Specialty Food Magazine is the leading publication for retailers, manufacturers and foodservice professionals in the specialty food trade. It provides news, trends and business-building insights that help readers keep their businesses competitive.
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(continued from p. 80) category spotlight grabbing these on an everyday basis with their lunches." "All of the growth in beverages is in the healthy beverages sector—those drinks that have perceived health benefts." Coming Up: Raw Juices. In some regions, demand for raw juices is skyrocketing. Raph Mogannam, grocery buyer for Bi-Rite Markets, predicts that locally sourced raw juices are going to be the next big thing on a national level. Bi-Rite is partnering with area business The Juice Shop to offer exclusively its line of vegetable and fruit raw juices, packaged in glass bottles reminiscent of old-fashioned milk bottles. The Juice Shop makes its blends in small batches, sourcing from many of the same farms whose produce fills Bi-Rite's shelves. Ingredient pairings like raspberry watermelon, cucumber pineapple ginger, and a mixture of greens such as cucumber, spinach, kale and romaine lettuce, all from Evolution Fresh, add excitement to its line of high-pressured, cold-processed juices and a protein smoothie. Finding a Sweet Balance keted as "tea beer." At the Honest Weight Food Co-op, two varieties of Aqua Vitae kombucha, microbrewed in Salisbury, Vt., are on tap, and customers can fill up singleserving bottles and growlers to go. Specialty Sodas Upgrade. Consumers craving carbonation and a sweet taste are still turning to sodas, but increasingly, options exist with all-natural and organic ingredients, upscale flavors and a less-sweet profile. GuS, or Grown-up Soda, offers a line of classic and updated flavors, like root beer, extra-dry ginger ale and Meyer lemon, that contain natural ingredients and are lightly sweetened using cane sugar, with only 90 to 98 calories in a bottle. Similarly, the makers of Q Tonic saw a need for lightly and naturally sweetened sodas, as bartenders asked for an alternative to the high-fructose-laden sodas on the market. The resulting line is a nod to classic flavors, with such offerings as Q Ginger and Q Kola. "You don't feel guilty drinking these sodas. It's really light and refreshing," says Southern Season's Hunt. "Customers are The race to zero calories continues as manufacturers search for new low- or no-calorie natural sweeteners and experiment with a blend of the natural sweetener stevia with erythritol to leave less of a metallic aftertaste. After years of refusing to include sweeteners that leave a "diet" aftertaste, Steve Hersh, coowner of GuS, says he is experimenting with natural sweeteners to create a low- or nocalorie soda. "I'm getting a lot of comments and requests for a zero-calorie drink, so we're looking at it seriously. The taste is just not there, but we're working on a prototype." A new natural sweetener derived from monk fruit is on the market and should begin appearing in beverages, says John Sicher, editor of Beverage Digest. "This is where the beverage market is going," he says. "Over the next year or two, the thing to watch is the introduction of new low-calorie and zerocalorie sweeteners." Robyn Pforr Ryan is a regular contributor to Specialty Food News and Specialty Food Magazine. 138 ❘ SPECIALTY FOOD MAGAZINE specialtyfood.com