“The Grinders” Organic California Grown Dates ‘No Date Left Behind’ Product Offers Nutrient-Dense Dates to a Wider Swath of American Consumers While Supporting California’s Small Date Producers, and will Compete for sofi™ New Product of the Year at 2023 Summer Fancy Food Show
Newport Beach, CA, May 15, 2023 – Rancho Meladuco Date Farm has been named the 2023 sofi™ New Product Award Winner in the Nuts, Seeds, Trail Mix, Dried Fruit Category. The Specialty Food Association’s (SFA) sofi™ Awards—which have been bestowed annually since 1972—are a top honor in the $175 billion specialty food industry.
The 2023 sofi™ Awards recognized a New Product Winner and a Gold Product Winner in each of 53 specialty food and beverage product categories. Products were judged on taste—including flavor, appearance, texture, and aroma—ingredient quality, and innovation. Nearly 2,000 products from domestic and international makers were entered into the 2023 competition.
“We are honored that “The Grinders” Organic California Grown Dates has won a sofi™ New Product Award,” says Joan Smith, founder of Rancho Meladuco Date Farm. “This award is especially meaningful as our beloved Grinders – the ‘imperfect’ but still delicious and nutritious dates – represent a huge shift from historically focusing on the largest and most aesthetically perfect dates to embracing the undervalued imperfect dates with puffy skin, called ‘puffies’ in our industry,” Smith says.
The historically lower valuation of the “ugly” or “puffy” dates especially hurts farmers who, despite employing the correct growing techniques, resources, and labor used to grow the “perfect” fruit, can find themselves with a portion of their crop having little or no market value for consumer products solely due to puffy skin. “Dates are an extremely labor intensive crop being grown in California, one of the highest wage states. The devaluation of a great crop due to puffy skin unduly squeezes the growers,” Smith says. Packed in lovable, illustrated pint-cup containers and perfect for snacking, baking and more, The Grinders give consumers across multiple demographics access to nutrient-dense, California-grown dates at a more accessible price point, while, as Smith says, “helping save the dates, save the farmers, and allow our industry to thrive by finding a profitable home for all of our dates.” The Grinders are sold at Rancho Meladuco’s Date Shop online and in select retailers nationwide and, beginning May 20th, will roll out at all 4,500 Walmart locations nationwide.
Rancho Meladuco Grinders will now compete against other category winners for the 2023 sofi™ New Product of the Year Award, which will be selected and announced at the Summer Fancy Food Show, June 25-27 in New York City. The Summer Fancy Food Show is the largest B2B-only specialty food industry event in North America.
“The sofi™ Awards recognize the best, most innovative products in the Specialty Food Industry and the creative, passionate people who make them,” said SFA President Bill Lynch. “Winning a sofi™ Award can open doors to new markets and expand business opportunities for the winners, which is central to the SFA’s work on behalf of its member makers and manufacturers.”
The sofi™ Awards competition is open to product qualified SFA members in good standing. New and Gold Award Winners in each category are featured in the sofi™ Spotlight Pavilion at the Summer and Winter Fancy Food Shows. Winning a sofi™ Award creates added exposure for products with food buyers from top names in supermarkets, specialty retailers, foodservice, distributors, and the media.
SFA partners with Rutgers Food Innovation Center in Bridgeton, NJ for sofi™ Awards judging and logistics management. Entries were judged strictly on a blind basis—without packaging, pricing, or any brand identification. Products were judged on taste—including flavor, appearance, texture, and aroma—ingredient quality, and innovation.
ABOUT RANCHO MELADUCO DATE FARM
Founded by Joan Smith in 2017 and headquartered in Newport Beach, CA, Rancho Meladuco Date Farm is a preeminent seller of premium California-grown dates, sold in whimsically-designed, eco-friendly packaging. On a mission to inspire a national obsession with dates, Rancho Meladuco offers a variety of products, from giftable premium fruit to quality everyday dates sold at more accessible price points. The company sources fruit from its own Coachella Valley date farm and other California date farm partners, and is supporting these date farms with its new Grinders initiative. Creative recipes and more information can be found at www.ranchomeladuco.com
About the Specialty Food Association
The not-for-profit Specialty Food Association (SFA) is the leading membership trade association and source of information about the $175 billion specialty food industry. Founded in 1952 in New York City, the SFA prides itself on being an organization by the members and for the members, representing thousands of specialty food makers and manufacturers, importers, retailers, buyers, distributors, brokers, and others in the trade. The SFA owns and operates the Fancy Food Shows—which are the largest specialty food industry events in North America—as well as the sofi™ Awards—which have honored excellence in specialty food and beverage annually since 1972. The SFA produces the Trendspotter Panel annual predictions, the State of the Specialty Food Industry Report, Today's Specialty Food Consumer research, the Spill & Dish podcast, year-round educational programming for professionals at every stage in their business journey, and SFA Feed, the industry's go-to daily source for news, trends and new product information. Find out more online and connect with SFA on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok.
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