Nikon Key Mission 360 is part of the first line of action cameras, and by far is the most impressive.
You can capture your entire world with this one dual-lensed camera, all 360˚ of viewing. The photos and videos come back to you simultaneously in all directions, making this state of the art camera perfect for the adventurer within. Not only can you capture your real life experiences effortlessly, but you can replay them in 4K ultra-HD quality bringing you right back to the very landscape that inspired them.
This shockproof, waterproof, and freezeproof camera is controlled by your smartphone, requiring a simple set up and go! The 360˚ view means that you can create videos with navigable angling, or you can take the views that appeal most to you and edit them into your own personal films, supported by an electronic image stabilizer and 21.14 MP CMOS X2 Sensor, for that professional look.
The panoramic first-person views provide easy editing and will have you and your audience reliving the experiences captured time and again. The mounting compatibility includes a wide range of purposes for your shooting needs, and the weatherproofing means that you don't have to limit your adventures or your creativity while using the Key Mission 360.
Key Mission 360 sees everything, making Nikon a pioneer in virtual reality shooting and the transition between traditional videography and the videography of the future. And you can bet Nikon wasn't going to enter the field without a bang, the dual lenses are also ultra-wide and sharp and despite heavy proofing of the device it includes a quality built-in stereo microphone. Being linked with your phone means Nikon included an additional built-in Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connection.
The most authentic viewing requires virtual reality headsets, launching you back into that original moment, time and place. Nikon Key Mission 360 is highly recommendable to action photographers looking to up their game, or to any person with an adventurous soul and creative taste.


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Retail Branded Concept Creation & Development
concept research, existing concept enhancement, new concept creation
Vegetables Take Center Stage
Posted on September 10, 2016 September 10, 2016 by Food Innovation Factory
American diners have historically had an uneasy relationship with vegetables, as the order to "eat your [frequently overcooked] vegetables" made their consumption a punitive chore that took the fun out of nightly supper for legions of kids. Now our attitudes may be changing for the better, as the category receives a strong boost from thought leaders like The Culinary Institute of American, which sponsors seminars devoted to plant-forward menus, and from influential chains like Panera Bread, which touts the benefits of plant-based dishes. Last fall the United States Department of Agriculture reported that just three vegetables — white potatoes, tomatoes and lettuce — account for nearly 60 percent of consumption and called on consumers to broaden their vegetal horizons. Chefs in all segments are working overtime to make that happen.
The restaurant By Chloe in New York City boasts plant-based food that "fuels without compromising flavor" and innovates with vegan specialties like the Pesto Meatball Sandwich, in which portobello mushrooms stand in for the meat and cashew mozz and almond parm substitute for conventional cheese. [Editor note: NRN named the concept as a 2016 Breakout Brand.] Superiority Burger, also in New York, has created a vegetarian menu that includes the eponymous meatless burger, along with the Superiority Wrap that is made from brown rice and tofu topped with cabbage-sunflower crunch and the Sloppy Dave that combines tofu and tomato sauce topped with frizzled onions.
While not strictly a vegetarian restaurant, Beefsteak in Washington, D.C., employs the catchphrase Vegetables Unleashed to describe its celebration of produce. The Gazpacho Bowl Salad combines the classic soup ingredients atop romaine, while the Beefsteak Tomato Burger surprises by replacing the burger patty with a generously sliced beefsteak tomato topped with condiments like pickled red onions and capers.
Taco Bell made a splash late last year when it became the first quick-service chain to offer menu items certified by the American Vegetarian Association. The chain, which was already selling more than 350 million vegetarian menus items each year, offers 13 AVA-certified items like the 7-Layer Burrito. Patrons can also swap out meat for beans in any of the chain's entrées. Applebee's Grill & Bar recently introduced new side dishes including fire-grilled veggies. Applebee's recently underwent a system-wide revamp that introduced a wood-fired-grill cooking platform; at the same time, the chain enhanced its side-dish offerings with new fire-grilled veggies, garlicky green beans and maple-pecan mashed sweet potatoes. A few years back, LongHorn Steakhouses launched a rotating Peak Seasons menu that promises the freshest picks of the season. This summer's feature was fire-grilled corn on the cob with Mexican crema and Parmesan cheese, and flavors of fall include smoked-Gouda green beans. Fast-casual Smashburger features signature Veggie Frites, flash-fried fresh green beans and carrot strips, as a permanent menu option.
With the USDA indicating that about one-third of all vegetables consumed by Americans are potatoes, many chains are working overtime to spiff up this side-dish workhorse. Smashburger's signature Smashfries, for example, are tossed in olive oil, garlic and rosemary, while Mimi's Café, based in Dallas, underscores its French heritage with hand-cut, scratch-made, double-fried Russet potatoes, seasoned with sea salt and herbs in the classic French frites style. IHOP offers red potato hash, and Memphis, Tenn.-based LYFE Kitchen amps up the flavor factor with its chipotle potato hash.
Spiralized vegetables have been having a moment, as food bloggers tout their low-starch, gluten-free superiority to conventional pastas. The simple technique takes a peeler to a range of vegetables, frequently a variety of squash, to create pasta-like strands. Restaurants are responding to the trend. The Salmon and Zoodles at TR Fire Grill in Winter Park, Fla., combines zucchini pasta with asparagus, sweet drop peppers, green apples and Feta cheese finished with pistachio-Romesco sauce. Houlihan's dishes up Spiralized Butternut Squash & Sausage Lasagna made with butternut squash "noodles," herbed ricotta cheese, Italian sausage, marinara and mozzarella. This featured main course goes round in circles a second time with the special pesto-zucchini "noodle" salad on the side. And on different but equally innovative note, Snap Kitchen based in Austin, Texas, provides healthful meals like Grilled Kale "Hoppin' John," a take-off on the venerable Southern beans-and-rice dish. This version consists of Spanish rice, black beans, lentil, pumpkin seed, kale, lemon hummus and sweet potatoes spiked with chile flakes, cumin and paprika
* Abridged from an article by Nancy Kruse, President of the Kruse Company, is a menu trends analyst based in Atlanta.
Posted in Consulting Services, Culinary Development & Constructions, Retail Branded Concept Creation & Development Leave a comment
Ten Trends Set to Reshape the Foodservice Business
Posted on May 28, 2016 by Food Innovation Factory
Insects and plant foods are expected to move more into the mainstream.
In the future, restaurant guests will choose a diet based on their unique microbial profile.
Proteins on restaurant menus will not necessarily mean meat, but could mean crickets or plants.
And smart phones will have sensors that will allow chefs to tell when a melon is ripe or guests to verify whether that fish on their plate is really sea bass.
That's how William Rosenzweig, dean and executive director of the Food Business School at The Culinary Institute of America, described the food industry in the very near future. He outlined his predictions at the 20th Annual UCLA Extension Restaurant Industry Conference held in Los Angeles.
Launched last year at the CIA campus in St. Helena, CA, the school is designed to meet the needs of a growing number of students interested less in culinary careers and more in rapidly changing global food systems, as entrepreneurs or corporate innovators.
Now on the CIA's Greystone campus, the school will soon move into the 80,000-square-foot Copia facility created by wine maker Robert Mondavi as an American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts in nearby Napa. The site has been vacant for about eight years.
The Northern California facility is also at the epicenter of the increasingly integrated worlds of food, agriculture and technology, with the restaurants and wine of the Napa Valley, the farms of the Sacramento Valley and the digital startups of Silicon Valley all nearby.
Here are some of the changes Rosenzweig contends will reshape the American dining scene in the next few years:
1. Biology of food is the new digital. Scientists are just beginning to understand the world of the human microbiome, the microorganisms in the body and in our food and soil that are vital to health, said Rosenzweig.
That research will lead to a new way of thinking about food that goes beyond nutritional content.
"Food will really become medicine," he said. "We're going to realize that we have this other intelligence in our gut that we don't know yet what to do with."
Farmers will begin talking about manipulating the biome of the products they produce, said Rosenzweig.
We'll move from nutritional recommendations for society as a whole to uniquely personalized diets that speak to individual bacterial systems, he said. And consumers will eventually have their microbiome scanned, which will produce a huge database that could play into nutrition research.
2. The quantified self. With more consumers using Fitbits and Apple Watches, devices that collect individual data will increasingly play a role in consumer food choices.
3. Precision agriculture. Farms will have robots that apply fertilizer and pesticides only where needed on the fields, creating more efficiency and a path for more sustainable practices.
Rosenzweig contends indoor agriculture will become the next boom for farmers and the movement will transform cities as growers move into facilities across the country to produce truly local fruits and vegetables.
4. Meal delivery is here to stay. The logistics of moving food from point A to point B will improve rapidly, and consumers will increasingly embrace the home delivery of all manner of meals.
Already delivery has created a new meal occasion, said Rosenzweig. "It's the 'I don't have time to cook, but I don't want to go out' meal occasion."
5. Alternative proteins. Meat will no longer be the center of the plate, but crickets and plants will become the new protein.
"This is the biggest sea change that will come fast," said Rosenzweig. "How long it will last and for whom remains to be seen. But we're going to need a whole new vocabulary for these foods."
6. Robotics. Momentum Machines later this year is scheduled to open a restaurant in San Francisco where robots cook burgers without any human intervention.
More automation is coming, said Rosenzweig, and integrating such technologies will be fraught with tough decisions for restaurant operators.
"That's why we need the Food Business School, to better address those challenging issues," he said.
7. The internet of food. Both residential and commercial kitchens will increasingly be connected by a network of intelligent data systems.
Already, major appliance makers are putting in sensors that will help restaurant operators manage their inventory with more precision, a trend that will significantly reduce food waste, said Rosenzweig.
9. Sensing and sensors. As soon as 2017, smart phones will be built with sensors with which people can scan food to get information. A chef could tell when a melon is ripe, for example, or a diner could identify the type of fish in their sushi. Wine makers could pinpoint the sugar content in their grapes, he said.
10. Data and personalization. Chefs will soon be able to turn to the internet to easily manipulate recipes to fit specific dietary needs. If they need a recipe for beef bourguignon, for example, that's low in fat and uses no salt, a growing number of sources will provide that information quickly.
*Abridged from an article by Lisa Jennings: lisa.jennings@penton.com
Posted in Culinary Development & Constructions, Health & Wellness, Retail Branded Concept Creation & Development, Sustainability Leave a comment
Menus Adapt to Appeal to Nation of Snackers
Posted on April 10, 2016 April 18, 2016 by Food Innovation Factory
America is truly a nation of snackers: Adults in this country snacked on ready-to-eat foods more than 200 billion times in 2015, according to consumer research firm The NPD Group.
We snack so much that there are now three snacking dayparts in restaurants — mid-morning, late afternoon and late night — that together make up 18 percent of all restaurant dining occasions, according to NPD. That makes it one percentage point larger than breakfast in terms of number of visits. And that doesn't count the many times when traditional meals are transformed from a sandwich at lunch or an appetizer and entrée at dinner to a flexible, sharable snack fest, or a lighter meal for the budget- or calorie-conscious.
The latter is happening at Genji Izakaya, a new restaurant serving Japanese snacks that opened on March 1 inside the Whole Foods Market at New York City's Time Warner Center. The restaurant replaces a bar that served a meal-oriented menu of burgers, fries and the like.
Genji also operates sushi and ramen restaurants at Whole Foods Markets across the country. This is its first izakaya — a Japanese word that translates loosely as "tavern."
The new menu includes sliders served on steamed buns for $4 apiece, filled with chashu pork, shrimp tempura, spicy chicken or tofu. It also offers quick bites for $3 to $7, including edamame, dumplings, a seared salmon "carpaccio" in ponzu, and a "taco trio" of spicy tuna, salmon and shrimp tempura served in shells of thin soy paper or nori seaweed.
Also available — and quite popular — are mini bowls of ramen for $9, which are about two-thirds the size of $11 full servings at the nearby Genji ramen and sushi restaurants.
Greg Neal, regional operations manager for parent company Genji LLC, said the Izakaya is seeing strong lunch and post-work dinner rushes.
"At lunch they usually order ramen and one other thing," Neal said. "At dinner they'll get a snack and a beer, and then maybe order something a little bigger as they linger, as you would at a typical izakaya [in Japan]."
Snacking revenue is on the rise at many restaurants, according to a study conducted in February by Penton Food and Restaurant Group, which includes Nation's Restaurant News, and sponsored by Mondelez. The study found that 43 percent of restaurant operators saw an increase in revenue from snacks in the past two years, while 53 percent said snack sales were flat. Only 4 percent said snack sales "decreased somewhat," and none said they "decreased significantly."
Many operators have responded to the increase in snack food business.
"We take our bar food just as seriously as we do full-on menu items," said Brian Landry, chef at Borgne, a New Orleans restaurant that is part of the Besh Restaurant Group. "We have lots of outlets where having great bar food becomes very relevant," he said.
Bar snacks need to be quick, easy and approachable, Landry said, which at his restaurant includes catfish sliders served with a tartar sauce made with both dill pickles and bread-and-butter pickles. The sliders are topped with a green tomato chow chow, a Southern-style slaw that Landry makes by pouring a hot mixture of vinegar, pickling spices and turmeric over diced green tomatoes, cabbage, cauliflower and red bell peppers, and letting it chill.
He also does a take on turkey necks, a not uncommon addition to local crawfish bowls. He braises the necks in a traditional French mixture of mirepoix and red wine, chills them in the liquid, and rolls them in crab-boil spices and rice flour before flash-frying them.
"They get incredibly crispy and spicy on the outside, but they're falling-off-the-bone tender," Landry said.
The necks are finished with a glaze of housemade pepper jelly.
Landry also taps his bar menu, which he rotates based on what's available, to use up trim from the dining room menu. For example, he'll buy whole yellowfin tuna and use the loins for the restaurant.
"But there's all this other meat on a tuna that we might not necessarily put center of the plate," he said.
Instead, he cooks it with olive oil, garlic and bay leaves, smokes it over pecan wood, flakes the meat, and mixes it with cream cheese and capers for a spread that he serves with spiced potato chips, crackers or bruschetta.
"It's a fun way for us to utilize the entire fish, but also to make a delicious snack that people can dig on when they're having wine or delicious beer," Landry said.
Dylan Fultineer agreed that snacks should be straightforward. Fultineer is the chef of Rapp Session in Richmond, Va., and its sister farm-to-table restaurant next door, Rappahannock. Both are owned by the Rappahannock Oyster Company, which farms oysters in Chesapeake Bay. The company opened Rapp Session in February to handle the overflow from its high-end neighbor, and to make that restaurant a bit more sedate.
Fultineer creates local, approachable food that people can relate to, like his smoked bluefish dip. He brines the inexpensive fish overnight with salt, sugar, dill, garlic and other aromatics, then hot-smokes it until cooked through. He flakes it and mixes it with crème fraîche, red onion, cucumber, dill and lemon juice, and serves it with saltines. The dip is one of his most popular items, he said.
Most of the bar food is priced between $2 and $8, but Fultineer offers a more substantial $15 oyster roll, which is his take on a lobster roll. He poaches oysters in butter and serves them on a brioche bun that he tops with his own chow chow, which he describes as "sort of a sweet sauerkraut," and a housemade, fermented, green jalapeño hot sauce.
"Shareable, snacky items" will also be the focus of Columbus Tap, a restaurant slated to open in April at the Fairmont Chicago hotel, chef Atticus Garant said.
The lineup includes trendy "toasts," including one with crushed avocado, lemon and olive oil vinaigrette, shaved radishes, hot pepper and hydroponic watercress.
Another will be spread with smoked ranch — made by cold-smoking sour cream and folding it with herbs such as tarragon, oregano, parsley and chives into ranch dressing. The toast will be topped with pieces of rotisserie chicken, Nueske's bacon, lettuce, cured tomatoes, lemon vinaigrette and herbs.
Garant said he is using sourdough and multigrain bread from local Publican Quality Bread for the toasts.
Other snackable items include artichokes that he treats like fried chicken — soaking them in buttermilk and then dredging them in spiced flour before frying them. He also plans to make "animal crackers," a bowl of fried pork cracklings tossed in spice dust that reflects the flavors of Buffalo wings.
According to the Penton-Mondelez study, taste is far and away the most important quality customers are looking for in a snack: 52 percent of respondents said it was the most important characteristic, and 31 percent put it in second place.
By comparison, nutrition was only ranked the top choice by 2 percent of respondents, and 17 percent put it in second place. Most put convenience and price between taste and nutrition.
Nonetheless, Garant said variety is important, and he plans more healthful items to contrast the chicken-fried artichokes and pork cracklings.
They include a braised sunchoke salad with carrot, celery root and an olive oil vinaigrette, as well as charred broccoli with an "umami bomb" vinaigrette made of sundried tomatoes, capers, tomato powder, olive oil and lemon.
He is also planning a dish of roasted romanesco broccoli, for which he rubs the heads in compound butter, roasts them whole, slices them in half and serves three halves with preserved lemon, herbed relish and Parmesan cheese.
STK, a 13-unit steakhouse based in New York City, is taking a more indulgent route with its recently launched "Classic Hour," which features classic cocktails and, at its downtown Manhattan location, not-so-classic sliders on weekdays from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Bradley Day, chef of the downtown location, said the slider fillings include crispy char siu chicken with spicy Asian slaw, barbecue pork belly with a cipollini onion applesauce, tempura sweet-and-sour shrimp, and a vegetarian slider made with grilled shiitake mushroom and garlic herb aïoli, as well as a classic with white Cheddar and special sauce.
"Here I think it's a little bit about variety and speed," Day said. "It's very approachable — not too far out in left field."
Day said the restaurant originally required customers to buy two of the same type of slider for $10, but now it lets them mix and match and add extra sliders for $5 each, although they still require a two-slider minimum.
It's not uncommon for people to buy slider tastings, Day said, which is one of each, and share them with a group.
*Abridged from an article by Bret Thorn at bret.thorn@penton.com
Posted in Business Plans, Culinary Development & Constructions, Health & Wellness, Retail Branded Concept Creation & Development, Strategic Repositioning Services, Sustainability Leave a comment
Is Fermented Food a Recipe for Good Digestive Health?
Posted on March 13, 2016 April 18, 2016 by Food Innovation Factory
Fermenting food is an ancient tradition which involves food being stored in airtight bottles in a salty mixture for many months. Fermentation as a way of preserving food dates back thousands of years, but it is now being held up as a potentially important source of friendly, health-giving bacteria. So should we all be eating sauerkraut and kimchi?
Allowing bacteria to form in a sealed jar of vegetables over a few months might not seem like the most appealing way to create an appetising dish, but fermentation has a lot going for it. Just ask the Koreans and Japanese, who have been fermenting vegetables, fish and beans for generations. When the Korean cabbage dish kimchi is made using traditional methods, cabbage is soaked in salt water to kill off any harmful bacteria. In the next stage, the remaining bacteria, called Lactobacillus, convert sugars and carbohydrate into lactic acid, which preserves the vegetables and gives them a tangy flavour that many people love. This type of bacteria is not the enemy – it is actually good for our digestion and for our health. We need it in our guts to fight off the harmful bacteria, restore the balance of our immune system and help the body to work at its best.
These "good bacteria" are called probiotics, which literally means "for life", because of the job they do.
But are there enough of them in fermented food to make a difference?
Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King's College London and author of The Diet Myth – The Real Science Behind What We Eat, says it is a complicated picture.
"There are many fermented foods out there and not many have had formal testing so it's difficult to know what they do," he says. "But there's nothing harmful about them if they are produced naturally, rather than using vinegar." Yoghurt and cheese are the products of bacterial fermentation, while beer and wine are products of yeast fermentation Fermented food comes in many forms, for example, yoghurt, sour cream, sour dough bread, vegetables, chutneys and pickles. Often probiotics are added, in the form of live bacteria or yeast, if the foods are not made using lactic acid bacteria as in kimchi. Even wine and beer can be included on the fermented list, but they are not all beneficial to the same degree – and so they cannot all be classed as healthy. The most important consideration is whether the good bacteria can survive all the way through the gut to the bowel and the colon where they have a chance to be of benefit.
Studies suggest this is not guaranteed and that probiotics would have to be eaten regularly and in quite large numbers to survive the journey. If and when they manage to breed in the gut, scientists have a theory about the role they perform.
"We think they can allow production of chemicals called short-chain fatty acids, which improve the immune system, by keeping it balanced and stopping it over-reacting," says Prof Spector.
A great deal of research is being carried out to find out if taking probiotics can improve the health of people with specific disorders. So far it has been suggested there could be benefits for those with irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory diseases of the intestines. They may also improve allergies in babies and the health of people with weak immune systems. Lactobacillus bacteria produce lactic acid through the fermentation of carbohydrates; they are hostile to disease-causing bacteria. The very sick, the very young and the very old are mostly likely to benefit from probiotics if their guts are weakened, but as yet there is little evidence they do much for a healthy person. Instead, the key may be to focus on prebiotics, which feed the beneficial bacteria in our guts, nurturing them and helping them to grow. This is an area Dr Gemma Walton, a gut microbiologist from Reading University, has been investigating and she has found encouraging evidence that a prebiotic diet can increase the numbers of good bacteria in the gut.
Bananas are another prebiotic, but Dr Walton says: "You would need to eat 10 bananas a day to get enough of the compound."Onions, asparagus, chicory and garlic act as prebiotics too. Sauerkraut (cabbage), yoghurt, kimchi and miso soup are just some of the fermented food products which contain the live microbes needed to keep the good bacteria alive for longer. However, Dr Walton says it is difficult to know which fermented foods will hit the spot. "All foods have a different mix of bacteria which means some will be more beneficial than others," she says, before adding that bacterial ingredients in food products were often unclear.
Kimchi is a traditional Korean dish made from fermented cabbage and other vegetables
There are trillions of bacteria living in our guts and on our bodies – more than 10 times the number of body cells in one individual."If we can help to get more fibres down there in the gut then it's a good thing," she adds. The answer to all this may be found in British Gut Project, which is analysing the gut bacteria of 2,000 people. The aim is to find out which species of bacteria exist in the gut and which groups in the population have the most species in their bodies. Ultimately, researchers will be able to answer the question of whether there is such a thing as a perfectly healthy gut – and what feeds it.
Healthiest nations
The plan is then to compare national gut bacteria to find out which country has the healthiest diet.
Asian diets, which have a tradition of fermented foods, appear to lead to better gut health in countries such as China, Japan and Korea, where bowel diseases are less common.
So it would be no surprise if Western diets, which are dominated by sugar and processed food, are in need of more probiotics to top up the gut's bacterial swamp.
In the meantime, Prof Spector suggests eating a variety of things you like.
"A bit of fruit and natural yoghurt for breakfast perhaps, try kefir, sauerkraut, miso soup, kimchi…" he says.
*Abridged from an article by Philippa Roxby, Health reporter, BBC News
Trending Tables for Spring
Posted on February 14, 2016 April 18, 2016 by Food Innovation Factory
Consider The Bellwether, a Los Angeles gastropub with food that defies categorization. On the menu, there's tempura cauliflower with mostly Thai flavors (chile, basil, fish sauce), Italian meatballs, and Octopus from the Eastern Mediterranean (with tabbouleh and preserved lemon). The Progress in San Francisco takes a similar global approach with its duck fried rice, rabbit with prune romesco, and a sunchoke roti with ranch dressing.
Many trendy restaurants this spring reflect chefs' and their customers' growing comfort with food from different parts of the world. Even restaurants that appear to have a specific cuisine in mind take advantage of the increasingly global American palate to blur lines: You would expect Tredici Enoteca in Philadelphia to be straight-up Italian, but the wine bar has a Mediterranean tasting board with hummus and falafel.
Atlanta seems to be on an Asian kick this spring, with chef Ford Fry dressing his tuna crudo with Thai herbs and fried shallots and Jed Hidinger using fermented shrimp broth with her rabbit — not to mention Guy Wong's "Vietnamese brasserie," Le Fat.
Then there are thematic mashups that might seem surprising at first but reflect the colonial past of the cuisines they represent. Indonesia was a colony of The Netherlands for centuries, and so the Dutch-Indonesian fusion at De Quay in Chicago makes sense. The small Indian state of Goa was long occupied by Portugal, and so you have the eclectic-seeming food of Oporto Fooding House & Wine in Houston.
Of course there's plenty of regional American fare at trendy restaurants this spring, particularly southern food, and particularly fried chicken or riffs on it, such as the fried chicken coq au vin at Little Bird Bistro in Portland, Ore., or that same restaurant's chicken-fried trout.
Also in Portland, there's fried chicken with steamed clams (why not?) at Taylor Railworks. Soco in Orlando, Fla., has chicken-fried New York strip. Taylor Railworks, although southern in spirit, mixes things up considerably: Its chicken and dumplings comes with lobster dumplings, edamame and soy butter.
*abridged from an article by Bret Thorn at bret.thorn@penton.com Follow him on Twitter: @foodwriterdiary
Fast Casual Taps Sales Opportunity With Self-Service Beer
Posted on December 14, 2015 December 14, 2015 by Food Innovation Factory
Zpizza International Inc. may have cracked the code on boosting alcohol sales in the fast-casual segment by putting bartending in the hands of customers.
The Irvine, Calif.-based chain is one of a growing number of fast-casual concepts experimenting with self-service beer technology. Other concepts on the West Coast include gourmet hot dog purveyors Dog Haus and Brätworks, as well as Blast 825 Pizza.
The model is based on relatively new technology that some contend could be a game changer in attracting craft-beer-loving Millennials.
Many fast-casual chains carry craft beer and wine in bottles and cans, but the limited-service model can inherently hinder alcohol sales beyond one drink. Customers are less likely to get back in line for a second drink, and workers are often too young to handle alcohol, or are not trained to upsell. As a result, few concepts within the segment have put much effort into alcohol sales.
Zpizza, however, has transformed three units into Zpizza "tap rooms," which feature a beer wall with 10 to 20 taps. Each restaurant offers a unique collection of local craft brews on draft, said Chris Bright, president of Zpizza.
After their IDs are scanned, customers can open a digital tab and pour their own draft, paying by the fluid ounce. That allows them to taste an ounce or two of different options before they settle on a "long pour." If they want a second drink, they can get it themselves without having to wait for a server or table runner.
Some traditional Zpizza units offer beer and wine in cans and bottles, as is relatively common in fast casual. But those units typically see only about 2 percent of sales from alcohol, Bright said.
"It's very difficult to generate liquor sales in a fast-casual environment because consumers are reluctant get in line again to order a second glass of wine or beer," Bright said.
The self-service format eliminates that obstacle, he said.
At tap room locations with the beer wall, alcohol sales have reached as high as 20 percent, Bright said. "It's a big winner in that sense."
And where traditional Zpizza locations do about 75 percent of sales in takeout and delivery, tap room units see 75 percent to 80 percent of sales from dine-in business, he added.
The 95-unit Zpizza has three tap room locations and six more in development. "It's our growth platform," Bright said. "Going forward, our focus will be on building tap rooms only."
The tap room concept has given the brand a jolt of growth at a time when build-your-own pizza concepts with flash-baking ovens are stealing the fast-casual limelight, Bright said.
Zpizza has long offered healthful pizzas, pastas, salads and sandwiches with all-natural and preservative-free meats, organic tomato sauce and mozzarella made with milk from grass-fed cows. Customers order at the counter, but the chain uses deck ovens that cook pizzas in about eight minutes, slower than the new build-your-own-pizza upstarts.
But now the extra time is beneficial, as it gives Zpizza customers a chance to explore the beer wall. In some locations, wine on tap will also be an option.
Zpizza uses the iPourIt system, but there are a growing number of self-service beer options for restaurant operators.
At a recent National Restaurant Association conference on technology, Josh Halpern, vice president of national retail sales, on-premise and military, for Anheuser-Busch in the U.S. said his company is going after the fast-casual segment in a "big way" with self-service equipment.
Anheuser-Busch partner DraftServ is working with sports arenas and cruise ship companies around the country to install self-serve taps.
Full-service restaurants are adopting the technology as well, but the trend is particularly ideal for fast casual, where concepts have limited square footage, and consumers embrace the opportunity to control their dining experience, said Joseph McCarthy, co-founder of iPourIt.
Self-service beer offers a revenue boost without the need for more labor, McCarthy said.
With iPourIt, once a customer gets their ID checked, they can open a tab tied to a credit card. Typically, users must preload a certain amount to get started, and they can add to their tab as they go. Customers then receive a wristband or card that uses radio frequency to recognize them at the tap and measure their pour. They can try as many beers as they like, and they only pay for what they pour.
Since the iPourIt system is digital, McCarthy said there is a huge opportunity for collecting data about customers, their age and purchase habits. There is also an opportunity to link with loyalty programs to let users know what's on tap at their local unit.
Fundamentally, the trend is being driven by the explosion in craft beer, which represented close to $20 billion in beer sales in 2014, McCarthy said.
"There are now over 4,000 craft brewers in the U.S., the highest point ever, and there has been a huge explosion in the products and styles of beer available," he said.
At Dog Haus, the wide craft beer selection was a perfect match for its gourmet hot dogs, said Quasim Riaz, a partner in the Pasadena, Calif.-based chain.
"Beer goes so well with our food. It's great that we can take our beer as seriously," Riaz said.
Two units within the 11-unit chain have the iPourIt system, and franchisees are watching to see how it goes.
The first location with the system opened in Santa Ana, Calif., about six months ago. The second, in Fullerton, Calif., opened in early November, so it's relatively new, he said.
Traditional locations offer beer and wines in cans or bottles. Some pour draft beer in the back of the house, he said.
But the self-service model offers the potential for improved throughput, with customers pouring their own beer as they would a soda.
The model also has a built-in opportunity for upselling, Riaz said.
As customers try three or four options, those tastes offer incremental sales opportunities that inevitably lead to the selection of a higher-priced product. Customers are more likely to buy a more expensive beer that they know they like rather than taking a risk on an unknown, he said.
"Having a happy customer is something we all strive for in this industry, and if the consumer is able to sample a beer and decide if they want it, they're happier," he said.
One consideration: In addition to the investment in the system, which for iPourIt is about $1,200 per tap, operators are required to pay a fee of 1 cent per ounce to iPourIt, which amounts to about 16 cents per 16-ounce beer, cutting into margins.
No Tipping
Tobi Miller, co-founder of the Brätworks build-your-own hot dog chain, said customers like the fact that they don't have to tip at self-service beer concepts.
Brätworks is opening a unit in Redlands, Calif., with a 12-tap craft beer wall this winter. The original Brätworks opened in San Bernardino, Calif., with beer in bottles and cans, and two more units are in development in Southern California, Miller said.
Miller, who is also a franchise operator of Yogurtland, the self-serve frozen yogurt concept, said he loved the fact that self-service beer allows him to get just the amount he wants, even if it's just a taste.
The Redlands location will be the brand's first standalone unit, and a bit larger, at 2,500 square feet. The company is in the process of launching a franchising program, so self-serve beer could become a component that could attract potential operators, Miller said.
For Blast 825, a fast-casual pizza concept operated by Fresno, Calif.-based Milano Restaurants International Corp., self-service beer is also in test.
The company is scheduled to open a new Blast 825 Tap Room prototype in the coming weeks in San Luis Obispo, Calif., with about 20 taps of craft beer, along with four or five wines on tap.
"We have to evaluate it," said John Ferdinandi, CEO of Milano Restaurants International. "But we think it will enhance the overall experience for the customer."
Ferdinandi said the key will be whether the model will work in a setting with faster service, where table turns are vital to unit economics.
"We have to balance the idea of sitting and enjoying a few beers, maybe while watching a game, with patrons who are in to get a quick pizza," he said.
One benefit Ferdinandi sees is that the onus of a bad pour is on the customer.
"If you have a server that isn't pouring correctly or wastes beer, that's on the owner's side to absorb," he said. "But if the customer doesn't pour it correctly, it's on them."
Bright of Zpizza said they give customers who pour incorrectly, with too much foam, an opportunity to top off.
Zpizza's first tap room location opened in Sacramento, Calif., about a year ago. So far, customers love the interactive nature of the beer wall, he said.
"It's a very communal environment, where people come together and talk about what they're tasting," he said. "That really keeps them coming back to the beer wall, as opposed to the somewhat mundane act of going up to the counter."
Will self-service beer and wine become as ubiquitous as self-serve soda fountains?
Bright said it depends on the concept.
"I don't know that fast casual will go to that format in droves. There has to be a culture around craft beer that fits with the concept. It can't be an afterthought," he said. "You have to be committed."
*Abridged from an article by Lisa Jennings at lisa.jennings@penton.com.
Posted in Business Plans, Capital Project Planning, Consulting Services, Facilites & Equipment Assessments, Financial Management, Operational Systems, Planning Services, Program & Space Planning, Retail Branded Concept Creation & Development Leave a comment
Stanford Gets REAL With Sustainable Dining
Posted on November 18, 2015 November 18, 2015 by Food Innovation Factory
Colleges and universities play a major role in forming the dining habits students will follow for the rest of their lives.
The push for campuswide sustainability and a fresh commitment to student health drive institutions to rethink their dining strategies. This might mean buying more food from local farmers and better educating students about their dietary habits.
Along those lines, Stanford University is the first higher ed institution in the nation to earn the United States Healthful Food Council's REAL certification—an acronym for Responsible (nutrition), Epicurean (preparation), Agricultural (sourcing) and Leadership.
The council modeled its program after the LEED designation for facilities to denote excellence and innovation in the culinary field, says CEO Lawrence Williams, who founded the nonprofit in 2011. Other REAL recipients include Nashville's Music City Center, Bareburger restaurants, Hint Water, and Root & Stem Catering and Events.
But REAL isn't simply about going organic. "There is little transparency in the food service space, as opposed to prepared food, which plainly lists ingredients and calories on the label," he says. "The program looks at responsible food sourcing, composting, refills and portioning, as well as sustainability."
Colleges and universities play a major role in forming the dining habits students will follow for the rest of their lives, Williams adds.
"For most kids, this is their first time dining away from home and having complete autonomy over their food," he says. "We encourage universities to offer food awareness courses in the same manner they offer alcohol and sex education to students."
* Abridged from an article by Stefanie Botelho, University Business Magazine – universitybusiness.com
Posted in Capital Project Planning, Culinary Development & Constructions, Facilites & Equipment Assessments, LEED Certification, Retail Branded Concept Creation & Development, Strategic Repositioning Services, Sustainability Leave a comment
Restaurant Drink Orders Decline
Posted on November 4, 2015 by Food Innovation Factory
Consumers are ordering fewer beverages in restaurants. Drink orders have declined 4%, or 2 billion servings, over a five-year period, according to new research from The NPD Group, Chicago.
Behind the trend are changing tastes and cost consciousness, NPD said. In particular, carbonated soft drinks, brewed coffee and milk are falling out of favor. Soda and milk, which account for nearly half of beverages ordered at food service, have lost 4 billion servings since 2010, NPD reported. These beverages, however, are still purchased most frequently of all beverage categories.
Meanwhile, iced and frozen coffees, specialty coffees, frozen slush drinks and tap water and bottled water are growing. Specialty coffees and similar beverages are getting a boost from consumers who make a special visit to purchase the drink or order it as a snack.
Consumers order a beverage 70% of the time when visiting restaurants or other food service outlets, according to NPD.
"Despite recent declines in beverage servings, the fact is that beverages are still an important part of food service visits, whether by themselves or as part of a meal," said Warren Solochek, president of NPD's food service practice. "In order to drive beverage orders, food service operators will need to understand consumers' changing tastes and offer an array of quality beverage choices, including healthy options."
* Abridged from an article by Monica Watrous, Food Business News
Posted in Business Plans, Culinary Development & Constructions, Retail Branded Concept Creation & Development, Strategic Repositioning Services, Sustainability Leave a comment
Building Better Brands With The World's Best Airport Lounges
Posted on October 21, 2015 October 21, 2015 by Food Innovation Factory
In a New York Times article, author Jane Levere describes the strategic importance of the airport VIP lounge as a differentiator for competing airlines. As a global traveler who frequents these VIP lounges, I couldn't agree more.
If you have been watching the airline business over the past several years, you have noticed some drama. Consolidations, alliances, bankruptcies, and "partnerships" (with varied levels of fidelity) abound. Most of the carriers we fly are working to create a unique brand experience in order to instill loyalty in an increasingly disloyal customer base. Many are employing new marketing techniques like social media attractions, or gaming their prospective passengers by pulling or pushing fares across different websites. Few, unfortunately, are investing strongly in the fundamentals: great travel experiences, great employees, and a truly unique brand.
All airlines, however, are trying to catch up with their most valuable, high-mileage passengers and bond with them. They don't need to look too far. Most of their customers are perusing the complimentary magazine selections and open bars in the VIP lounges. Whether they are premium cabin class passengers, frequent fliers with lots of points, or businesspeople riding along on a coworker's guest pass, they're all lounging in the VIP section. All the time.
A well-designed space for airline passengers conveys a rare sense of comfort, calm, and welcome during the uncomfortable, hectic, and sometimes alienating experience of air travel. As Levere points out, well-designed lounges are also a great way for carriers to express their unique character and qualities. I haven't experienced every airline's VIP lounge, but certain airlines do it better than others. Here are some of my favorites.
Virgin Airlines never misses the opportunity to express its unique character, even in some of their smaller airport locations. In their airport "clubhouses," it's always just a little bit too much fun, in a good way, but also a challenge to stay focused on finishing your monotonous PowerPoint presentation while chilling out beneath those sparkly light fixtures on some fantastically weird couch.
I must mention, selfishly, Iberia Airlines, which I think has the best wine and tapas bar. Granted, I spend a lot of time here, but I think the design of these lounges is excellent and exudes charisma. Besides, during a post-redeye layover, you simply can't beat fresh-squeezed orange juice, espresso, and the charcuterie. Just my personal bias.
Emirates Airlines is awesome at everything. They've pretty much changed the game and have everyone in the travel industry sitting up straight. Staying true to the best attributes people associate with hospitality, they manage to push the envelope of excellence without sacrificing any character.
On the flip side, however, other carriers seem to have caught the fever for granite countertop renovation projects in their lounges, all of which probably took a very long time and probably ran significantly over budget. While they look great, they all look the same, and I cannot tell one airline's lounge from another.
Clearly the investment in a high-quality airport lounge is not a small one. But such investments can earn impressive returns with a select, high-value group of passengers. It makes a travel experience unique and memorable, it relieves them momentarily of the disorienting stress of travel, and it makes them feel valued.
*Abridged from an article by Michael Valkevich in Fast Company
Posted in Culinary Development & Constructions, Facilites & Equipment Assessments, Program & Space Planning, Project Estimates, Retail Branded Concept Creation & Development Leave a comment
Millennials Drive Demand For Craft Beer, Wine & Spirits
Posted on September 3, 2015 September 3, 2015 by Food Innovation Factory
Descriptions including "craft", "small batch," "custom," "limited edition" and "artisan/artisanal" are more likely to influence the purchasing decisions of millennials than they are to sway older consumers, according to a recent Harris Poll.
Chefs and restaurateurs are finding ways to feed the trend — the Culinary Institute of America will hold a Crafting Beer and Food Summit in October, bringing together master brewers and chefs to create menus that complement craft beers.
Millennials are driving much of the growth, as they seek out local, authentic and artisan beer, as well as wine and spirits, said NPD Group Vice President Warren Solochek. The trend in food and beverage in general is toward healthier options, but "healthy" means different things to different people, and in the case of beer, wine and spirits, local and artisan are much more relevant to millennials than calorie counts, he said.
"It's more true of millennials than others, but it's also catching on with those of us who are a little older chronologically," Solochek said. "There are so many variations, taste profiles, alcohol content profiles and so many cool little places producing beer, which makes it much more interesting. Meanwhile, the big producers are producing the same things they always have." Craft beer consumption has grown steadily over the past five years, jumping 11% in 2014, according to the Brewers Association, and craft brewers sold $19.6 billion worth of beer last year. The number of microbreweries grew 24%, the number of brew pubs increased 10%.
The move toward craft beers dovetails with a growing appetite for local, artisan food, he said, and those trends make it much easier for independent restaurants to give consumers what they crave. "We're seeing an explosion of microbreweries, there are many more places putting them out than ever before. I live in Chicago, and I go to a lot of restaurants with very long lists of craft beers," Solochek said. They can also charge more, said Solochek, whose son is a millennial and a craft beer fan who doesn't mind paying more to try new, interesting and local brews. "They're willing to pay a little or a lot more for these beers because the value proposition is worth it. If it's a really cool beer, it's worth it to them to spend a buck or two or three more for a bottle or can of that than it is for one of the standard big three beers. "
As more new brews become available, millennials are less likely than their older counterparts to find a favorite beer brand and stick with it, and the trend toward craft brews and away from big brands has the big brewers investing in microbrews without necessarily putting their names on them. "Anheuser Busch bought Goose Island Beer, one of the biggest craft brewers in Chicago," he said. "AB was distributing the beer, then it just bought the company. Big brewers are getting into cider, Miller Coors owns Blue Moon, which is positioned as a craft beer. The business is changing because craft breweries can get enough size and momentum going for the big three." Small breweries increasingly host tasting rooms where patrons can try out smaller glasses of several different beers in a sitting, he said, a strategy that may not contribute directly to sales growth but works to build brand awareness.
Wine and spirits makers are also capitalizing on the craft trend. "We've seen in Chicago a number of companies open up to distill their own spirits, with small batches and limited distribution. They have to go in and sell it into bars and restaurants, with the hope they can build enough of a following to create the demand," Solochek said. "If you ask me if I think it's a trend or a fad, I think it's a trend. I do think it will continue into the foreseeable future, because people love to try something new."
* Abridged from an article by Janet Forgrieve at smartbrief.com, offering 14 newsletters covering the food service industry from restaurants to food manufacturing.
Posted in Consulting Services, Culinary Development & Constructions, Retail Branded Concept Creation & Development, Strategic Repositioning Services, Sustainability Leave a comment
Fermentation Fervor: How Chefs Boost Flavor And Health

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Assisting a recovery effort
Products | November 4, 2011 | By: ATA
A geosynthetics provider and a local distributor provided assistance with materials and expertise for temporary housing and landfill expansion in the aftermath of northern Alberta wildfires
By Don Talend
Layfield Geosynthetics & Industrial Fabrics and Apex Distribution are helping residents of Slave Lake, Alberta, rebuild their lives following one of the worst natural disasters in Canada's history.
Wildfires fanned by rare southeasterly winds up to 100km (62mi) per hour destroyed several hundred homes, businesses, and municipal buildings in the town of 7,000 in May 2011. Heavy rains in July caused further damage to remaining foundations and infrastructure. Just two of many organizations that have assisted recovery efforts, Layfield and Apex have provided geosynthetic materials and expertise for construction of a temporary trailer park for residents displaced from their homes, plus an expansion of a local landfill in the wake of the fire.
At more than $700 million in damage, the Slave Lake wildfires are the second-costliest insured disaster in Canadian history, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada. An ice storm that hit Quebec and Ontario in 1998 cost more than $1.8 billion, adjusted for inflation. The Slave Lake fires—about 150 miles north of Edmonton— were significant enough that Great Britain's Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, William and Catherine, made an impromptu stop during their summer 2011 North American visit to raise morale amid recovery efforts.
Apex's Slave Lake facility is a supplier of industrial and oilfield products and services, one of the first branches to open when the company began operations in 1999. Ken Hedin, the Apex branch manager, pointed out that the LP6 nonwoven, needle-punched geotextile material is often used to stabilize road subbases in remote oil-production areas with muskeg (i.e., marshy) soils.
The soil where one of two temporary trailer parks is located particularly required the geotextile stabilization. The landfill required proper separation of waste from soil and the groundwater protection that geotextiles also provide. The town also needed the dedication and expertise of suppliers such as Hedin and the resources of the local construction industry.
Hedin, a former firefighter, helped several extended family members and others evacuate and he was one of the few local people allowed back into town as firefighters battled the fires. The distributor provided parts to keep the firefighting equipment operating. In the fire's aftermath, the company has donated equipment from fencing to cordon off the smoldering residential areas to shelving for the local curling rink, where the Canadian Red Cross has stored relief supplies.
Soil stabilization for temporary housing
One of the critical tasks in the recovery has been establishing long-term shelter for several hundred families who lost their homes in the fire and who might have to wait a few years for their homes to be rebuilt. News reports said that about 700 families were displaced and many temporarily moved in with relatives or were living at campgrounds as the weather turned colder in fall 2011; others opted for public housing or permanently relocated out of town.
Since mid-August 2011, Slave Lake-based Seguin Construction has been building slabs, driveways, and roadways for the trailer park. By early October, about 30 trailers were occupied, with full occupation by mid-October.
"This is something that we have all lived through as a community," said Dave Redgate, manager at Seguin who lost his home in Widewater, a small community located west of Slave Lake. "Some of our company contractors, suppliers, and employees are moving into the facility that we have built; we all know someone who has been directly affected by this tragedy."
Seguin specializes in earth-moving projects primarily for the oilfield industry but has been diversifying into more civil work in recent years, Redgate reported. The fire recovery effort is expediting the diversification process, he said.
Each of five sections of the trailer park consists of 30 slabs for individual trailers. Each of the slabs measures 12m x 32m (40ft x 106ft). The trailers are constructed in two rows of 15 per section with utility corridors running the full length of the slabs behind the trailers.
To stabilize the muskeg soils for the slabs, driveways, and roadways, Seguin initially installed 7,031m2 (75,654ft2) of LP200 woven, slit-film, polypropylene geotextile over a temporary working pad. This pad was built on undisturbed parent ground, was filled and compacted with clay to a depth of 600mm (about 2ft). The same process was employed throughout the 81,500m2 development. However, weather conditions and timelines dictated a departure from the plan.
The rush for temporary housing with cold weather looming necessitated a three-week construction window. Heavy rains in July, which forced short-term closures of the roads surrounding Slave Lake, saturated the soil even more. Rather than use clay fill, Alberta Infrastructure and Seguin thought that a sandy-pit run material would enable sustained operations during wet weather and make adherence to the three-week timeline realistic.
The subsequent engineering decision was to shift from LP200 to a heavier-duty LP315 geotextile product. The total amount of LP315 installed under the pads, driveways, and roadways throughout the development was 117,057m2 (1.26 million ft2).
The project engineer, Focus Corp. from Edmonton, installed the LP315 directly on the undisturbed parent soil before fill was placed. Imported sandy-pit run fill was hauled, placed, and compacted to a depth of 800mm (about 2½ft); more than 112,000m3 (nearly 4 million ft3) of fill was imported for the project. Additional aggregate material was imported for individual trailer pads, roadways, and driveways.
Installing geotextile material in the region's muskeg soil is challenging under normal circumstances; the heavy rains made the task even more difficult. The site was deforested and crews entered the site to install the geotextile materials.
"It was essentially a crew of laborers rolling out each roll individually, sometimes in [marsh] up to their armpits, to get the proper overlaps and weighing the rolls down with available rocks or whatever they could until the fill could be applied on top of it," said Redgate, the Seguin manager. "My hat's off to the laborers."
Redgate reported that the LP315 was holding up well on the muskeg soil following construction. "The weight loads that are on top of that product and evenly distributed across the entire 9 hectares (about 22 acres) are phenomenal," he said. "But the product is holding up very well. [At] two months, there was no settlement or degradation of the pad integrity at all."
An environmentally safe landfill
A disaster such as this generated plenty of unexpected consequences. In Slave Lake, one such consequence was that the Lesser Slave Lake Regional Landfill in Widewater was overwhelmed with about 3,500 fire-damaged refrigerators in three days, according to the Edmonton Journal. The newspaper reported that the existing landfill would have had enough capacity for three more years but, due to the fires, had to be expanded immediately.
The expansion from two cells to three began in early September 2011 and was completed by mid-October. Each of the two existing cells covered about 2.2 hectares (about 5.5 acres) and the third covers the same area. Overseen by the project engineer, Associated Engineering of Edmonton, in adherence with Alberta Environment guidelines and regulations, such expansion of Class II waste landfills incorporate geosynthetic materials.
LP200 geotextile was used to line collection trenches at the bottom of the landfill cell. A 600-mm (2-ft) clay liner was placed over the collection system and a leachate collection pipe was covered with an impermeable clay liner 600mm (2ft) thick. Over the clay liner, A 300mm (about 1ft) -thick layer of tire shred was placed that served as another filtration system to ensure that minimal solids and suspended fines do not clog up the collection systems. All told, the landfill expansion used 7,525m2 (81,000ft2 ) of geotextile material.
A local effort
Redgate looked back with pride and admiration on the efforts of numerous local contributors in the rebuilding efforts. "Because the temporary subdivision development was a local project, we can all feel that, as a community, we banded together to provide for those who have lost everything," Redgate continued. "I am so proud, at this moment, to be a Slave Laker," he said. "This tragedy has and will reshape us as individuals and as a community; let's hope that it is for the better."
Don Talend of Write Results Inc., West Dundee, Ill., is a print and e-content developer specializing in covering construction, technology, and innovation.
Concrete Canvas introduces CCX geotextile
Geomembrane arc testing kit
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Sensor introduces DDS MIT for waterless geomembrane arc testing
Presto Geosystems unveils ATRA Key Connection Device
Drefon polypropylene nonwoven geotextiles


I love writing about Christmas . In my second book (The Rose Revived) I had three protagonists and they all had different Christmases and in my third book (Wild Designs) I put in the Christmas we had at my house at the time, without the drama. So when I was asked to write enough Christmas stories to fill a book, I was enthusiastic.
It gave me an opportunity to revisit a house which has appeared in three books previously. (Wedding Season, Love Letters and Recipe for Love.) I loved Fenella and Rupert who lived in the house and enjoyed the chance to write something where they had a more starring role.
I also revisited Crinan in a story. I had enjoyed writing Summer at Sea which is set in Crinan and so go back there, some of the characters reappearing, was a delight. And haven't we all wished for A Christmas Fairy to ring on the door to take the stress out of the day?
I also did something I never thought I'd do with these stories. My editor said, 'I'd love you to write a ghost story,.' Before my denial that this was possible was fully out of my mouth, I'd had an idea.
The idea behind a book of Christmas stories is that in the run up to Christmas, lots of people are too busy to engage in a novel. My thought is when the relations are getting a bit much, you can slope off to the bathroom, lock the door, read a story and come out having had a rest and able to gather up used mugs and put the kettle on again with a smile.
Ps My daughter's dogs have a starring role in one of these stories. They are my granddogs and are allowed to get away with anything!


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John Hunter (1728–1793)
John Hunter studied human reproductive anatomy, and in eighteenth century England, performed one of the earliest described cases of artificial insemination. Hunter dissected thousands of animals and human cadavers to study the structures and functions of organ systems. Much of his anatomical studies focused on the circulatory, digestive, and reproductive systems. He helped to describe the exchange of blood between pregnant women and their fetuses. Hunter also housed various natural collections, as well as thousands of preserved specimens from greater than thirty years of anatomy work.
Park v. Chessin (1977)
The New York Appellate Court ruled on 11 December 1977 in favor of Steven and Hetty Park and against Herbert Chessin for the wrongful life of the Parks' child. In a wrongful life case, a disabled or sometimes deceased child brings suit against a physician for failing to inform its parents of possible genetic defects, thereby causing harm to the child when born. Park v. Chessin was the first case to rule that medical personnel could be legally responsible for wrongful life. Further cases such as the 1979 case Berman v. Allan and the 1982 case Turpin v.
Fetal Programming
Fetal programming, or prenatal programming, is a concept that suggests certain events occurring during critical points of pregnancy may cause permanent effects on the fetus and the infant long after birth. The concept of fetal programming stemmed from the fetal origins hypothesis, also known as Barker's hypothesis, that David Barker proposed in 1995 at the University of Southampton in Southampton, England.
Subject: Processes, Theories, Reproduction
Norman Haire (1892-1952)
Norman Haire was a physician who advocated for eugenics, which is the betterment of human population by promoting positive traits, and birth control rights in the twentieth century in both Australia and the UK. In the UK, Haire joined the Malthusian League, a contraception advocacy organization, and helped the League open the first physician-supervised birth control clinic, called Walworth Women's Welfare Centre in London, England.
Whitner v. South Carolina (1997)
In the case Whitner v. South Carolina in 1997, the South Carolina State Supreme Court defined the concept of a child to include viable fetuses. This allowed grounds for prosecution of a pregnant womanÕs prenatal activity if those activities endangered or could potentially endanger the fetus within her. The case brought the issue of fetal rights versus pregnant womenÕs rights to light.
Charles Robert Cantor (1942- )
Charles Robert Cantor helped sequence the human genome, and he developed methods to non-invasively determine the genes in human fetuses. Cantor worked in the US during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. His early research focused on oligonucleotides, small molecules of DNA or RNA. That research enabled the development of a technique that Cantor subsequently used to describe nucleotide sequences of DNA, a process called sequencing, in humans. Cantor was the principal scientist for the Human Genome Project, for which scientists sequenced the entirety of the human genome in 2003.
Oral Glucose Tolerance Test for Gestational Diabetes
In the twentieth century, researchers developed the oral glucose tolerance test, or OGTT, as a method to diagnose different types of diabetes, a medical condition that causes blood sugar levels to become abnormally high. During the test, a healthcare provider measures a person's blood sugar levels before and after the person consumes a predetermined amount of glucose solution. While not exclusively used for pregnant women, an OGTT may test for gestational diabetes which, according to the International Diabetes Federation, affected one in six pregnancies worldwide in 2019.
Subject: Technologies, Reproduction, Experiments
Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) is an assisted reproductive technique (ART) initially developed by Dr. Gianpiero D. Palermo in 1993 to treat male infertility. It is most commonly used in conjunction with in vitro fertilization (IVF) or a less commonly used technique called zygote intrafallopian transfer (ZIFT). In natural fertilization, the sperm must penetrate the surface of the female egg, or oocyte.
In vitro fertilization (IVF) is an assisted reproductive technology (ART) initially introduced by Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards in the 1970s to treat female infertility caused by damaged or blocked fallopian tubes. This major breakthrough in embryo research has provided large numbers of women the possibility of becoming pregnant, and subsequent advances have dramatically increased their chances. IVF is a laboratory procedure in which sperm and egg are fertilized outside the body; the term "in vitro" is Latin for "in glass."
Intrauterine insemination (IUI), also known as artificial insemination, is one of the earliest and simplest assisted reproductive technologies (ART). With this technique, sperm from either a partner or donor (such as from a sperm bank) is inserted with a syringe into the woman's vagina during ovulation to increase the probability that fertilization will occur and lead to pregnancy.
The Birth Control Pill
The birth control pill, more commonly known as "the pill" is a form of contraception taken daily in pill form and consisting of synthetic hormones formulated to prevent ovulation, fertilization, and implantation of a fertilized egg. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first birth control pill, Enovid, in June 1960. It was the first contraceptive pill marketed worldwide. Since then a number of different pills have been developed, which differ in hormone type and dosage, and whether they contain one hormone (the minipill) or two (the combination pill).
Enovid: The First Hormonal Birth Control Pill
Enovid was the first hormonal birth control pill. G. D. Searle and Company began marketing Enovid as a contraceptive in 1960. The technology was created by the joint efforts of many individuals and organizations, including Margaret Sanger, Katharine McCormick, Gregory Pincus, John Rock, Syntex, S.A. Laboratories, and G.D. Searle and Company Laboratories.
Diprosopus (Craniofacial Duplication)
Diprosopus is a congenital defect also known as craniofacial duplication. The exact description of diprosopus refers to a fetus with a single trunk, normal limbs, and facial features that are duplicated to a certain degree. A less severe instance is when the nose is duplicated and the eyes are spaced far apart. In the most extreme instances, the entire face is duplicated, hence the name diprosopus, which is Greek for two-faced. Fetuses with diprosopus often also lack brains (anencephaly), have neural tube defects, or heart malformations.
Neural Tube Defects (NTD): Folic Acid and Pregnancy
In the US, one in 1000 births is affected by neural tube defects (NTD). A neural tube defect is a birth defect involving the malformation of body features associated with the brain and spinal cord. An NTD originates from and is characterized by incomplete closure of the neural tube, which is an organizer and precursor of the central nervous system.
Anencephaly
Anencephaly is an open neural tube defect, meaning that part of the neural tube does not properly close or that it has reopened during early embryogenesis. An embryo with anencephaly develops without the top of the skull, but retains a partial skull, including the face. Anencephaly is one of the most common birth defects of the neural tube, occurring at a rate of approximately one in one thousand human pregnancies. The condition can be caused by environmental exposure to chemicals, dietary deficiencies, or genetic mutations.
Conjoined Twins
Conjoined twins are twins whose bodies are anatomically joined in utero. The degree to which the twins are attached can range from simple, involving skin and cartilage, to complex, including fusion of the skull(s), brain(s), or other vital organs. There are more than a dozen classifications of conjoined twins but what they all tend to have in common is the sharing of the chorion, placenta, and amniotic sac.
Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane Conductance Regulator (CFTR) Gene
The Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane Conductance Regulator (CFTR) gene was identified in 1989 by geneticist Lap-Chee Tsui and his research team as the gene associated with cystic fibrosis (CF). Tsui's research pinpointed the gene, some mutations to which cause CF, and it revealed the underlying disease mechanism. The CFTR gene encodes a protein in the cell membrane in epithelial tissues and affects multiple organ systems in the human body. Mutations in the CFTR gene cause dysfunctional regulation of cell electrolytes and water content.
Effects of Prenatal Alcohol Exposure on Ocular Development
Maternal consumption of alcohol (ethanol) can result in a range of alcohol-induced developmental defects. In humans, those collective birth defects are called Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders, with the most severe manifestation being Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS). FAS is defined by pre- and post-natal growth retardation, minor facial abnormalities, and deficiencies in the central nervous system (CNS). The eye and ocular system development is particularly susceptible to the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure and can result in visual impairment or blindness.
Parasitic Twins
Parasitic twins, a specific type of conjoined twins, occurs when one twin ceases development during gestation and becomes vestigial to the fully formed dominant twin, called the autositic twin. The underdeveloped twin is called parasitic because it is only partially formed, is not functional, or is wholly dependent on the autositic twin.
Methylmercury and Human Embryonic Development
Methylmercury (MeHg) is an organic form of mercury that can damage the developing brains of human fetuses. Women who consume methylmercury during pregnancy can bear children who have neurological issues because methylmercury has toxic effects on the nervous system during embryonic development. During the third week of gestation, the human nervous system begins to form in the embryo. During this gestational period, the embryo's nervous system is particularly susceptible to the influence of neurotoxins like methylmercury that can result in abnormalities.
Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome
Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS) is a rare placental disease that can occur at any time during pregnancy involving identical twins. TTTS occurs when there is an unequal distribution of placental blood vessels between fetuses, which leads to a disproportionate supply of blood delivered. This unequal allocation of blood leads to developmental problems in both fetuses that can range in severity depending on the type, direction, and number of interconnected blood vessels.
Developmental Timeline of Alcohol-Induced Birth Defects
Maternal consumption of alcohol (ethanol) during pregnancy can result in a continuum of embryonic developmental abnormalities that vary depending on the severity, duration, and frequency of exposure of ethanol during gestation. Alcohol is a teratogen, an environmental agent that impacts the normal development of an embryo or fetus. In addition to dose-related concerns, factors such as maternal genetics and metabolism and the timing of alcohol exposure during prenatal development also impact alcohol-related birth defects.
Congenital Vertebral Defects
The spinal column is the central structure in the vertebrate body from which stability, movement, and posture all derive. The vertebrae of the spine are organized into four regions (listed in order from cranial to caudal): cervical, thoracic, lumbar, and pelvic. These regions are classified by their differences in curvature. The human spine usually consists of thirty-three vertebrae, seven of which are cervical (C1-C7), twelve are thoracic (T1-T12), five are lumbar (L1-L5), and nine are pelvic (five fused as the sacrum and four fused as the coccyx).
Effects of Prenatal Alcohol Exposure on Cardiac Development
A variety of developmental defects occur as a result of prenatal exposure to alcohol (ethanol) in utero. In humans, those defects are collectively classified as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders, with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) representing the more severe defects. FAS is defined by pre- and post-natal growth retardation, minor facial abnormalities, and deficiencies in the central nervous system (CNS). In addition to those defects, prenatal exposure to alcohol impacts cardiogenesis, the developmental stage of heart formation.


Welcome to our Chapter-by-Chapter notes! This is where you'll find useful bits that couldn't fit into the book, and things we didn't think about until after the book was done! Think of it as the special features on a DVD, but something that takes less time to enjoy.


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S.P.A.R.K
The Healthy Living Club
David Callecod – Lafayette General Health President
David Callecod - Lafayette General Health President Petroleum Club 111 Heymann Blvd, Lafayette, LA 70503
24jan12:00 pm1:00 pmDavid Callecod - Lafayette General Health President
David, L. Callecod is President of Lafayette General Health, a seven hospital system with an additional six clinical affiliate hospitals in Southwest
David, L. Callecod is President of Lafayette General Health, a seven hospital system with an additional six clinical affiliate hospitals in Southwest Louisiana. He is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives. Callecod was inducted into StuderGroup's Hall of Fame in October 2011 and is a national speaker on healthcare management and culture change.
In 2015, the Press Ganey Pinnacle of Excellence Awards, which recognizes top performing healthcare organizations nationwide on the basis of extraordinary achievement and consistently high levels of excellence for three years, were bestowed to Lafayette General Medical Center for Patient Experience in Inpatient Care, and Lafayette General Surgical Hospital for Patient Experience in Ambulatory Surgery. The 2015 Guardian of Excellence Awards were bestowed to Lafayette General Medical Center, Lafayette General Surgical Hospital, LGMD Physician Group and St. Martin Hospital. This award recognizes top performing healthcare organizations that have consistently achieved the 95th percentile or above of performance in select categories: Lafayette General Medical Center for Excellence of Patient Experience in Inpatient Care and HCAHPS, LGMD Physician Group for Patient Experience in Medical Practice; Lafayette General Surgical Hospital for Patient Experience in Ambulatory Surgery and St. Martin Hospital for Patient Experience in the Emergency Room and Patient Experience in Outpatient Services. In addition, in 2014, Lafayette General Medical Center and Lafayette General Surgical Hospital both received the Press Ganey Guardian of Excellence Award and Beacon of Excellence Award for Patient Experience for consistently achieving the 95th percentile in patient experience and consistently maintaining a high level of excellence for three consecutive years.
In 2015, LGMC achieved the Level III Louisiana Quality Foundation Award, the first step in applying for the National Malcolm Baldrige Award.
Since 2000, Lafayette General Medical Center (LGMC) has been named the Consumer Choice Award winner for the region by National Research Corporation. St. Martin Hospital was named among the Top 100 Best Places to Work in Healthcare by Modern Healthcare Magazine in 2014 & 2015.
Callecod received his BA from Wabash College and his MBA from Indiana Wesleyan University. He currently serves on the Wabash College Board of Trustees and was named Distinguished Alumnus by Indiana Wesleyan University in 2007.
He and his wife Kim have three children, Ellen, Ian, and Nolan.
111 Heymann Blvd, Lafayette, LA 70503
Tom Long
© 2021 Kiwanis Club of Lafayette. All rights reserved


Air Canada (AC.TO) has been flying (not good to say an airline is 'on fire'), but the other airlines are starting to get the memo. Looking through all of the Canadian airlines, the group looks ready to push higher. Not just one winner, but five winners. The US Airlines have been breaking out too.
Let's start with Air Canada's leadership (AC.TO).
The next player is Westjet (WJA.TO). Westjet broke out to a new high today and broke through a long line of resistance recently.
Chorus Aviation (CHR.TO) has been gently making higher highs for a while.
Cargojet Aviation (CJT.TO) hasn't quite taken off, but its not unusual for airlines to leave an airport one at a time. This one looks like its ready to spark upward as well.
Air Transat's (TRZ.TO) chart is dramatically weaker but it looks like investors are trying to turn it up by bouncing it off the 200 DMA.
So the airlines are doing well all over North America. The charts look great and look to be a wonderful part of a portfolio for the second half. Of course as Carl Swenlin says, Technical Analysis is a windsock not a crystal ball. It looks like the stocks are all taking off. We'll see if the arrivals lounge is as nice as the departure lounge.
I'll be posting a Canadian Technician Video Recording this week. There are a lot of clues pointing to a massive trend change. If this plays out, we'll be enjoying a spectacular second half. Please look for it on my Vimeo Channel if your looking for a complete explanation of the setup.


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Lowdown: An alien looking like an human male and a woman bond as they take a road trip through a hostile USA.
1984's Starman is a bit of a blast from the past. It features a youngish looking Jeff Bridges and a Karen Allen fresh from her role in Raiders of the Lost Ark; it even has John Carpenter, the classic horror director, at the helm. Watching Starman certainly took us to the days of yonder, the days when science fiction films had no CGI to rely upon.
Starman's exposition tells of the Voyager spacecraft being intercepted in its space journey. The recording it carries is taken by an alien race as an invitation to contact the earth (it is; the recording has been specifically designed to do so by Carl Sagan). And come to earth they do!
They do get the typical earthly welcome, though. Upon entering earth's atmosphere the alien spaceship is intercepted by American fighter jets (you would expect the aliens to be wiser with their choice of country to visit, wouldn't you?). The spaceship happens to crash near the secluded home of Jenny (Allen), who recently widowed her husband. The alien traveler finds Jenny and, through picking her place out, takes on the form of her deceased husband (Bridges). There's a bit of a shock, out of which the alien kidnaps Jenny so she would take him to his rendezvous point with his fellow aliens so he can get out of earth and thus stay alive. How very Paul-ish of Starman, but notice there is not much sense there, if you ask me: what is the point of the earthly visit if the alien's original intention had been to land at his evacuation point and go away immediately? And why will the alien die if he was to stay longer?
Anyway. Following on the great tradition of films featuring aliens that are hunted down by the army, Starman's alien gets chased around by vile bureaucrats and a SETI agent (whatever that is). As the couple traverses hardships and challenges in their journey across the USA to the evacuation point, and through some superhero style displays by the alien at various points, a special relation forms between him (?) and Jenny.
The end result is a nice film whose main power source lies with the actors. Allen has this naïve charm to her, but Bridges is Bridges – a fine actor if ever there was one. I particularly liked the way in which his alien portrayal happens to be very similar to Arnold Schwarzenegger's depiction of a cyborg in The Terminator. The problem lies in figuring out what Starman is trying to tell us, particularly when it doesn't tell us anything that the Spielberg hasn't told us already through his superior Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. (both released prior to Starman).
Best scene: The alien revives a shot down deer.
Overall: Starman is a nice film, but it never manages to transcend into the classic status many of its compatriot have established for themselves. 3 out of 5 stars.
Free Will by Sam Harris
The Quantum Universe by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw...


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La chiesa della Beata Vergine delle Grazie è un edificio religioso sito a Fasana Polesine, frazione, ma già comune autonomo, del Comune di Adria, in provincia di Rovigo.

Costruita nella prima parte del XVII secolo sul luogo di un precedente più angusto edificio, la chiesa, sede parrocchiale, nonostante la relativa vicinanza al capoluogo bassopolesano, fa parte del vicariato di Cavarzere e diocesi di Chioggia.

Storia

Descrizione

Note

Bibliografia

Voci correlate
 Diocesi di Chioggia
 Fasana Polesine
 Parrocchie della diocesi di Chioggia

Altri progetti

Adria
Beata Vergine delle Grazie
Beata Vergine delle Grazie

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program(2)
Special Milk Program(48)
Summer Food Service Program(43)
(-)Child and Adult Care Food Program(48)
(-)National School Lunch Program(48)
(-)School Breakfast Program(48)
(-)Policy(48)
(-)Policy Memos(48)
State Agency(48)
(-)Program Operator(48)
(-)School(48)
Allowance(1)
Income(1)
60-Day Claim Submission and 90-Day Reporting Requirements for Child Nutrition Programs
Attached is updated clarifying guidance for state agencies regarding the 60 Day Claim Submission and 90 Day Reporting Requirements for Child Nutrition Programs which was released on April 25, 2018. This latest version includes edits to align with changes made in the Summer Food Service Program Simplified Cost Accounting Final Rule published on June 1, 2018.
Resource | Policy Memos | SP18-2018 CACFP13-2018
Child Nutrition Programs' Flexibilities for School Year 2018-2019
An interim final rule published on Nov. 30, 2017 (82 FR 56703) provides child nutrition program (CNP) operators targeted flexibilities for milk, whole grains, and sodium requirements for School Year (SY) 2018-2019. This memorandum summarizes the flexibilities that will be effective July 1, 2018.
Resource | Policy Memos | FD-144, SP 04-2018, SFSP 01-2018, CACFP 04-2018
Market Basket Analysis when Procuring Program Goods and Modifying Contracted-For Product Lists
This memorandum provides guidance to state distributing agencies and recipient agencies on the use of market basket analysis in procuring processed end products for USDA Foods in Schools and commercial goods for the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, Summer Food Service Program, and Child and Adult Care Food Program.
Transition Period for Updated CACFP, Infant, Preschool Meal Patterns
This memorandum, which was in effect from May 10, 2017 through September 30, 2018, outlined a transition period for implementing the updated Child and Adult Care Food Program meal patterns and the updated infant and preschool meal patterns in the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program. Although this memorandum is no longer in effect, it remains available for historical reference.
Q&A: Purchasing Goods and Services Using Cooperative Agreements, Agents, and Third-Party Services
This memorandum provides general guidance on the various procurement groups FNS has identified, how to use each group in a way that complies with Federal procurement standards, and supersedes SP 35-2012, Procuring Services of Purchasing Cooperatives, Group Purchasing Organizations, Group Buying Organizations, etc., dated June 12, 2012.
Updated Fiscal Year Reporting Timeline and Reporting Table
This memorandum shares updates to the Fiscal Year "Reporting Table" and "Reporting Timeline" previously provided in memo SP21-2016 issued on December 28, 2015.
Meal Service During Unanticipated School and Day Care Closures
This memo has been superseded by SP04 CACFP03 SFSP03-2020: Meal Service During Unanticipated School Closures.
The purpose of this memorandum is to clarify that meals may be served through the Summer Food Service Program or the National School Lunch Program Seamless Summer Option during unanticipated school closures, including snow days, during the regular school year.
Crediting Tofu and Soy Yogurt Products in the School Meal Programs and the CACFP
This memorandum explains how to credit tofu and soy yogurt in the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, and the Child and Adult Care Food Program.
Resources for Making Potable Water Available in Schools and Child Care Facilities
The Food and Nutrition Service is issuing this memorandum to remind Child Nutrition Program operators of the potable water requirement and to identify resources found in the attachment that can be used by schools and child care facilities in meeting this requirement.


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