The Culinary Scoop

By Wilbert Jones

Pictured: BakerStone Pizza Oven Box

Annually, from the months of May through June, well over 100,000 food and beverage professionals come to Chicago to attend or exhibit at the National Restaurant Association Restaurant, Sweets & Snacks Expo, and/or Food Marketing Institute Connect.

There’s always the anticipation of sampling creative products and learning about the coolest new technology, along with plenty of hands-on cooking demonstrations by a host of chefs, mixologists and manufacturers.

This past May, the National Restaurant Association Restaurant (NRA) drew more than 67,000 attendees from all 50 states and more than 100 countries. This is the largest annual gathering of restaurant, foodservice and lodging professionals in the world. A one highlight was the Forno de Minas product line Brazilian imported cheese rolls. These are gluten free, all natural “breads of cheese” are made with tapioca starch, a specialty cheese, milk and eggs. They are sold frozen and can be purchased in large grocery stores throughout the U.S. marketplace.

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Emmy Award®-winning actress Viola Davis, the Albertsons Companies Foundation and the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF) have come together to produce the new Hunger Is “Hungry for More” campaign which focuses on the importance of daily breakfast for children, seeking to provide five million more breakfasts this year to children in need. Hunger Is, a joint charitable program of the Albertsons Companies Foundation and EIF, designed to raise awareness and funds to fight childhood hunger in America, will feature this PSA campaign in select Albertsons family of stores during the month of September. The print, broadcast, digital and out-of-home PSA campaign will begin running in August.
Shoppers at the Albertsons family of stores — which include Albertsons, Safeway, Vons, Pavilions, Shaw’s, Star Market, Tom Thumb, Randalls, ACME Markets and others — will have the opportunity to fight childhood hunger in their communities by giving to Hunger Is during an in-store fundraising campaign the month of September at more than 2,300 Albertsons family of stores across the U.S. Funds raised through the in-store campaign will contribute toward reaching the five million breakfasts goal.

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