Food Transparency in the Gluten Free World

It used to be that when you talked about food transparency you might be referring to a cooking technique, as in “Sauté the onions until they are transparent.” Today “transparent” has a whole different meaning when it comes to food. Consumers are now far more educated about issues like nutrition, food safety, sustainability, fair trade, genetically modified foods, engineered ingredients, chemical additives, and animal rights. It is a very positive movement as far as we’re concerned. Consumers are demanding transparency, and the result is not only better labeling, but a number of manufacturers have reformulated their products to have (or appear to have) a “clean” list of ingredients.

Over the last six months or so, we have fielded a number of questions from educated customers. One, for example, wanted to know whether the source of rennet in the cheese we use was from an animal source (the answer was “no.”) Another wanted to know whether cellulose was used as an anti-caking agent in our pizza cheese (the answer was “no, we do not use any anti-caking agents.”) It is not only consumers who are becoming more educated—coops, health food stores, and chains are as well, and they are watching out for the interests of their customers. That’s a good thing.

The other day, I had to sign a statement for a retailer guaranteeing that no cloned animals or the offspring of cloned animals are used in any of our ingredients, including milk. Sitting here in Vermont, knowing not only the source of my dairy and egg ingredients, but also the farm families behind them, I wondered why I would be asked such a question. And, I must confess that when I called my suppliers to verify that no cloned animals were used, my egg supplier and I got a big laugh out of it. She said she had been asked a number of questions over the years, but that was truly a first! But it is actually no laughing matter when I think about it. I know my fresh ingredient suppliers, but what if I were buying my eggs from some 5 million hen farm or my milk from some big industrialized conglomerate? Worse yet, what if I were using boxed eggs or powdered egg whites with an extended shelf life or some milk protein isolate? I wouldn’t have a clue about the animals behind my ingredients.

Take our Original Rolls. They are made of six ingredients: tapioca, milk, non-GMO canola oil, mozzarella cheese, whole eggs, and salt. No mystery what any of those are. Then look at some of the competing gluten free bread products/rolls. What you will find is that most other brands have 17 to 20 ingredients. Nice things like tapioca maltodextrin, which gives a product fat-like and stabilizing properties. I’m in the gluten free baking business, and even I have no idea what some of the ingredients are! One of the benefits of eating a gluten free diet is that it has made me a compulsive label reader, and sometimes what I read is disturbing, indeed.

Taking a Day Off for Yourself

One of my favorite books as a kid was Ferdinand the Bull. Ferdinand was the original “against the grainer.” Rather than fight like all the other young bulls, he was more interested in smelling the flowers. That is what I did the other day. I took Friday off work and drove up to one of my favorite of all places: Thousand Island Park, a Victorian summer cottage community on an island in the St. Lawrence River. It was preseason, so I had the place pretty much to myself…and an explosion of daffodils. Perhaps it was because of the mild winter and the relatively chilly spring, but I have never seen daffodils quite like these.

It was a pretty gray, overcast day when I arrived at the River, and against that backdrop the daffodils practically sang out to me as I passed. It felt really good to get away. Spring on the production floor often can be challenging. Sure, the weather improves and the incredible hues of Vermont spring green beckon us outside. But, the weather also beckons the cows back outside, and the corresponding dietary shift from hay and silage to grass can wreak havoc on the chemistry of milk…and cheese. And since we use milk and cheese in our products, you get the idea. At the River, the worries of the production floor fade away. The only frustration is that the days aren’t longer.

Two days later at the River, the temperature soared into the mid-eighties. Between the temperature and the abundant sun, the daffodils first dulled, and then began shriveling by day’s end. I felt fortunate to have participated in the flowering of spring bulbs in all their glory. As hard as it is when you are running a rapidly expanding business, it is important to take a break from time to time to recharge your batteries and smell the flowers…literally. I’m glad I did.

Vermont Rules for Foodies

Vermont is home to a lot of artisanal bakers, cheese makers, and food entrepreneurs. In fact, we have an association, The Vermont Specialty Food Association www.Vermontspecialtyfoods.org) and a Food Venture Center (www.vermontventurecenter.org) to assist food entrepreneurs in the start up stage. As small specialty food producers, we find safety in numbers. We share knowledge among us, and when a new food entrepreneur emerges, we go out of our way to help him or her figure out everything from how to source ingredients, to working with brokers, to how distributors work (the answer is “dysfunctionally,” lol.) Several Vermont companies provided invaluable informational support in our startup a little over three years ago, and we always find it heartening to pay back that advice. And, every time we get together, whether it is over association socials, or sharing exhibit space at shows like Natural Products Expo East and the New York Fancy Food Show, I always learn something new from other Vermont vendors.

Our state is also very supportive of food entrepreneurs. After all, specialty food is the fastest growing segment of the retail industry, and all of our little businesses add up when it comes to employment. Recently, for example, the state and the local development authority managed to attract a new organic yogurt company to locate in Brattleboro, VT. They will use the milk of 3,000 cows daily and provide 24 jobs over the next three years.

And every year, Senator Patrick Leahy holds a showcase event called “Taste of Vermont” in the US Senate Office Building, to which all Vermont food vendors are invited to participate. He hires a wonderful Vermont catering firm to prepare dishes from our foods, and invites about 500 Washington, DC law makers, restaurant buyers, food professionals, and press members to attend. This year, they will again serve our cheese pizza and pesto pizza (last year we were next to Magic Hat Brewery—what a combination!), as well as our baguettes made into bruschetta with fresh Mountain Mozzarella from Maplebrook Farm (www.mountainmozzarella.com/) in Bennington, VT.

Vermont is a great place to work and run a food-related business. We attract the neatest, most caring, and most creative workforce. We can grow kitchen herbs outside our factory door, picnic in organic grass for lunch, and go for a run or bike ride at the end of the day, practically outside our front door. Our dog can even come to work with us (except that he’s restricted to managing the office, not the production floor.) Vermont Rules for foodies!

This is Phood

The other day I was minding my own business (read: working the phones, calling stores about getting them to carry our products), when a salesman for an ingredient company showed up and wanted to talk to me about buying from his company. Among other things, we buy a lot of tapioca, literally a truckload of it at a time. We also buy large quantities of expeller-pressed, non-GMO canola oil and all natural mozzarella cheese. Word gets around. Sales people are often soliciting our business.

This guy starts his pitch and of course wants to know from whom we currently buy our ingredients and how much we pay. All good and fine. He then whips out his glossy sales literature to show me the kinds of stuff he can sell me. I start looking through the five-page catalog while he peppers me with questions. Do we use any dough conditioners? Or binding agents? Stabilizers? Nope, nope, and nope. The more I read, the more amazed I become. Just the categories of substances were unbelievable: acidulants, excipients, humectants, phosphates, to list a few. Yummy things like benzoic acid, propylene glycol, and calcium sulfate. We see these ingredients in processed foods all the time, and every now and then I have wondered where do you get stuff like this? Now I know.

I began to really joke around with the guy. “Man,” I say, this is like I am reading something from Dow Chemical. You really expect me to put this stuff in our bread?” In fact, his company is mostly a chemical company, except that this is stuff you can legally put in food. “Look at this, what’s a ‘humectant?’” One of our staff folks, Ruth, is sitting at a desk across the room, overhears this and pipes up,”Oh, I know what that is, it’s in my hair conditioner!” Oh boy.

I couldn’t help imagining how this stuff must be packaged. In big metal drums, like chlorine for swimming pools? Or in heavy-duty plastic bags like you find lawn fertilizer and weed killer? Or perhaps thick plastic bottles for detergents and the stuff that unclogs your drains or cleans your toilets? I won’t be finding out. We don’t touch this stuff. And I have to keep reminding myself: This is food, this is food, this is food. No, wait! No, it’s not. It’s Phood! PHOOD!!!

Say “no” to industrialized phood.

The Way We Eat is Political

I’ve recently been reading about Alice Waters and other culinary-minded radicals of the 1970s. What were they doing that was so radical? They were cooking with quality, fresh ingredients and shunning supermarket uniformity and mass-produced, overly-processed, flavor-enhanced foods of the post-World War II era.

I see some interesting parallels in the gluten free world today. When my family members were first diagnosed with celiac disease almost ten years ago, we were pretty much on our own. Although there was a smattering of commercial gluten free baked goods, they were rarely found in traditional supermarkets--basically we baked everything from scratch. Even though that took a lot of time and effort, we developed some pretty tasty gluten free alternatives. Then we took the step that a number of other celiac families have, we became gluten free food entrepreneurs. Making delicious gluten free baked goods in our home was one thing. Retaining that home-baked look and taste while making them available to customers across the country was, and remains, a daunting challenge. There is no getting around it, working with fresh ingredients is a fickle process.

Specialty food is the fastest growing segment of the retail industry and within specialty food, gluten free items are the fastest growing. Even at the 2010 International Pizza Expo in Las Vegas last month, gluten free pizza was one of the hottest topics of discussion. More and more companies seem to be jumping on the bandwagon every day… and gluten free food is becoming far more convenient. But are we sacrificing quality and fresh ingredients in the process? Chemical dough conditioners and preservatives are even creeping into the gluten free labels of companies that were previously known for their all natural, gluten-based ingredients. Another company has even boasted that their gluten free products “represent the very best available science.” Yikes.

In the 1960’s, one voice speaking out against artificial ingredients and big food companies was Helen Evans Brown. The author of Breakfasts and Brunches for Every Occasion, she railed against toast “made from bread that looks and tastes like facial tissue.” Why do we have to fill gluten free food with the substances Twinkies are made of? Some things never seem to change.

On the Road to the Gluten Free Fair

I guess I have Gluten Free Vendor Fairs on my mind. That is probably because we will be traveling to Gluten Free Fairs almost every weekend from now until the summer. We are a small, family-run business, and we have a close-knit team of bakers, so it is a big deal for one of us to be on the road. It is also a pretty big deal to get to shows with all the frozen samples and gear needed to display our products.

We often drive when the event is not more than a long days worth of driving. In the process, our SUV is transformed into an ice cream truck/kitchen/furniture/accessory vehicle. It was Paul of Mr. Ritts GF Bakery in the Philadelphia area who first let us in on the secret of taking frozen products on the road: take the back seat out of your SUV, have an inverter installed, and plug in a chest freezer. Voila, you have an ice cream truck. Of course, that works great when you are moving, but it does get a little challenging when you have to stop for the night. So, we travel with a 50 foot extension cord and find a motel where we can back the car close enough to plug in.

The inverter is a great invention, but I must admit that our Golden, Chester, is not a big fan.  When we first had it installed, Chester, like any Golden pup, decided to lick it.  Mistake.  Boy was he startled.  I guess he knows what those invisible dog fences feel like now.

Into the car, we pack a microwave oven, a convection oven for preparing our truly yummy pizzas, all the cutting boards and utensils for slicing and preparing bread, and plates, linens, some lovely-looking flowers (the nice touch,) and our corporate banner. Well, we’re not a CORPORATION—far from it—but what else do you call those roll-up things with your logo on them? We also put in a small cooler with gluten free snacks and caffeine, a GPS, some CD’s, and if we’re really organized and have the time, some books on CD from the library. By the time we’re done, we can barely see out the back, and by the time we get to the show venue, we’re experts on NPRs major topics of the day.

And so we do it over and over, a lot of the time by plane, once in a while by train, and often by driving lots of miles. If you stop by our table, you’re meeting the real people behind our breads, not some professional demo coordinator. To us, the meeting between manufacturer and customer is part of what makes our company special. Last year, we presented our products to over 21,000 celiacs. Yes, that’s a lot of people…and a lot of miles. See you in at the TCCSG Fair in Farmington Hills on Saturday!

Who Goes to Gluten Free Vendor Fairs?

(yep, that's snow)

It is Gluten Free Fair/Celiac Walk season, and no matter where you live, there are many big, successful events to attend. In some part of the country, there is one to attend almost every weekend between now and the end of June. For us as manufacturers, it is always a pleasure to visit with those loyal customers who buy our bread, at the same time meeting new faces and newly-diagnosed celiacs who will become customers.

Yesterday, we divided forces. Tom was at the Gluten Free Cooking Expo in Lisle, IL, and I went to Healthy Villi’s GF Fair in Wellesley Hills, MA. Boy, the Boston Marathoners are in for a real treat today—the spring greenery and flowers were stunning. 

At the risk of sounding like Barack Obama, I’d like to mention two typical celiacs I met. The first was Penny from NH, who has been eating gluten free for 10 years, and buying our bread since we started the business. She said she was just turning 70, but clearly a gluten free diet agrees with her—she looked at least 10 years younger! Before we had finished chatting, I had seen pictures of her adorable kilt-clad grandsons who live in Scotland and had learned that her daughter by chance had to come up with a snack to feed an unexpected visitor-- Prince Charles (she gave him strawberries and crème fraiche.) Can’t wait to tell this story to my college-aged son. We’ve always stressed the importance of table manners, and he’s always answered, “Yes, I know, in case I ever have dinner with the Queen.” Well, here was someone who had to dig in her pantry to feed a hungry would-be King. You just never know.

And then there was Everett, a totally charming gentleman, who was a fan of our bagels. He was diagnosed almost 21 years ago, when there was very little knowledge and even less gluten free options. Going on 89, he still drives—told me he’s driven over a million miles, 220,000 of them pulling an Airstream camper, and has log books to prove it. He listed off all the family members and former wives he’s outlived, and it was more than the number of daffodils that are blooming so far in my Vermont yard! Everett left me with typed copies of a few of his recipes. One is for a grits-based breakfast mixture, which I’m sure Tom (the hot cereal fanatic in our household) will love.

Going on the road is not easy, but the joys of connecting with the people whose lives our bread has changed, makes it worth it. Next stop, Detroit.