Food & Wine magazine has named its first-ever list of the top 25 Game Changers in the food industry, and the roster of innovative all-stars includes three Specialty Food Association members.
“It's pretty exciting. I have been a reader of Food & Wine for as long as I can remember, and I never thought I'd see the day I would be featured in it,” said Miyoko Schinner, founder and CEO of plant-based dairy pioneer Miyoko's Creamery. “It really is like a dream come true for me.”
Along with Schinner, the other SFA members included in the Food & Wine roundup of “people, products, organizations, and movements that have had the most meaningful impact on the way we eat, drink, and live right now” include Sun Noodle and Diaspora Co.
The inaugural Game Changers “have long done good work and are pushing the food world forward for the better,” the magazine said.
“Their innovations are creating positive changes by empowering home cooks with new tools and more sustainable products and by modeling more equitable workplaces and supporting local communities,” said Hunter Lewis, editor in chief, Food & Wine, in a statement.
Sun Noodle, the magazine said, has been “at the forefront of America's ramen boom.”
Founded in Hawaii by Japanese immigrant Hidehito Uki, Sun Noodle built its noodle empire by manufacturing customized ramen noodles for many of the top ramen restaurants around the country.
“All of us at Sun Noodle are extremely grateful and humbled to be included on this list next to some of our biggest heroes in the industry,” said Joyce Chuck, marketing coordinator at Sun Noodle, which now operates out of facilities in New Jersey and California. “We are committed to sharing our love of ramen with the world and introducing people to craft ramen. That means that we have to be mindful of how people eat today and how that is constantly evolving — flavors, ingredients, format, accessibility, etc. We are constantly evaluating and innovating for a diverse audience.”
The company's latest innovations include introducing new types of noodles to home chefs to help them expand their culinary repertoires. These new noodles include tsukemen (cold ramen noodles that are meant to be dipped in hot soup) and Jiro ramen, named after a cult favorite style of ramen popular in Tokyo.
“We are also introducing more restaurant collaborations, meal kits, and nutritious options,” said Chuk. “We will have exciting news to share in the coming months!”
Food & Wine featured Diaspora Co. in the “superior spices” movement, which made the list as a Game Changer for “disrupting and outmoded industry.”
Founded in 2017 by Sana Javeri Kadri, Diaspora Co. is seeking to both upgrade the quality of the spices on the market but also streamline the supply chain to generate more revenues for farmers.
Kadri, who was featured on Specialty Food magazine's “12 Under 35” list in 2019, launched the company with a single heirloom turmeric farmer in India, and has since grown the company to include more than a dozen organically farmed, single origin spice varieties.
Other companies included as “superior spices” in the Game Changers feature were Burlap & Barrel and Curio Spice Co.
Schinner, meanwhile, said Miyoko's Creamery continues to remain on the cutting edge of plant-based butter and cheese production, using traditional dairy processes such as fermentation, brining, and aging to create premium products made from plants, nuts and seeds.
“We are reinventing the premium dairy category,” she told SFA News Daily. “I think we have been able to produce products with premium value that have been considered artisanal, and that has really helped to transform perception around plant-based dairy.”
New products include Plant Milk Cheddar Sticks for kids, made from oat milk in a new recipe that generates its cheddar flavor naturally through fermentation and the unique combination of ingredients. The formulation will also be used to relaunch the company's oat milk cheddar slices and shreds later this year, Schinner said.
The company continues to focus on making its products as nutritious as possible, she said, citing another cheese product in development that will include about 10 grams of protein per serving.
“We are going much deeper into the functionalities of the different plants, and learning about which plant milks coagulate, and which ones can have really great flavor development with enzymes and cultures,” Schinner said. “Dairy milk has a 2,000-year history, where cheesemakers understand it thoroughly. We're trying to gain that knowledge in a matter of a few years, and we've made a lot of progress.”
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Image: Food & Wine