Get Adobe Flash player

Hong Kong Wine & Dine Festival Returns After 5 Years

Hong Kong Tourism Board invites food and wine lovers from around the world to celebrate the return of the city’s large-scale outdoor culinary event, Hong Kong Wine & Dine Festival. The four-day festival kicks off a month-long series of exciting nightlife events taking place citywide throughout November.

Taking place from Oct. 26-29 at Victoria Harbour’s Central Harbourfront Event Space, Hong Kong Wine & Dine Festival 2023 will be a four-day gourmet extravaganza backdropped by the iconic city skyline. After a five-year hiatus, the physical event is back, and ready to welcome visitors to visit nearly 300 booths showcasing global food and wine,

Wine will naturally be a focus of the festival, with the popular Major Country Pavilions showcasing makers from 36 countries around the world. This year, the spotlight will be on the classic vintages from France and Italy and emerging wine regions from Thailand, Moldova and Finland. In a Festival first, a dedicated display for Chinese Wine Discovery is being introduced, featuring wine merchants including Xige Estate and Chateau Mihope from Ningxia (Northwest China), Yunnan Red Wine & Spirits, and Shandong-based Mystic Island Winery.

Visitors can indulge in a diverse array of global flavors, with dishes ranging from punchy, street food and nostalgic local favorites to refined hotel delicacies.

New to the Festival is Tasting Theatre, a series of hands-on workshops for visitors feeling inspired to roll up their sleeves and don an apron. Cooking demonstrations and workshops will be led by celebrity chef He Jiansheng from Shunde, Guangdong and award-winning Taiwanese baker Wu Pao-chun, who will join Hong Kong Wine & Dine Festival for the first time.

Hong Kong Wine & Dine Festival 2023 will serve as a launching pad for a month of culinary celebrations taking place around Hong Kong. Throughout November, Taste Around Town will highlight over 300 of Hong Kong’s best places to eat and drink, with exclusive discounts, limited-time menus and more that will strengthen Hong Kong’s position as one of the world’s top dining destinations.

For more details about Hong Kong Wine & Dine Festival 2023 – and for more ways to experience Hong Kong’s world-class food scene and nightlife, please visit the HKTB website: DiscoverHongKong.com/WineDineFestival

For more news of interest to the specialty food industry, subscribe to Gourmet News.

Food Tech Startup Novel Farms Gets Nearly $1M Grant

Novel Farms, Inc., a food technology startup based in Berkeley, Calif., has been awarded the highly competitive Small Business Innovation Research Phase II grant by the National Science Foundation. The $999,967 two-year grant is a testament to Novel Farms’ groundbreaking work in the field of cultivated meat production and will provide critical funding to support the scale-up of their proprietary scaffolding platform. This innovative platform leverages a novel microbial fermentation approach and tissue engineering techniques to significantly reduce the costs associated with cultivated meat.

At the core of this project lies the ambition to address the profound sustainability and public health challenges posed by conventional industrial animal agriculture. By developing more efficient and economical ways to produce real meat directly from animal cells i.e., cultivated meat, Novel Farms aims to disrupt the current damaging meat production paradigm. The primary challenge faced by the cultivated meat industry is the cost of cell culture media, which must be competitive with conventional meat production to establish cultivated meat as a viable alternative.

To confront this challenge head-on, Novel Farms’ Phase II project is geared towards further lowering media costs by eliminating costly components through the continued refinement of their proprietary scaffolding technology. This crucial funding injection will empower the company to expand its scientific team and transition its processes from bench scale to bioreactor scale—a pivotal step towards establishing an efficient and scalable cultivated meat production system.

Dr. Michelle Lu, co-founder and CSO of Novel Farms, said, “During our Phase I efforts, we demonstrated the feasibility and capabilities of our innovative structuring platform, exemplified by the development of a marbled and structured cultivated pork prototype. This progress, coupled with our unwavering commitment to scientific rigor, has laid a solid foundation that has garnered recognition through this competitive award.”

“We are proud to be rooted in fundamental research and are grateful for NSF’s recognition of the disruptive potential of our scaffolding platform,” said Dr. Nieves Martinez Marshall, CEO of Novel Farms.

Novel Farms is on a mission to redefine the future of food with a dedicated focus on crafting whole cuts of cultivated meat. Their vision encompasses both culinary excellence and sustainability, aiming to cater to the diverse palates of meat enthusiasts while also meeting the expectations of environmentally-conscious consumers.

America’s Seed Fund powered by the National Science Foundation awards $200 million annually to startups and small businesses, transforming scientific discovery into products and services with commercial and societal impact. Startups working across almost all areas of science and technology can receive up to $2 million in non-dilutive funds to support research and development, helping de-risk technology for commercial success. America’s Seed Fund is congressionally mandated through the Small Business Innovation Research program.

For more news about food technology, subscribe to Gourmet News.

Southern Glazer’s Promotes Executives; Arizona Exec Retires

Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits has made enhancements to National Accounts, Customer and Trade Development, National Retail Sales, Center of Excellence and eCommerce functional units. These teams continue to evolve under the National Accounts umbrella, enabling Southern Glazer’s to remain the strategic thought partner to grow these categories and gain market share.

In addition, Tom Boyle, executive vice president and general manager of Arizona, will retire effective ­at the end of 2023.

“Southern Glazer’s National Accounts team’s vision is to be an indispensable and trusted partner to the company’s valued customers and deliver excellence to associated buyers, suppliers, and market teams,” said Chris Williams, executive vice president, National Accounts. “This enhanced structure enables us to provide an even more collaborative and comprehensive level of service to our partners.”

Customer and Trade Development

  • Ryan Sass has been promoted to vice president, Customer and Trade Development, for National Retail Sales and On Premise. In his new role, Sass will drive supplier relations and closely manage the Company’s NRS business with the support of Customer Development category experts. Sass will report to Chris Williams.

eCommerce

  • Robyne Eldridge has been appointed vice president, Omni Channel Development.She will continue to lead B2C deliverables for digital first, eCommerce Business Priorities development and supplier integration. Reporting to Eldridge will beSam Raia, senior director, Omni Channel Development;DarShanna Smith senior director, Amazon; Sarah Twitchell, director, Liquor Channel;Brennan Duke, director,(Mass/Club/Drug); and Jennifer Bailein, director, Grocery. Eldridge will report to Chris Williams.

National Retail Sales (NRS)

  • JR Allen has been promoted to vice president, NRS Commercial Operations. In his new role, he will work directly with each region’s Senior Vice President, Commercial Operations, with a focus on forecasting, inventory and execution. He will report to Scott Moore, senior vice president, National Accounts Off Premise.
  • Nicole Nottinghamhas been appointed to senior director, GoBrands. She will strengthen and foster national strategy and connect with NRS supplier planning process Customer Business Priorities. She will report to Scott Moore.

Center of Excellence (COE)

  • Adam Byrne has been appointed vice president, Customer Planning and Development COE. The COE will focus on “Elevate,” the company’s program that offers customers branded merchandising recommendations, large and small format channel development and Southern Glazer’s unique suite of Retail Joint Business Planning process and tools. Byrne recently joined the company and will report to Chris Williams.

Boyle is a longtime Southern Glazer’s employee.

“During his 40-year tenure, Tom has made a tremendous positive impact on the success of the company, as well as the professional success of our employees,” said John Wittig, chief commercial officer. “His best-in-class leadership has made him a role model in Arizona and beyond. We’ll miss him greatly and will forever appreciate his many contributions to the company.”

“Tom’s exceptional dedication to fostering a workplace culture where authenticity thrives has been a true cornerstone of Arizona’s success,” commented Patrick Daul, president, West Region. “In addition to this, his commitment to innovation transformed the market into a hub for pioneering pilot programs, from industry-leading electric vehicle testing to the introduction of a unique convenience store concept. These contributions have positioned us at the forefront of progress, leaving an indelible mark for years to come.”

In 1983, Boyle began his career in beverage alcohol as a salesperson for Southern Wine and Spirits in San Diego. After years of hard work expanding the company’s supplier portfolio, Boyle was promoted to on-premise division manager in 1989. Shortly after, Boyle led Southern Wine and Spirits in entering its fourth market in Arizona, where he served as Southern Arizona branch manager.

After helping lead significant growth for the business and working in roles of increasing responsibility, Boyle accepted the position of general sales manager of Arizona and spent the next 18 years working alongside Michael Jahn and the Arizona team to make Southern Wine and Spirits the number one distributor in Arizona. Upon Jahn’s retirement in 2019, Boyle stepped into his most recent role as executive vice president and general manager of Arizona.

“As Tom embarks on a new chapter in life, we express our deep appreciation for his service and wish him a retirement filled with much happiness and health,” said Wayne E. Chaplin, chief executive officer. “His legacy will continue to inspire us, and his presence will be missed.”

An announcement for Boyle’s replacement will be forthcoming. Boyle will remain on the team to ensure a seamless transition and support the leader who will be replacing him.

For more news of interest to the food and beverage industry, subscribe to Gourmet News.