There’s no doubt about it that salads are offering many opportunities for foodservice and retailers these days, whether they’re featuring new tastes and ingredients in restaurants or embracing different flavors and package sizes on retail shelves. With that in mind, one California grower is working on adding a luxury touch to some of its lettuce products for foodservice.
Grown in Santa Maria, California, Babé Farms is introducing two new products: Baby Butter Cakes™ and the Platinum Blonde Frisée™ Salad, a twist on the grower’s Blonde Frisée™ product. The former are petite heads of butter lettuce that are available in both green and red varieties. They take their name from their buttery flavor and cake-like shape and offer three times the number of leaves compared to average butterhead lettuce, says the grower. The latter is a trimmed, pre-washed and ready-to-eat frisee salad green. Both products will be introduced next week at the IFPA Foodservice Conference in Monterey, California on July 28th.
Left to right: Baby Butter Cakes, Platinum Blonde Frisée
Time-savers
“The goal with these products was to save time and labor in the kitchen for chefs while still maintaining the level of quality and luxury that is expected from our vegetables,” says Matt Hiltner of Babé Farms.
“As we finalize our production and supply plans, our supplies are currently limited,” says Ande Manos, director of sales and marketing for Babé Farms, adding that buyers should contact sales representatives with estimated weekly purchasing volumes. The products are available year-round.
In the meantime, the grower anticipates an enthusiastic response to these items at the show next week. “We have already been sampling them to our customers and the initial feedback has been extremely positive,” says Hiltner.
Babé Farms can be found at the conference at booth #718.
For more information:
Babé Farms Specialties, Inc.
Tel: +1 (805) 925-4144
[email protected]
www.babefarms.com
