food : Innovation + Job News

You go to Foobooz for the latest inside info on the Philly restaurant scene, and now the foodie website is positioning itself to be the first stop for food industry job seekers. "We really want Foobooz to be the home page for restaurant news," says Art Etchells, founder and primary content provider. "Our audience is not only people who are passionate about going out to eat, but also passionate about creating food. So many people reading the site are already in the hospitality business."

Etchells says the idea for food related job listings came while visiting a bar owner who was shaking his head about the quality of resumes he was receiving via Craigslist. Etchells realized a job section on his site would be one more way to cultivate content. While the competitively priced job listings have been a quiet part of Foobooz for the better part of a year, Etchells is only now starting to promote the section, and there's been a concurrent uptick in submissions from area dining and drinking spots.

Currently, there are opportunities all over the Delaware Valley for line cooks, managers and even a summer camp director in the Poconos. Top kitchens like Zahav and the STARR Restaurant Group are represented. This is just the beginning of what Etchells terms a natural companionship.

Foobooz, which launched five years ago, was purchased by Philadelphia Magazine in December 2010, providing Etchells himself with a new job description. While he used to do most of his blogging from The Beauty Shop Cafe, he's now got a room with a view in the highrise offices of Philly Mag. But he still makes a morning ritual of stopping at his favorite coffee spot, where he gets the latest gossip from neighbors and local chefs.

As Philly's premier eating ear to the ground, Etchells reports that the hot dog is the new hamburger, and he's looking forward to the annual summer influx of local tomatoes and corn on Philadelphia menus.

Source: Arthur Etchells, Foobooz
Writer: Sue Spolan

Jose Garces' Amada in Old City is known as the Iron Chef's flagship restaurant. With new heat recovery equipment in its basement that saves energy and money, the Spanish tapas restaurant has also become a green machine.

The system, installed by Scot Ziskind of Philly-based Zipco Wine Cellars, is a remarkably simple addition to the restaurant's kitchen. A closed heat transfer system unit siphons the heat from the restaurant's walk-in refrigerators straight to their water heaters and preheats the water for service. This recycled heat reduces fossil fuel consumption, saving energy and money, and as an added bonus, cools off notoriously sweltering restaurant kitchens to much more workable conditions.

Heat Recovery equipment is in no way new--dairy farms in the Midwest have been utilizing similar systems for ages. Ziskind discovered the heat recovery systems, manufactured by Mueller Industries of Nashville, and began installing them nearly two decades ago but demand was not high enough to make the service sustainable. The new emphasis on conservation and green energy however, has brought this kind of innovation back into the spotlight. Center City's Oyster House on Sansom Street and University City's White Dog Cafe use the heat recovery equipment and the now retired Philadeli had the system for years; one summer they reported saving nearly 80 percent of their energy costs.

Of course this statistic is not unusual; the beauty of the heat recovery equipment is in its simplicity and unobtrusive nature. Ziskind maintains that due to energy savings, the equipment will end up paying itself off in less than two years.

"The people that put it in were looking for a way to cut back on expenses without changing the quality of what the did," says Ziskind.

Source: Scot Ziskind, Zipco Wine Cellars
Writer: Nina Rosenberg

It's never too soon to start your own business. Two Philadelphia high school students have won a business plan competition hosted by the Philadelphia chapter of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE). Bianca Nieves, a senior at Esperanza Academy in North Philadelphia, won for a business based on her grandmother's Hispanic spice recipe, called Grandma's Secret.

Viktor Vabishevich, a junior at George Washington High School was the runner-up for Vito Lawns, a landscaping business that's already quite successful. Based in the Somerton section of Northeast Philadelphia, Viktor reports he takes care of around 40 neighbors' lawns after school and has made enough money to purchase two cars, while saving up for college.

Philadelphia NFTE serves over 1,500 students in 20 area schools. "These kids are coming from environments where they don't have the luxury of spending time with video games," says Sylvia Watts McKinney, Executive Director of NFTE Philadelphia. "These are kids with innately good business acumen, and they're put before a group of people who encourage them to take advantage of that talent."

NFTE's mentoring program runs throughout the entire school year, bringing dozens of area business leaders to high school students. McKinney reports that over 60 volunteers and judges participate. "Not only do we go to schools and teach them, but there are also opportunities throughout the year to meet entrepreneurs at Drexel and Community College of Philadelphia, helping students to build a resume, and teaching them how to get a job. We have coaches at Wharton and Temple." By bringing students to college campuses, says McKinney, the NFTE program demystifies the academic experience for kids who may be the first in their families to go to college.

McKinney reports that this year's business plan presentations were quite sophisticated, and in many cases could go head to head in competitions with adults. Vabishevich, who received a check for $1,000, and Nieves, who was awarded $1,500, will now advance to the national competition, held this fall in New York City.

Source: Sylvia Watts McKinney, NFTE; Viktor Vabishevich, Vito Lawns
Writer: Sue Spolan

Some Philadelphia neighborhoods have no choice about the food residents can buy. Corner stores stocked with sugary and salty processed snacks, Chinese take-out and pizza shops are the only options in many low-income areas of the city. The city's brand new Healthy Carts Initiative offers a solution to food deserts as well as providing employment to vendors.

"The program came out of the Get Healthy Philly Initiative," says Healthy Cart Coordinator Rachel Hynes, who is now accepting applications from individuals and organizations. "We approved the first five applications last week." Ultimately, the goal is to set up 20 vendors in this first pilot year.

Healthy Cart operators receive free small business training, waived fees, a streamlined inspection process and free EBT machines, which allow processing of debit, credit and food stamps/SNAP cards. "We are covering the minimum monthly EBT fees through March," says Hynes.

Vendors will be allowed to sell cut fruit and vegetables, as long as the chopping occurs in an approved kitchen. The initiative is administered by the Office of Food Protection, a division of the Department of Public Health, and the same group that oversees the city's growing fleet of food trucks.

To figure out which areas get carts, says Hynes, the Healthy Carts program employs a GIS (Geographic Information Specialist) who has mapped out the areas which are most in need. It's a matter of finding a balance of where there's a need and where cart owners will be successful, according to Hynes, who used the Green Cart program in New York as a springboard but added more features to the Philly program.

Cart owners can make a living wage, says Hynes, if they are out seven days a week and establish a routine. Vendors need to come up with their own business models and are responsible for sourcing, purchasing, storing and displaying their goods, with training from the city. Healthy Carts plans to partner with local community organizations and recreation centers to promote the new program.

Source: Rachel Hynes, Healthy Carts
Writer: Sue Spolan

It's mobile punk rock ice cream with the cutest darn name. Little Baby's is pedaling into Philadelphia, courtesy of three guys who approach the creamery craft like a rousing cymbal crash. Little Baby's makes its debut on May 21, when the fledgling company rolls out its custom built multimedia tricycle at The Kensington Kinetic Sculpture Derby, a fitting location for what is sure to be a steampunk delivery system complete with music, lights and an ingenious regulatory-compliant system that provides hot running water, created by local sculptor Jordan Griska.

Little Baby's flavor roster reads more like a set list for a show, with options that include Earl Grey Sriracha, Balsamic Banana and Cardamom Caramel. And that makes sense, since co-founders Pete Angevine, Martin Brown and Jeffrey Ziga are musicians and artists, not formally trained chefs.

"It's been mind over matter," says Angevine, who is also a drummer. "It's a strange, engaging, intriguing kind of fun."

Based in East Kensington, Little Baby's is already generating buzz, with articles in Zagat's, Meal Ticket and Thrillist. The fledgling outfit has a loose agreement with Pizza Brain, which will provide storage for Little Baby's full offering of twelve to fifteen flavors. At any given time, the Little Baby's trike will offer 6 of those flavors on a rotating basis. Little Baby's will also set up at private parties and events, tricycle optional. And Angevine reports that Green Aisle Grocery, on East Passyunk Avenue, will carry the frozen confection if you need your fix and the trike's not out and about. For up to the minute info on Little Baby's whereabouts, check them out on Twitter and Facebook.

Source: Pete Angevine, Little Baby's Ice Cream
Writer: Sue Spolan

Kitchens haven't changed much in the past 40 years. Think about it: Aside from primarily cosmetic bells and whistles like digital readouts on ovens and refrigerators, the microwave oven was the last big addition to the culinary arsenal. And that was back in the 1970s. Numerous attempts to bring the internet to the kitchen have been unsuccessful. No consumer seems to agree with manufacturers who have tried and failed to innovate kitchen design.

Rob Tannen, director of research and interface design, and Mathieu Turpault, director of design at Bresslergroup, are actively trying to figure out how high tech can improve the kitchen in a way that consumers will love. Turpault was surprised to find out the small role that end user input figured into the kitchen of the future. "A lot of appliance makers are fishing for ways to make connectivity relevant, but they've approached the problem from a technological standpoint, so their solution is to slap a touch screen on the refrigerator door."

Bresslergroup is a growing product design firm that works with major manufacturers like Black & Decker, GE, Dewalt, and Bosch, and designs medical products as well as consumer appliances. The Philadelphia company, in business for 40 years, has launched what it calls Kitchen 2.0, a research project that aims to advance three areas of kitchen design: Eco, Technology and Modularity. The results of the research are available on a webinar.

"The biggest changes in the kitchen have been architectural," says Tannen, who points to the popularity of the kitchen island. To get to the world of Kitchen 2.0, Bresslergroup did a sort of anthroplogical study, examining the smallest components of workflow, activities and social habits in both urban apartments and suburban homes. They came up with the MySpice smartphone app, now in the planning stages, which interfaces with a camera that sends pictures of the inside of the fridge for viewing at the store. They conceived of a modular storage unit that doubles as a dishwasher and can be loaded from the dining room. "The end product of this is the ideas," says Tannen of the Kitchen 2.0 project, which he terms an exercise in design thinking. The company is headed in the right direction, experiencing steady growth for the past five years, and now on the lookout to fill two open positions, a user interface designer and a design manager, to join the team headquartered at The Marketplace Design Center in Center City.

Source: Rob Tannen, Mathieu Turpault, Bresslergroup
Writer: Sue Spolan

Flying Bytes is a regularly occurring wrap-up of innovation nuggets from across Greater Philadelphia:

A WEEK OF TECH CELEBRATION
It's a week long celebration of technology innovation, according to Technically Philly's Christopher Wink, one of the organizers of Philly Tech Week, April 25 to 30. "Wharton, University City Science Center, First Round Capital, the Franklin Institute, and Indy Hall are either sponsoring, hosting events or getting involved," says Wink. Check the PTW calendar for panels on Augmented Reality, Switch Philly, and a municipal government data unveiling. The final Friday night signature event will take place at WHYY, which will serve as headquarters for the week. Stay tuned for more.

TIRED OF WINE & CHEESE
LA's biggest underground art show is coming to town. Pancakes & Booze features over 50 of Philly's underground artists, and will take place Friday March 11 at Bookspace, 1113 Frankford Avenue, starting at 8 p.m. and scheduled into the wee hours. Admission is just $5 and covers all the pancakes you can eat plus live body painting. Pancakes & Booze is on national tour, with stops in San Francisco, Nashville, Denver and more. It's worth going just to see Bookspace, a massive former elevator factory converted into a surreal bookstore stacked to the rafters with more than 50,000 titles.

ENTREPRENEUR EXPO 2011
Philly Startup Leaders wants you to show off your stuff at the Entrepreneur Expo 2011. The area's brightest business minds are set to convene at University of the Arts on March 31. Last year's event drew 400 people. PSL is now accepting exhibitor applications from members, and will accept bids from the general public starting March 13. Register to attend this free event at Ticketleap.

LAUNCHROCK @ SXSW
The winner of this year's Startup Weekend Philadelphia plans on giving away $5,000 at SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas March 11-16. LaunchRock is a service that creates a viral "coming soon" page for budding businesses. The entrepreneur who gets the most signups using LaunchRock during SXSW will receive a dollar per sign-up up to $5,000. Results of the competition will be tracked on a 22-foot leaderboard on Sixth Street in Austin.

Source: Technically Philly, Bookspace, Philly Startup Leaders, Launchrock
Writer: Sue Spolan

A suburban boy is moving to town. Milkboy, one of the area's most beloved coffeehouses, is expanding from the Main Line to the Midtown Village section of Philadelphia, hiring a projected 20 new employees. Milkboy began in 1994 as a four-track cassette recorder and one microphone, growing into a recording, communications and promotional powerhouse, with two cafe/live music venues in Ardmore and Bryn Mawr.

Now Milkboy takes the party downtown, opening a multilevel bar and restaurant at 11th and Chestnut in Center City this spring. The venue will have two floors, with a fully stocked bar downstairs, and a stage upstairs. Milkboy co-founder Jamie Lokoff estimates capacity at 150 to 200 people, and of the food, he says, "Just because you're going to see a show in rock club, you won't have to sacrifice what you're eating." Milkboy is in talks with some of the city's best known chefs. "It's a lot more than what we can do in Ardmore," says Lokoff, "and it will be more geared toward a rock club environment."

Construction has been beset by the unexpected. "The owner of the building terms the area 'the hole in the donut,' " says Lokoff, who explains that the leased property, which couldn't possibly be more central, was lacking both a gas line and a telecommunications cable. Passersby to the Ardmore coffeehouse may have seen union picketers lately. Lokoff explains that the building owner, not Milkboy, hired the contractor. While several unions are represented, the contractor chose not to employ workers from the Carpenters' Union. Because of that hiring choice, says Lokoff, representatives are picketing Ardmore with signs reading, "Shame on Milkboy Coffee." Milkboy maintains a sense of humor about the controversy, selling Shame on Milkboy Coffee T-shirts. Lokoff says the Philadelphia location should be open late spring 2011.

Source: Jamie Lokoff, Milkboy
Writer: Sue Spolan

The egg comes first in the conversation about food safety. Both poultry and egg production are on the rise in the US. According to the USDA's most recent Census of Agriculture, sales have increased 55 percent in the last decade. But it's egg safety that's in the news. On the heels of a massive egg recall last summer, University of Pennsylvania researchers have developed a new test to detect the presence of Salmonella in eggs.

Shelley Rankin, an Associate Professor of Microbiology at Penn's School of Veterinary Medicine, says the kit, which detects Salmonella enteritidis, or SE, a strain of Salmonella specific to eggs, provides results in just 27 hours. Rankin explains that the Food and Drug Administration's new Federal Egg Safety Program, instituted in July of last year, was based in part on the Pennsylvania Egg Quality Assurance Program (PEQAP), which was developed by Rankin and colleagues. "I wanted Pennsylvania to be the first state to get a novel, non-culture based test approved by the FDA for our producers to use," says Rankin.

Previous FDA guidelines required some expensive and laborious methods, taking up to ten days to see results. "At that point my colleagues and I within the PEQAP decided we should look for a better method," according to Rankin, whose team was able to identify a gene that is present only in SE. Working in collaboration with California based company Life Technologies, which already sells kits for detection of more than 2500 strains of Salmonella, the new kit focuses a laser, literally, on potential SE contamination. Polymerase Chain Reaction technology amplifies a small segment of the gene which lights up and is detectable via laser. If the light goes on, says Rankin, then SE is present. The Applied Biosystems TaqMan Salmonella enteritidis Detection Kit is FDA approved and contains 96 single-use tests.

"I chose to work with an industry partner to make that test available nationwide to improve the public health of the nation," adds Rankin. Plans are underway, says Rankin, to further reduce testing time from 27 to 12 hours.

Source: Shelley Rankin, PhD, University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine
Writer: Sue Spolan

Flying Bytes is innovation nuggets from throughout Greater Philadelphia, with a focus on food and beverage this week.

WHAT A LOVELY TACO YOU HAVE
It's art. It's tacos. It's coming to a neighborhood near you. Celebrity chef Jose Garces announced this week the launch of the Guapos Tacos truck, which will be hard to miss. It's covered in a mosaic of 45,000 beer bottle caps, designed by Jun Aizaki, who created the interiors of all seven of Garces' restaurants. Follow the truck on twitter @GuaposTacos.

BAKIN' & SNACKIN': A GOOD THING
Soup sales may be down, but Campbell's reports its Baking and Snacking sectors are on the rise. The company just released Second Quarter Results for 2011. While the company's core product, canned soup, decreased four percent, CEO Douglas R. Conant says "Baking and Snacking, our second largest segment, delivered top and bottom line growth in the quarter." A top seller is Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies.

IN OTHER CANNED NEWS
Philadelphia's Crown Holdings is expanding its production of aluminum beverage cans at all three of its manufacturing facilities in Vietnam. The Hanoi plant expansion will allow Crown to crank out 1.5 billion cans; in Ho Chi Minh City, expected output for 2012 is 3.2 billion cans. Crown's global clients include Coca-Cola, Heneken and Kronenbourg.

TAKE IT TO GO
Food flavoring company David Michael announced the upcoming Innovation Roadshow that will take place in Philadelphia on March 30. This year's conference is all about going global with food and beverage products and features Mary Wagner from Starbucks' global R&D division. David Michael & Co. produces over 40,000 flavors, stabilizers and natural colors.

Source: Garces Restaurant Group, Campell's Soup, Crown Holdings, David Michael & Co.
Writer: Sue Spolan

It's happy hour somewhere, and LocalWineEvents.com wants to help you get your prosecco on. The Valley Forge-based service offers free wine event listings in 500 cities around the world, including the greater Philadelphia area. Eric Orange, LocalWineEvents.com CEO, used to sell wine for Paterno Imports. He was living in Denver, Colorado, where he presented the Paterno product line to restaurants, retailers and ski resorts. Setting up tastings and dinners was part of the marketing plan, but getting the word out was the big challenge. After commiserating with fellow wine merchants about a dinner where only six people showed up, Orange realized two things: one, that he was not alone in needing a powerful wine promotional tool, and two, that the world wide web was the perfect way to connect wine enthusiasts with wine sellers.

Today, The Juice, LocalWineEvents.com's twice-a-week newsletter, goes out to 136,000 subscribers worldwide. The service has just launched location-based mobile apps for iPhone and Android, and a mobile friendly site for other smartphone users. LocalWineEvent's Facebook page boasts 30,000 fans.

The LocalWineEvents.com listings provide details on event theme, date, time and location, and include a fairly large radius. For example, Philadelphia oenophiles get event information for New York City and Wilmington in addition to home town happenings.

While listing and searching are free, and the privately held LocalWineEvents.com relies on multiple revenue streams, from fees for featured listings to banner ads. "In my view, I have created the perfect Internet business model," Orange says, citing a cycle of consumer generated input and constant updates generating perpetual return traffic.

Source: Eric Orange, LocalWineEvents.com

Writer: Sue Spolan

Take a big bite out of that Hippo. Nibble on the Panda, and save some Ladybugs for later. Andrea Kyan has named her PureSweets product line for all the animals she loves. "I turned vegan in 2007. I'd been vegetarian since I was a kid, but a visit to an organic dairy farm opened my eyes. Organic is not necessarily humane." Kyan says she developed PureSweets to satisfy her own sweet tooth.

She found existing vegan treats lacking in depth, with no butter, cream, or eggs to carry flavor. Kyan solved the problem by using nut flours, which provide "protein content, a nutritional boost, and are gluten free." The second main ingredient is coconut butter, and Kyan also relies on coconut oils as well as nut butters made from cashews and almonds. The sweetening comes not from refined cane sugar but from maple syrup, date sugar, palm sugar, and organic brown rice syrup. "Everything else is flavored with dried fruit and nuts, espresso, and organic dark chocolate."

Kyan was on her way to medical school with a goal of practicing preventative medicine, and she was working as a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, studying the way mindfulness meditation affects weight loss, when she decided to go for a career in sustainable baking. Last fall, she got an account with Whole Foods, and they are currently piloting her products at their Center City location. She's in talks with the seven regional stores, and her goal is to place products in all 250 Whole Foods. "The only way this will work is through volume," says Kyan. "Some of the ingredients are so expensive." Items have eco-friendly packaging. PureSweets operates out of an old church in East Falls, and there's no storefront at that location, so Kyan delivers all online orders to Philadelphia area homes and offices for a reasonable fee.

About that Dingo: it's the name of PureSweets' chocolate-dipped almond butter cookie. All PureSweets' products bear animal names, and Kyan donates five percent of sales to animal rescue organizations, including PAWS and the Camden County Animal Shelter.

Source: Andrea Kyan, PureSweets
Writer: Sue Spolan

You've got to serve somebody. That's the message of newly launched ServePhiladelphia. It's an easy to use database that connects free people with places in need. Pick an area of interest from a pull down menu: Community Building, Education, Health, Leadership, Sustainability and more, and choose from dozens of projects that need your help. Selections run the gamut from gardening in the Wissahickon, to food distribution, to helping the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia translate English language guides into Vietnamese.

A city-led initiative, ServePhiladelphia launched this past Saturday, kicking off at the Free Library of Philadelphia with a project to get books to children learning to read. The initiative has a three part mission: to "create or elevate volunteer opportunities that impact educational outcomes and contribute to community vitality, to make it easier for citizens of every age to volunteer, and to support both public and private sector efforts to engage more volunteers in ways that have the greatest impact," according to Mayor Michael Nutter's kickoff message.

Nutter also announced the 2011 Volunteer Impact Challenge, with a three-time-a-year recognition ceremony for participants. Registration for ServePhiladelphia is simple, and allows citizens to bookmark interesting assignments as well as track hours. The initiative also has a Facebook page.

ServePhiladelphia is made possible by a Cities of Service Leadership Grant, allowing the hire of Catie C. Wolfgang, the City's first Chief Service Officer, and the establishment of the Office of Civic Engagement and Volunteer Service. Cities of Service is a bipartisan coalition founded in New York City by 17 mayors working together to increase volunteerism. From its inception in 2009, Cities of Service now counts over 100 mayors in its ranks.

Source: Mayor Michael Nutter, ServePhiladelphia
Writer: Sue Spolan

You've got to give attorney David Orphanides a lot of credit. He's come up with an alternative to "artisanal," one of the more awkward-sounding terms in the English language. Jettisoning the word, but not the concept, Orphanides uses the more classic "crafted" when describing the four tenets that make up the philosophy of Fairmount's soon-to-open Fare restaurant, which also relies on local, organic and sustainable practices.

Orphanides eats organic and shops sustainably at home, so it makes total sense, he says, that Fare mirrors that lifestyle. "It's second nature for us. We couldn't see doing it any other way." Also on board are Savvas Navrosidis, who owns Fairmount Pizza, and attorney Andy Siegel.

Fare, which opens to the public in "early spring," eschews heavy creams and sauces for "food that's still very satisfying and filling." The projected 85-seat bar and restaurant located at 2028 Fairmount Avenue, across from Eastern State Penitentiary, is fit out with completely green, locally sourced furnishings. The black walnut bar comes from Pennsylvania trees. Wine, beer, and liquor served on that lovely expanse of local wood aims to be "biodynamic and organic, from local vineyards and distilleries," according to Orphanides.

Fare's menu evolved from an original concept of smaller snacks to include dishes for all appetites. Small plates and snacks range in price from $2-$8; salads are $6-$9, and main dishes range from $11-$18. Fare "started out more as a place for people to have a drink and socialize, more of a lounge" for Fairmount locals, but when chef Tim Bellew signed on, the menu expanded. Bellew's previous engagements include Fire in Cherry Hill, Black Eyed Susan in Long Beach Island, and MANNA catering in New York.

Source: David Orphanides, Fare Restaurant
Writer: Sue Spolan