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.
Issue link: https://specialtyfoodmagazine.epubxp.com/i/328566
Please visit us at the Summer Fancy Food Show in New York at Booth 1961 to sample these products and meet Sarabeth. Nothing says breakfast like Sarabeth's! Starting with an award-winning line of Legendary Spreadable Fruit, Sarabeth continues to develop exceptional specialty foods. Start the day with all natural Morning Crunch Granola in 12 oz. bags of Classic Raisin Almond, Blueberry Cranberry Almond and Raspberry Almond. And now, Sarabeth's is pleased to announce a new and improved line of f lavored coffees. These all natural f lavored brews will exceed the expectations of the most demanding coffee connoisseurs. Using only Arabica beans and the finest natural f lavors this line of Sarabeth's coffee will complement any meal or simply provide a fully satisfying drink on its own. Sarabeth's Coffees are available in 12oz bags. sarabeth.com 718.589.2900 1-800-773-7378 Summer Fancy Food Show Booth 1961 Summer Fancy Food Show Booth 351 producer profile K itty Keller was feeling under the weather in Beaujolais. It was 1992 and she was traveling through France with a friend, lugging around Patricia Wells' The Food Lover's Guide to France. They had been eating very well, but Keller needed to rest for a day or two until she recovered. Her friend suggested doing something easy, taking a drive to a walnut oil pro- ducer mentioned in Wells' book. Two hours later down country roads, Keller could smell the roasting nuts. Her friend asked for a tour of the walnut oil factory, which turned out to be a small room with a granite mill, a mechani- cal press, and a pot that heated up the nuts to make a paste before extracting the oil. "I'd always read about walnut oil but hadn't found it anywhere," Keller says. "It was fantastic." She became so enthralled she forgot she was sick. The sublime taste connected the dots between the artisan-made French food she had been savoring and an experience she longed to share with friends and family at her table back in Northern California. A year later, Keller's father died. "He had regret for the things he didn't do," she says. "I was 40 and wanted to go back to France. He left me a little money, enough to live there for four months, not enough to retire." Three days before she left California, packing just two suitcases, her friend told her, "Bring me some of that walnut oil." Early Quests Keller brought home $6,000 worth of walnut oil, hazelnut oil, and olive oil. What she wanted in life, she'd decided, was to become an importer. "My exit strategy was equally as unsophisticated as my entry into the specialty food business," she says. "If no one would take the oils, I thought I'd sell them at cost." Before that last resort, she made a few phone calls in the San Francisco area and began doing demos every weekend at specialty grocers such as Market Hall Foods' The Pasta Shop. "People had to taste walnut oil to see why it was so good," she says. Her passion "My mom thought I should get a job on a cruise ship so I could see the world, have an exotic life," she says. "Then I met this odd man who thought it would be fun to hire a girl to sell adding machines in East Oakland, at the time of the Black Panthers." 90 ❘ SPECIALTY FOOD MAGAZINE specialtyfood.com ProducerProfiile_Keller.indd 90 6/5/14 11:27 AM