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Halal

Meals to Order in from the Freezer Case

By Lorrie Baumann

Mona Ahmad knows what it’s like to come home from a demanding job to find a family looking at her and asking about dinner. She wanted to provide for her family the same kind of traditional meals that her mother had provided for her family through the years that the family had traveled from country to country as her father’s job as a United Nations diplomat required. “Everywhere we went my mother would make our delicious food,” Ahmad recalls. “It was such a blessing to have a variety of textures, flavors and aromas fill our home.” Those meals were rich with the complex flavors of Ahmad’s Pakistani heritage, and her mother had spent hours cooking them through the day. Ahmad had the skills her mother had taught her, but as a manager at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, she just didn’t have that kind of time. “Our food is one of the most difficult cuisines – it’s very labor intensive and requires a multitude of ingredients,” she said. “It wasn’t very easy for me to make a home-cooked meal all the time.”

The solution she came up with was her own version of a meal kit – she put together packages of food with all the ingredients prepared for cooking and froze them. “I just wished it could be more prepped – something that maybe even my husband could start,” she said. “Have it frozen and ready, so that you just defrost and cook on the stovetop and then eat…. It was a need I had, and I found out that I was not alone.”

Those frozen meals came in particularly handy as Ahmad made meals to take to her father. “He also had a friend who used to have someone make food for him, but one week the lady was sick,” she said. “I gave him a few of my meals, and, voila, he was cooking on his own, and his pain point for food diminished.”

She started talking to people about her idea, and some of them told her that they’d love to have some of those meals, too, and so would their children who’d left home to go to college but were often homesick for an honest-to-gosh home-cooked meal.

Somewhere in all those conversations, Ahmad discerned a real need in the marketplace – a lot of people wanted to eat the kind of food that she had grown up eating, but they didn’t have the time or the skills or even the ingredients to prepare it for themselves. “I started looking at statistics and found that most people would like a home-cooked meal but wanted meal prep to be easier, and, now more than ever, people are facing meal prep fatigue,” she said. “Also, there is no skillet meal right now that represents cuisine from this region. This was an opportunity that I saw, and it just evolved.”

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Once she had those wrinkles ironed out, she started field-testing Mona’s Curryations, the brand she adopted for her products, to gauge how the market responded. “What we learned is that people enjoy making this cuisine at home. They like that it’s all natural, and that it tastes so fresh,” she said. “They were pleasantly surprised because they were getting it from the freezer aisle.”

Gradually, her nascent line was picked up by small, ethnic grocery stores. Ahmad marketed it tirelessly with advertisements on Facebook, publicity in the Boston Globe, putting the word out among friends and family and at her local mosque. “Wherever I could advertise that we had this product, I did,” she said.

As the market for Mona’s Curryations grew from early adopters who got the frozen skillet meals from Boston’s ethnic markets to new customers who didn’t share Ahmad’s heritage and shopped for their food in supermarkets, Ahmad adapted her offerings to fit the tastes of a wider spectrum of consumers – those who wanted fresh-tasting meals that they could prepare easily at home but who weren’t familiar with the nuances of Ahmad’s Pakistani cuisine.

The Mona’s Curryations line now consists of Chicken Tikka Masala, Palak Paneer, Chickpea Tikka Masala and Tandoori Chicken. They’re made with fresh, natural ingredients, and the meats are halal. The Chickpea Tikka Masala is vegan, and the Tandoori Chicken is dairy free. The 22-ounce packages are intended to serve two with full meal servings, and they include the naan. They retail for about $9.99. “These restaurant-inspired meals are complete with the protein; vegetables; oil; and spices such as turmeric, fenugreek, garam masala and cumin. Everything is mixed in the bag so that you can enjoy the experience of making and eating this cuisine right in the comfort of your home,” Ahmad said. “You just need a skillet or a saucepan. Pour everything in and let it cook for about 10 minutes and warm up the naan. Multi-cooker instructions are also included.”

Ahmad is expecting to have her line ready to roll out into supermarkets this fall, and she expects it to appeal to consumers who are still doing most of their eating at home, whether or not the pandemic continues to rage. She expects the line to launch regionally in New England first, with plans to scale up as distribution and retail arrangements progress.
For more information, visit www.monascurryations.com.

Kontos Foods to Launch Gorditas Flatbread at IDDBA

Kontos Foods, Inc. will be showing off its latest flatbread innovation off at the IDDBA ’19 Show this weekend. Gorditas, which were unveiled earlier this month, are handmade soft flatbread “taco shells,” perfect for making stuffed taco sandwiches, filled with meat, cheese, salsa or sour cream. Kontos, a U.S.- based manufacturer and distributor of traditional artisan breads and Mediterranean specialty foods, will be showcasing Gorditas among many other favorite products at the International Dairy, Deli, Bakery Association Show. The show takes place June 2-4, 2019 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando.

Like most of Kontos’ flatbreads, Gorditas contain no trans fats, are 100 percent vegetarian, certified kosher-pareve (Pas Yisroel) and halal. They come packed 6/10 – 19.70 ounces to a case, and they require minimal reheating for added flexibility. Gorditas literally mean “chubby” in Spanish and describe a sandwich stuffed with meat, cheese or other fillings.

Other featured items at the IDDBA show include Pre-Grilled Cocktail Flatbreads, Pre-Grilled, Mini Oval Flatbreads, Pocket-Less Pita® and Gluten-Free Wraps.In addition to its many breads, some of Kontos featured specialty products include All-Natural, French-Style Crepes, International Pastry Puffs (also known as Loukoumades or Zeppole), Greek Yogurt, Imported Feta Cheese, Dolmades, Hummus and Tzatziki dips.
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The IDDBA Show is the largest industry-only show for dairy, deli, bakery industries. Last year’s show included attendees from 65 of the top 75-top ranked supermarket and grocery store chains, representing 28,407 stores with total category sales of more than $124 billion.

“Great bread and fresh ingredients are the starting point for every delicious sandwich made,” said Steve Kontos, President and Owner of Kontos Foods. “This is exactly why the IDDBA audience—from wholesale buyers, to retail chains, to small- and medium-sized restaurants and delis, appreciate our artisan bread. Consumers have a growing appetite for products like ours that have fresh, wholesome ingredients. This is a fantastic venue for us to network with these buyers and expand our share of market.”

Enjoy Life Foods Debuts Reformulated Protein Bites and Showcases Grain & Seed Bars

Enjoy Life Foods is relaunching its ProBurst Bites as Protein Bites with new flavors added to the line. Protein Bites boast an elevated taste and texture profile, but with the same great plant-based protein in each poppable bite that fans know and love. Debuting two new flavors, including Dark Raspberry and Dipped Banana, Protein Bites will also be available in familiar options like Sunseed™ Butter and Cinnamon Spice. The company is also expanding its range of free-from foods with new Grain & Seed Bars, the first bars to combine three types of the ancient grain sorghum in four enticing flavors: Chocolate Marshmallow, Banana Caramel, Maple Sweet Potato and Cranberry Orange.

“Part of what makes Enjoy Life special is our open line of communication with our community,” said Joel Warady, General Manager and Chief Sales & Marketing Officer at Enjoy Life Foods. “We knew from consumer feedback that there was an undeniable love for our original bites, but because we know how important flavor and texture are, we made the choice to give them the boost our consumers deserve. As a result, we’ve landed on four incredibly delicious recipes that raise the bar for protein bites everywhere.”
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Enjoy Life’s chocolately, truffle-like Protein Bites are packed with six grams of plant-based protein and offer a burst to power through the day. Enclosed in a rich chocolate shell, each flavor is free from palm oil and 14 allergens, including wheat, peanuts, tree nuts, dairy, casein, soy, egg, sesame, sulfites, lupin, mustard, fish, shellfish, and crustaceans. Protein Bites are also certified gluten free, Non-GMO Project verified, vegan, halal and kosher. Available in spring 2018, Protein Bites will retail for $6.99 for
each resealable six-ounce bag. Like all Enjoy Life products, each bag carries a bright teal color designed to shed a positive spotlight on food allergies while creating a cohesive brand block on shelf.