On our latest Cold Corner Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Michael Costa sits down with Peter Bartzis and Liz Vanderhoef from Devanco Foods—which placed first in our 2021 Best New Frozen Retail Products Contest—to discuss the company’s winning No-MSG Chicken Gyros Kits, as well as their overall retail sales growth (150% year-over-year), sustainability goals, new product launches, family focused company culture, and distribution strategies for e-commerce and foodservice, which is rapidly ramping up as pandemic restrictions are lifted.
Congratulations to the top-five winners in our 2021 Best New Frozen Retail Products Contest! These five companies pulled away from the pack of 20 nominated products in online voting from April 2 to May 2, and will be honored with individual Q&As in our July magazine. The #1 overall winner—Devanco Foods—is also featured in a special contest episode of our Cold Corner podcast. You can listen to Devanco's podcast here.
On our latest Cold Corner Podcast, Lauren Edmonds, newly elected president of the Refrigerated Foods Association (RFA) joins Editor-in-Chief Michael Costa to discuss the RFA’s plans for the coming year, plus how the pandemic is still affecting the refrigerated foods industry through price hikes and shortages on ingredients, a shrinking labor pool, and more. They also discuss Edmonds’ company, St. Clair Foods, and their move to an automated production facility.
On our latest From the Cold Corner Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Michael Costa catches up with Ryan Riddle, senior R&D specialist for plant-based meal solutions at Nestlé and its Sweet Earth brand. They talk about why refrigerated and frozen plant-based foods are so popular today, which consumer markets are key targets for plant-based foods, how Nestlé incorporates its plant-based products into the brand’s freezer-aisle favorites like DiGiorno Pizza and Stouffer’s, plus much more.
On our latest From the Cold Corner Podcast, I talk with Vincent Free, chairman of the Controlled Environment Building Association (CEBA) about how the organization helps bring together suppliers, sub-contractors, builders and more, to move the thermal envelope industry forward through education and networking.
On our latest From the Cold Corner Podcast, I sit down with Neil Russell, VP of corporate affairs at Sysco, for details about the company’s constantly evolving strategies during the pandemic.
On our latest From the Cold Corner Podcast, I discuss the state of frozen foods and COVID-19’s effect on the entire industry with Alison Bodor, president and CEO of the American Frozen Food Institute (AFFI).
This week on our From the Cold Corner podcast, I spoke with Josh Knott, president of the Refrigerated Foods Association (RFA) and Knott's Fine Foods in Paris, Tennessee. We discussed worker safety, supply chain slowdowns due to COVID-19 precautions, and how panic buying and fear of perceived food shortages by consumers can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
On our newest From the Cold Corner podcast, I talked with Roberto Peregrina from Hiperbaric about the latest trends in High Pressure Processing (HPP) and what the evolution of HPP might look like in the future. We also discussed COVID-19’s impact on Hiperbaric’s business, and what the company is doing instead of tradeshows to connect with F&B processors while travel is shut down, which is a pivot many businesses have to make today.
