

Kozlik’s Canadian Mustard…

This is a really great maker and on the West Coast where we have distribution it is very popular.  We really need some  grocery chains to sign on so that we can bring in few more distributors for this incredible Mustard line.

Just look at the mustard on your shelves and compare to the Kozlik’s package which has a lot of eye appeal.  The program we are offering distributors should put the w/s price at $3.49 and have Kozlik’s on the shelf at $5.99 to $6.99 at a 40-50% Gross Margin.  In Seattle and Portland they routinely sell it at $7.99 and online it is ridiculous.  You could say Kozlik’s has a cult following.

The 6 or 7 top sellers pictured below are a good place to start… for more info Click on the Image Below.

Bunches & Bunches

Tamalpais Star Roth-McCormick (goes by “Pai.”) is a professional chef, cookie maven and creator of Bunches & Bunches Ltd. based in Portland, OR.  She been real popular winning all sorts of prestigious food awards and receives a ton of press around the country.  We love finishing chicken in the sauces.  If you do well with gourmet cookies hers are the bomb. Dick Taylor, one of the country’s best chocolate makers uses her Snaps in one of their seasonal chocolate bars.  Click on the Image Below for more information and pricing.

The Dirty Sue Martini is a success story at retail and it should be in every good grocery store in the land.

Dirty Sue is a great cocktail mixer for a reason.

• One Eric doesn’t mess with the brine which comes from Andalusia Spain. It’s not the stuff used to pack olives in jars.  It’s what they age olives in prior to packaging.  All he does is filter it twice and touch it with Spring Water till the flavor is olives. It won’t ruin your top shelf gin or vodka, it enhances it!

• No BS stories about using a one ton press (that’s what they used to use to make Olive Oil) just brine and water and we skip the preservatives and additional salt.

• It is also great in Bloody Mary’s, in Bloody Maria’s and Margaritas and a variety of other  cocktails you can view on our recipe site. Barmen will also water it down a little more and  put it in a dasher bottle to use sparingly to add salinity to cocktails.

Dirty Sue Cocktail Garnishes

• Grade A Extra Large Andalusian Olives from Spain’s top DOP.  They have a firm bite and taste noticeably better than all the other olives on the market.

• The Pimento and Jalapeno Stuffed Olives are very popular.  However, for our clients the #1 garnish is the Blue Cheese Stuffed Olives.  The secret is ET uses real Wisconsin Blue Chees so it has a creamier bite than the concrete bricks the other makers use.

• The XL Cocktail Onions and the crazy good in a Gibson Cocktail. They and the wicked good Jalapeno Stuffed Onions pair really well in Cocktails where olives and pickled onions make an interesting garnish. The Gen. Patton Martini and Bloody Mary’s & Marias come to mind. 

• In Florida the Double Stuffed (Garlic & Jalapeno) Olives, which happen to be the most expensive garnish in the line, are #2 in sales behind the Blue Cheese Stuffed Olives so I am making a point to recommend this sku.  Price is not an object with Dirty Sue as consumers come to the brand looking for bigger and better!

• Dirty sue is #1 On and Off Premise in every market we have placement.

• The package does all the work for you as the graphics are great and the name is a cute play on words!

The Spice Mix from Dirty Sue is nothing like the Bloody Mary Mixes you see on store shelves.   When combined with spirits and a fresh bottle of tomato juice it creates a flavor profile and mouthfeel like nothing you have ever tried before. It’s light years better than even the best small batch mixes I have tasted over the years… 

I sampled it with Tequila the first time just because because Vodka tends to bore me.  However I went out and bought a handle of Kettle One the next day and it has been really popular entry at my COVID cocktail parties ever since.  

ET is a searcher…  and he’s been fascinated with the way top barman approach their Bloody Mary recipes around the country! A while back he had his Eureka moment with this staple of the cocktail scene and below Craft Spirits will share the story of how he got there! 

This Article was published in Craft Spirits Magazine…

Dirty Sue, created by long-time LA bartender Eric “ET” Tecosky (Jones Hollywood), creator of the bottled premium olive juice category and maker of fine cocktail garnishes, announces the launch of Dirty Sue Bloody Mary Spice Mix.

All natural, gluten free, and vegan Dirty Sue Bloody Mary Spice Mix is now available.  Ask your distributor about this NextGen Mixer Each 16 oz bottle of tomato juice-free Dirty Sue Bloody Mary Spice Mix can yield approximately 21-32 drinks depending on how spicy or flavorful you prefer your Bloody Mary. That’s almost three times more than a traditional 750 ml bottle of tomato juice-based Bloody Mary mix makes.

Dirty Sue Founder Eric ‘ET’ Tecosky has been working on his Bloody Mary Spice Mix for over a decade. The recipe originated during his time as Bar Manager of Jones Hollywood in Los Angeles. Soon after launching Dirty Sue Premium Olive Juice, which he formulated specifically for use in dirty martinis, he decided to put some time into another passion – Bloody Marys. The mix at Jones hadn’t been updated for a while and, inspired, he sensed there was room for improvement. Afterall, how hard could it be? 

He was about to find out.

While on his annual pilgrimage to New Orleans for Jazz Fest, ET started to pay close attention to the city’s Bloody Marys – some of the best around. He noticed how many bars infused their vodka with pickled goodness – olives, onions, green beans, etc. He had enjoyed them for years in ‘vacation mode,’ but now it was time for a little R&D. Back in LA, he started to tinker and taste and was moving solidly in the right direction, but the mix still needed something.

More tinkering and tasting. And for the second time since asking himself why nobody bottled olive juice for dirty martinis, a lightbulb went on. OLIVE JUICE – that was it! He grabbed a bottle. He played around with the ratio until, Eureka! The olive juice that was only supposed to be for dirty martinis became the secret ingredient to the new mix, providing a full, round, delicious umami experience.

Now, rather than ET asking himself, “How come nobody bottles this stuff?” It was his guests at Jones who wondered aloud – and frequently – why he didn’t bottle his Dirty Sue Bloody Mary? The answer wasn’t so simple. First, how to capture the flavor from the infused vodka into a stand-alone spice mix? The answer was many, many trips to the spice store and, yes, many, many tastings. Second, how to make it less perishable than traditional mixes? This was an easier fix: no tomato juice. That could be added per drink! The hard work paid off and, after a decade of on-again, off-again R&D, Dirty Sue Bloody Mary Spice Mix is in the bottle and on shelves.

Nickel Dime’s… Advanced Cocktail Syrups are all over the current trends in Cocktail Culture!  Not only do they allow consumers to create Restaurant Quality Craft Cocktails at home with ease, for the more adventurous these syrups can be used to do riffs on all manner of stirred cocktails as well.  

Gift Sets are a wonderful way to introduce consumers to advanced syrups and mixers.  In fact it does all of the hard work for you on the shelf!  We see this strategy work with bitters sets all the time!

NickelDime Cocktail Syrups are a hot commodity online. And fit the mold of what several distributors who specialize in cocktail culture have told me are their best sellers which happen to be in the advanced mixer category. 

NickelDime syrups come with a slew of recipes for easy to make Craft Cocktails at home. 

In addition these advanced syrups can also be used in stirred cocktails to jazz up any that call for a sweet modifier and bitters.  Good examples are Old Fashioneds The Cherry Bomb works with Bourbon or Rye and Caged Heat work with Tequila, Rum or Bourbon.  Fairy Dust is a substitute for Absinthe in many ways. It can be used with any recipe calling for an absinthe wash.  I make a Gin Old Fashioned with a tsp of Fairy Dust and 2-3 dashes of Orange Bitters that’s sensational.  

The founders of Nickel Dime Cocktail Syrups.  

Jared Hirsch is a Mixologist, Bar Manager at Oakland’s Sidebar.  He has won multiple awards for his drinks, syrups and bar program, including the Four Roses National Cocktail Challenge at Tales of the Cocktail, Jameson’s Movember competition, and was a finalist in Belvedere’s National Project (Red) competition in New York.

Absinthia Vermut is an entrepreneur with a passion for making things that help others make better cocktails. Her first taste of absinthe was in 1996. She served her first bootleg bottles to friends a few months later on April Fool’s Day 1997, where she received the nickname, Absinthia. She continued making absinthe until suddenly one day, March 5, 2007 to be exact, the ban on absinthe was lifted. Never expecting absinthe to be legal in her lifetime, she knew she wanted to produce an organic absinthe. 

In 2013, she legally changed her name to Absinthia (Vermut is on her birth certificate), trademarked it, and founded Absinthia’s Bottled Spirits, LLC in order to bring her organic absinthe to market. Finally able to sell her absinthe legally in September 2017, Absinthia™ Organic Absinthe Superieure began to appear in bars, restaurants, and bottle shops and won its first gold medal at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition 2018. Six awards and one year later, Absinthia Organic Absinthe is currently available in California, New York, and Louisiana. Absinthia is a member of the Women’s Cocktail Collective.

We all know that water is vital to our survival, but is your drinking water helping you maintain an ideal pH balance? We believe it should be.

WHY IONIZED WATER?

Just about every important function of your body is linked to and monitored by proper hydration, but what does that really mean? Proper hydration requires getting water to each and every cell in your body. Seems simple enough, right? Well here’s the catch: the cells in our bodies are positively charged and so are the molecules in most drinking waters. This means… you guessed it, they repel one another (who said you weren’t paying attention to your 8th grade science teacher?).

This is why most water leaves you feeling bloated and making frequent trips to the bathroom. Through our unique ionization process, ZOÉ WATER is negatively charged for deep hydration at the cellular level that never leaves you feeling heavy — proof that a negative can sometimes be a big positive!

Click Here to Read About SOBAR’s SOFI Award…

SOBAR is a revolutionary concept in Protein Bars. 

• Dr. Fisher found that there were no real guidelines for judging the quality and effectiveness of protein bars even at the FDA.  It was a no-mans land of misinformation.  In fact he ended up developing the tools and data to do so himself.

• SOBAR was designed to provide a highly effective source of protein that could also reduce peak blood alcohol concentration by preventing the absorption of 50% of the alcohol consumed in cocktails.  Now that is food for thought!