Parma, Idaho
January 27, 2006
“Some folks
seemed surprised to see a seed company there, but when you’re
talking about produce quality, it actually all starts with a
seed.” Jennifer Armen-Bolen was remarking on mid-January’s
Produce First! American Menus Initiative, created by the
Produce
for Better Health Foundation (PBH) and
The Culinary Institute of
America (CIA). Armen-Bolen, of
Nunhems, a global
vegetable seed producer and program sponsor, underlined the
benefits of a meeting supported by a diverse and wide-ranging
list of food industry interests.
“It was a really productive idea to bring
together not only chefs and food service leaders from America’s
top chain restaurants, hotels and supermarkets, but also other
key members of the produce industry, including seed producers,”
she said. The meeting, held at the CIA’s historic Greystone
facility in St. Helena, California, highlighted culinary
strategies from the Mediterranean, Asia, Latin America and the
United States. It also featured a chef/operator and produce
industry dialog on meeting the challenge of the 2005 Dietary
Guidelines that call for Americans to more than double their
fruit and vegetable consumption.
“It’s exactly
the type of partnership that our industry needs in order to
further the availability of quality produce items on menus,”
Armen-Bolen maintained. Research presented at the meeting showed
that demand for new product development is driven by the
foodservice industry’s primary considerations when adding new
menu items: food costs, flavor, consumer trends, and
profitability. The session also focused on options for making
fruits and vegetables more available to the growing number of
consumers who rely on away-from-home purchases for meals and
snacks.
In
underscoring the value of Produce First!, Armen-Bolen, who is a
Nunhems business development executive, noted that “a meeting
like this helps create another vital feedback loop from those
who are setting menu and eating trends in the United States back
to seed companies that can further development of produce
varieties that can address the demand for the highest levels of
taste, texture, and nutrition as well as meet agronomic
requirements.”
Elizabeth Pivonka, Ph.D., R.D., president and CEO
of PBH, stated that creating new ideas that maintain appropriate
levels of profitability can take “the combined efforts of the
foodservice industry’s finest marketers and chefs and the
produce industry’s most innovative suppliers of fruits and
vegetables—exactly the mix Produce First! provides.”
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