Friday Faves No. 122

our favorite finds from the front lines of food

We've been seeing glimpses of fish skin leather for years, but now the big kids of design are getting into it. Prada, Dior and Nike are finding a fashionable new purpose for fish skins. Fish leftovers are often turned into meal for animals, but top brands are turning fish skin into leather
 (Guardian)

21 Food Words & Phrases That We Should All Probably Quit Using  A list of food writing pet-peeves from the twee (sammy, delish) to the philosophical (sinful: "Eating is pleasure and sustenance, not sin. Don't mix the two.) Amen. (Kitchn)

So book trailers are a thing — and this pastry one is totally out there! Prepare for confusion. First there was Thug Kitchen now this for Brooks Headley's Fancy Desserts. Warning: Both are NSFW.

Whole Foods to Chobani: Please Leave Was it because they got too big, or because they're not green enough compared to other, smaller producers?  (Inc.)

Supreme court backs California's foie gras ban (Guardian)

A Peek Inside the Lunchbox Museum in Columbus Georgia, the largest collection of antique lunch boxes in the world, with all your childhood faves (1930-80's) from Hopalong Cassidy to Mork & Mindy.  (Honest Cooking)

Take note aspiring food business people: Our friends at Local Food Lab are taking their business training show on the road with one-day intensive workshops across the US. 

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 74

weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food

 

• In Australia, one farm is employing the cutest little beekeeper you've ever seen, a labrador retriever named Bazz (above) who takes to the fields in his custom-made suit and has been trained to sniff out diseased hives. (Treehugger)

• It's not like selling handbags: For online food startups, a challenging recipe for success "Unlike groceries, artisanal foods are generally considered a niche market. They make great gifts, as well as delicious occasional treats, but most people -- even foodies -- aren't buying high-end truffle oil too often." (Fortune)

• Rare Japanese Volkswagen Bus Toaster Imprints VW Logo on Toast and you can't have one, unless you're one of the lucky few. (Laughing Squid)

• Men's fashion site Mr Porter has bridged their style into food with their "The Way I cook" series, like this one with model and cake enthusiast Sam Homan. Anyone looking to make a company video for their food product, take notes. (Mr Porter)

• Hotels and resorts want a piece of the Farm to Table movement: "In May 2012, Hyatt Hotels Corp. required chefs at its 120 full-service hotels in the U.S., Canada and Caribbean to use at least five local ingredients on their menus. The rules define local as food grown or caught within 50 miles of the hotel." And the experiment is still going. (News-press)

• Want to know which currencies are over or undervalued? You can find the answers through Burgernomics. (Economist)

• More US consumers are looking to purchase organic foods, but supply issues are sending farmers and consumers to China. Will the US be able to sort out its domestic supply? (audio of radio show) (On Point)

• Harrod's links it's Cocktails and All that Jazz in-store promotions with its social platforms including great little videos like this one for mixing Hendricks gin cocktails in a teapot. “Extending a local retail campaign like this to digital can enable a global audience to participate, expose new customers to the brand, and ultimately, if done right, drive traffic and sales to ecommerce.” (Luxury Daily)

• How to drink coffee in space at zero gravity, explained to you, in this little video made by NASA. Because, you know, it could come in really handy if you find yourself in space. (Laughing Squid)

• San Francisco style prediction: uni is the new foie gras, with a tour of some of their favorite uni dishes, from crostini to flan to snuggled up next to a raw quail egg. (The Bold Italic)

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 58

weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food 

 

• Because winter is not over yet, March is National Noodle Month. (not to be confused with National Pasta month, which is October, duh.)  Food52 has some delicious suggestions, like Viet Hapa Pho by Furey and the Feast (above).

• At the Bay Area Center for Asian American Media’s 2013 CAAMFest, the “Emotional Eating” program will screen seven films from North America and Asia about food and all that goes with it. Showing at Sundance Kabuki, in San Francisco.

• To keep going on the east-meets-west theme, a new bar in London called Mizuwari has opened up featuring Japanese whisky (yes, that's whisky made in Japan). Miss Whisky give it a thumbs up.

• Picking wine and other alcohol off a list is everywhere, but picking a particular breed of beef that way is news. Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland has started to offer a breed book for diners to choose their beef. "While this makes our job a little more complicated because we have to source from farmers from all over Scotland, having a weekly change of breed gives us a chance to be more flexible," said Mr Howie. "There are issues with low breed numbers for the likes of Galloway or Highland cattle so, in some instances, we will wait until the time is right, while larger herds such as Luing or Aberdeen Angus are more readily available."

Polish Up Your Marketing — a new column for SEA

This week kicked off a new column on branding and marketing for SEA, Seafood Experience Australia.

Polish up your Marketing

May 2 | Posted by sea |

Today we introduce a new advice column for sustainability-minded seafood entrepreneurs and seafood professionals who are seeking answers to questions about product branding, marketing, public relations, and more.

The column’s California-based authors, Alisha Lumea and Polly Legendre together possess over 30 years of experience as entrepreneurs, activists and chefs to promote sustainable food systems.

In the column, we’ll tackle questions and concerns such as:

• What are the best ways to communicate with my customers?

• What does my web site need to do for me?
• I’d love to get some press, but how do I put together a press kit? Do I even need a press kit? What’s a press release supposed to say anyway?
• My sales materials aren’t working — help!

The goal is to make this column a place to get answers, so feel free to bring us your questions and your conundrums. Tell us a little about yourself, your business and where you are.

Up today — customized communications for individual customer groups.  We talk about customers to describe multiple stops on the value chain, but to connect with the customer, you have to understand the needs of who you’re talking to.

Tell the story to suit the audience

More often than not, seafood producers focus their attention on industry-driven information —  the latest technology used, updated hygiene practices, and the like. While this is all relevant and interesting information to aquaculture professionals and fishmongers, it is not the news that end-user customers find compelling. Let’s be honest, the latest fish pump technology is not very appetizing, and ultimately, you’re selling food.

We have to be able to adapt the message to the audience so we’re giving them information they can use. You’re not changing the story, but you are changing the framing.

Distributor purchasing Distributors need information that will allow their purchasing department to decide that your fish is the best bet for quality, shelf-life and that it will sell itself, not clog up the warehouse and sit there.  This is a very important component of selling your fish, but it’s just the first step.

Distributor sales teams The distributor sales team will need information that allows them to quickly grasp multiple facets of your product to make it relevant to their chefs, all on a three minute phone call. They are looking for the edge and what’s new and exciting to help them find the chef “fit.” Remember, these sales teams are managing hundreds of individual chefs and restaurants each day! If you give them what they need, they will talk up your products all day long.

Foodservice & retailers Chefs, waiters, hotels and banquet managers, not to mention retailers, need a slightly different set of information.  They are the front lines of service, telling your products story to the person who will be eating it. This version needs to be much more personal and appetizing.  For people to get excited about eating your fish, they need to feel good about you and your farm. When diners eat in a restaurant, they are putting their trust in the establishment and generally believe that the chef, waiters and counter staff are well informed about the products they are serving. If you supply restaurants and retailers with the kind of information they need to tempt their customers, they’ll push your products for you.

In future columns we will dive into each of these groups, head first and discuss relevant marketing angles (messaging, design, social media, PR and more) that will allow your seafood product to successfully navigate this obstacle course, coming out the other side with the kind of good stories that help make good sales.

About Polly & Alisha’s company: Polish Partnerships

www.polishpartnerships.com

Polish is a branding and communications company for the new gastroconomy. By creating strong partnerships with food and beverage producers, hospitality groups and industry innovators, we go the extra distance, transforming hopes, dreams and expectations into tangible, sustainable and polished realities.

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 15

 a weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food

• "Survival in the epicurean jungle was a matter of brawn and culinary skill, in which mastery of the Switchblade Spork was king. Gangs of sous-chefs and line cooks ruled the streets and no food was safe from the steely glint of their sporks."

• In tsunami-hit Japan, microfinancing is helping food business get up and running even when banks don't want to lend. "So I wondered if maybe what we do really is important. Many people are waiting for the very original products that we select and sell. They are small goods, but they fill voids in our hearts.”

• UN asserts that famine is predictable: "drought and famine are not extreme events but “merely the sharp end of a global food system that is built on inequality, imbalances and – ultimately – fragility.”'

• Want kids to eat more veggies? Research written up in The Journal of the American Medicine Association (JAMA) says that putting pictures on cafeteria trays helps. Score one for the power of suggestion.

• States, like Massachusetts, are increasingly looking to create brands of provenence to market fisheries. “If we took a look at fish being landed in Massachusetts and put a mark on them ... it allows a story and to tie in what’s happening in New Bedford or Gloucester. It means something to [diners]."

• A new photo and text project assembles a Lexicon of Sustainability, from Backyard Pollinator to Kitchen Incubator.

• Pesticides are bad to eat, but they're even worse to live around. Grist looks at the environmental and social costs of conventional agriculture, from chemicals that dust fruit like snow to contaminated drinking water.

• Ancient ice, hopefully not headed for a cocktail near you. In Chile, police are holding a man found trying to smuggle five tons of a Patagonian glacier for upscale bar drinks.

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 9

 a weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food

 

• Talk about a recipe that's set in stone, this ancient Babylonian tablet (left) contains 25 recipes for soups and stews intended for royalty or the gods.

• “There are only so many ways that food can be explored through technology...The opportunities are finite.” Start-Ups Mixing Food and Technology Vie for an Edge, but what are they leaving on the table? We don't think the dead end is anywhere in sight.

• "I spent the first two years of college with one question in mind – basically, how can I have the greatest impact in my life in the world. And the thing that I kept coming back to, that everyone connected to, was food." A great NPR story profiling the new, young crop of farmers. The word from an experienced farmer — to make it work, you have to be serious about running the business.

• We firmly believe in picking up promotional ideas from other industries and movements. Entertainment is a great place to start with Six Secrets To Branding, Ripped From "Raiders Of The Lost Ark."

• Is a caramel ever just a caramel? "Modern Britain is bizarrely food-crazed, and cultural indigestion is the sure result. What if we began to care a little more about what we put into our minds than what we put into our mouths?" asks Steven Poole in The Observer in a rant on the food porn phenomenon. Why should it be minds vs. mouth? Food, and the world of ideas it inspires, nourishes both.

• The Pork Fairy had an active week, spreading larded joy: Chef Richard Garcia pairs a cider glazed pork belly with pumpkin gnocchi coated in eggnog froth. New pig sandwiches are turning up in DC, from a pâté melt at Bourbon Steak to a fried pig's head between Parker house rolls with red onion and sauce gribiche.  at Poste Moderne Brasserie.

Friday Faves — notes from the new gastroconomy, No. 6

a weekly round-up of our favorite finds from the front lines of food

 

• Be the baker you've always felt you were with a Wonder Woman-themed mixer from KitchenAid Brasil. (above, via Laughing Squid) Now all I need is an invisible jet...

• Drinkify helps you pair music and cocktails. What to drink with Belle and Sebastian — Sipsmith Gin, on the rocks. Aretha Franklin gets her own cocktail of Vodka, Fassionola and Sprite. Serge Gainsbourg calls for nothing less than a full bottle of red wine.

• Food Truck love continues. Check out the Social-Savvy Food Truck Series and a profile of one of our favorites, SlapFish.

• Young farmers find huge obstacles to getting started. Access to land and financing is tough, and so is being a first-adopter of a "new" lifestyle. "We would gladly trade a little competition for more community and collaboration.”

• The National Young Farmers' Coalition offers community online and with events. "Make out with another person who’s got dirty fingernails!...The NYFC aims to help farmers find each other, whether they’re looking for love or just to commiserate about their 1955 International tractor."

• There's finally some good news in the battle against GMO crops. A Minnesota court rules organic farmers can sue conventional, GMO farmers whose pesticides 'trespass' and contaminate their fields.

• Brand early, not often is great advice. "While a business may not need strong branding to get off the ground, its chances of becoming a smash hit are greatly magnified by investing in their brand--in the form of sharp creative strategy and great design--from the beginning." If you don't believe us, check out this video about the power of the iPhone brand (warning, language NSFW).

• Chefs are turning problems into art, like the invasive species menu at Miya Sushi in New Haven, Connecticut. “Invasive species and climate change, they’re basically brothers,” Chef Bun Lai says.

• For turning what grows around you into dinner, from weeds to forrest treasures, listen to a full hour of Foraging Fever on NPR's On Point.