So it's that time of year again! Team Pizza Fusion is making it's annual pilgrimage to Anaheim, CA for the 30th Annual Natural Products Expo West. Natural Products Expo West is one of the premier events for the natural, organic and healthy products industry. The event is also co-located with SupplyExpo, the Nutracon conference, the Healthy Baking Seminar and the Fresh Ideas Organic Marketplace. Having all these events under one roof really showcases the entire value chain of healthy natural and organic products from start to finish. From greener packaging to new innovative products... it's all here at Expo West.
We're excited to visit with old friends and partners like Honest Tea, Stonyfield, Earthbound Farm, and a myriad of awesome organic beer and wine partners as well. We'll be tweeting and blogging over the next couple of days so stay tuned! I won't be giving away too many of our secrets though! LOL!
Have an awesome remained to your week and see you on the flip!
On Monday no one knew what a Bloombox was and by Friday they had a 60 minutes special & a major press event. I guess an onsite fuel cell the size of a shoebox will get some people excited. (it isn't just me???) {via cbs & engadget.com - videos below}
Each year TED awards the TED Prize and three remarkable winners are given their "One Wish to Change The World". The first winner of the 2010 TED Prize is none other than "Naked Chef" Jamie Oliver. His love for food began at a very early age, helping out in the kitchen of his father's pub. This passion for food continued as Jamie showcased his love affair with fresh "real" foods as he worked his way up the ranks in the kitchen eventually catching the eye of the BBC. BBC offered Oliver his own show, aptly titled "The Naked Chef". The name may be a bit misleading. Jamie wasn't cooking in the buff, rather cooking with "real" foods free of processing and the likes. In 2002, putting up his house as collateral (without telling his wife), Oliver created the Fifteen Foundation. Each year, 15 young adults who have a disadvantaged background, are trained in the restaurant business, and eventually tasked with running Jamie's restaurants. He has tirelessly used his celebrity to bring attention to better food for children, particularly in schools. In 2005, he initiated a campaign called "Feed me Better" whose sole mission is to move British schoolchildren towards eating healthier, "real" foods and cutting out sugary junk food.
Jamie Oliver has now set his sights on an all-out war against childhood obesity and educating the youth of the world to become more educated about where foods come from. One clip in his TED speech shows Jamie in an American school in West Virginia and he is doing a basic show-and-tell of some of the staple vegetables like potatoes, tomatoes and broccoli. It was sad seeing that most of the children couldn't identify these simple food items and the reason is simple... we, as adults don't utilize "real" food in the home as much as our parents, and our grandparents and as each generation passes so does the use of these foods in our homes. Jamie Oliver delivered a powerful, hard-hitting speech to make his case and his one wish...
“I wish for your help to create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity.”
Oliver's TED speech, like all others, was a very brief 20 minutes, but it was one of the most profound and eye-opening 20 minutes I've had in the last 4 years of starting Pizza Fusion. It is one of the same reasons why we teach a monthly 'Kids Organics Class' which teaches the children of our local community simply where food comes from. I am committed to supporting Jamie Oliver and helping make Pizza Fusion a big part of the solution as opposed to the problem.
See his video below.
Pizza Fusion is committed to making our foods using only the freshest foods that have little or no processing or artificial ingredients. By using organic and local ingredients whenever possible also shows our integrity in our mission. We truly care about the health of our local community and it has to start with the businesses and restaurants that service them. Pizza Fusion is a franchise with a heart!
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 at 6:59AM 
