Archive for the ‘Vendors’ Category
in.gredients 4th Anniversary Party on Aug. 6th
Join us in celebrating four years of zero waste, local food, and community at our free family-friendly 4th Anniversary Party on Saturday, August 6 from 6-9PM.
There will be live music by The Stovetop Rangers and Devin James Fry,KTonic Kombucha snowcones, live screen printing by Fine Southern Gentlemen, face painting by Sparklefingers Body Art, a photo booth, giant jenga with Workers Defense Project and more. In collaboration withJuiceLand and Johnson’s Backyard Garden, Hops and Grain will be brewing their signature small-batch Watermelon Brown Ale, Common Denominator. Austin-based companies Zhi Tea, Cat Spring Tea, Kosmic Kombucha, Third Coast Coffee Roasting Company, Boulanger Fermentations, Delysia Chocolatier, Fortitude Provisions and Joe’s Organics will join the party with samples and stories about their history with in.gredients and their work to support the store’s mission.
A portion of the proceeds from our 4th Anniversary Party will be donated to our incredible non-profit Community Partner, Workers Defense Project, an Austin-based organization that advocates for marginalized workers.
Join in.gredients in celebrating four years of slinging local groceries and pouring local pints with the incredible community that has grown around its mission. RSVP here.
9th Annual Bug Eating Festival July 13th!
Little Herds Celebrates Eating Insects and a Sustainable Future of Food at the 9th Annual Bug Eating Festival Part II on Wednesday, July 13th
For the second year in a row, in.gredients is hosting the Bug (Eating) Festival – a celebration of entomophagy and the future of food organized by Little Herds, an Austin non-profit working to promote the use of insects for food and feed as an environmentally sound and economically viable source of nutrition.
A large crowd of local bug-enthusiasts gathered at in.gredients for Part I of the 9th Annual Bug (Eating) Festival on Saturday, June 4 to sample insect-infused treats, listen to live music by Josh Buckley and learn more about the role of bugs in our food system.
“It went great; we probably had 200 people there,” Little Herds President Robert Nathan Allen said. “We had booths for PEAS, Delysia Chocolatier, Slow Food Austin, Aketta, and Crickers Crackers. There was a kids’ activities table and a bunch of different treats like cricket rice krispie treats and cricket oatmeal cookies. Chef Rick Lopez from La Condesa did a cooking demonstration of how to make chapulines salsa.”
Due to the severe weather conditions during Part I of the 9th Annual Bug Eating Festival, Little Herds is holding a second Bug Eating Festival this year on Wednesday, July 13 from 5-9PM at in.gredients. The 9th Annual Bug Eating Festival Part II is an opportunity for insect-novices to taste bugs for the first time and for entomophagy enthusiasts like RNA to gather and share what they love about insects as a food of the future.
RNA’s initial interest in insect eating was sparked by a video on entomophagy that was sent to him as a joke, “I took it way too seriously,” he said. A year later RNA had gathered together a group of friends who were interested in eating bugs and raising awareness of the environmental and nutritional benefits of insects as an alternative protein source. Within six months, by December 2013, Little Herds had become a 501c3 non-profit committed to edible insect education.
“We should be thinking about our food before it hits our plate,” RNA said. “Little Herds’ mission is to educate our community about the benefits of eating insects – it addresses the broader questions of how we fix our broken food system. We are interested in insects as food and as livestock feed, and we are focused on our local community and global community. Austin was the perfect birthplace for Little Herds; there are a lot of cultural influences on our food scene. Austin already has a big paleo community, a big gluten-free community – there are a lot of people who want to keep it weird when it comes to what we eat here.”
Raising insects requires significantly less resources – water, space and feed – than the production of other forms of livestock. When RNA learned of the environmental sustainability and nutrient content of edible insects, he began experimenting with cricket flour. He brought one of his first batches of cricket cookies to the 5th Annual Bug Eating Festival.
“The festival was founded by Marjory Wildcraft. She started nine years ago with some friends and families who wanted to try bugs for the first time. They had such a blast they did it again, and more people showed up the next year, and it grew,” RNA said. “I got involved with this idea at the 5th Annual Bug Eating Festival; I brought some cricket flour cookies I baked and just fell in love with the idea. Since then I’ve helped organize the festival. Originally it was a way to get people together to try bugs, and now it’s grown as a way to see insects as a resource and to celebrate all the good work that’s happening in Austin around food and sustainability.”
Little Herds has gathered together a group of local bakers and chefs – Chef Rick Lopez from La Condesa, Aketta Cricket Flour, Crickers and Delysia Chocolatier – to bring insect-enriched treats to Part II of the 9th Annual Bug Eating Festival on Wednesday, July 13 for curious eaters to try. Taste the future of food and sustainable protein in the form of gourmet cricket cookies and chocolates, spiced mealworms and cricket salsa.
“One of the great things about edible insects is that if you don’t want to see them, you don’t have to – you can grind them up into flours,” RNA said. “It’s not a one-to-one replacement of regular flour, but you can sub in a portion of the flour in recipes, and you’ll still get that additional protein, iron and calcium that weren’t there before. Crickets have really good omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids; they have fiber. It’s just mind-blowing how healthy they are, and we’ve just been missing out on it.”
Since Little Herd’s inception in June 2013, they have focused on educating children about entomophagy and getting kids excited to eat bugs. “We have educator kits designed to be taught at schools around Austin that can be catered to any age group,” RNA said. “If we get 1% of kids in Austin to eat insects, we can show how much water is saved and how much greenhouse gas is saved from just a small number people.” Part II of the 9th Annual Bug (Eating) Festival will feature even more activities for kids to learn about the benefits of bugs and how to eat them.
“Parents know it’s nutritious and environmentally beneficial, and kids don’t have built-in taboos,” RNA said. “Trends change throughout history. We’re trying to change the mentality that insects are gross food.”
Little Herds is part of a larger movement to repopularize eating insects as a sustainable protein alternative. Although entomophagy is practiced throughout the world in countries like Mexico, the idea is relatively new in the United States.
“It’s a cultural taboo that’s built up over time for a variety of reasons. As our ancestors moved up north from the equator and bugs got smaller, people stopped eating insects. Due to agriculture, bugs weren’t needed as a food supply,” RNA said. “There are a lot of places where eating insects is traditional, but for younger generations it’s starting to be seen as something your grandmother did. If we make eating insects part of our modern food culture it won’t have that effect. In Mexico, eating insects is still celebrated as a traditional food. There are restaurants throughout the country that serve traditional Oaxacan chapulines.”
Little Herds has three “core principles” it recommends to anyone interested in trying insects for the first time: be safe, be kind (to other eaters, insects and the planet) and be curious.
“It’s fun to surprise people but we want to make sure people are safe; if you have a shellfish allergy you may be allergic to insects,” RNA said. “If someone doesn’t want to try, that’s okay. Everyone has a food they don’t like, and they don’t need someone bullying them about it.”
Little Herds works to promote ethical insect farming that does not disturb local ecosystems. Insects can be safely and humanely harvested through freezing, “lowering their temperature like they would hibernate in the wild.”
“Be kind to the animals; insects are living creatures and sentient beings,” RNA said. “We are not saying go in your backyard and try bugs; you don’t know where those are from. If you harvest bugs from the wild they may have parasites or your neighbor may spray pesticides. Part of being safe is knowing where your food comes from – you should want to know where your food is grown and the way it’s processed. You want to know that it’s safe for animals.”
This summer, Little Herds launched a crowdfunding campaign through Barnraiser to expand their programs in Austin and abroad. Rewards for donating include a jar of Cricket Bolognese Pasta Sauce, a grow-your-own mealworms kit (that comes equipped with a mealworm cookbook and farm) and a cricket-chocolate making class with Delysia Chocolatier – make sure to donate and claim your reward before their crowdfunding deadline of midnight Friday, July 15.
“The first day we received an anonymous matching donation for up to $4000 if we reached our first goal by the following Saturday. The community rallied, and we hit our goal by Friday,” RNA said. “We have some really great stretch goals that are going to be impactful for the local Austin community.”
Little Herds is still working to meet their third fundraising goal of reaching $25,000, which will allow them to host the second ever “Eating Insects” conference in the U.S. next year in Austin. RNA attended “Eating Insects Detroit,” the first conference in the U.S. devoted to insects for food and feed, and came back inspired to do the same in Austin.
“The conference gave me a huge injection of energy and ideas,” RNA said. “Over 150 international business founders joined the conference along with insect farmers and experts leading research looking at the psychology and marketing of eating insects. There were film screenings, a pop-up insect dinner and a food truck-serving insects. The conference was a snapshot of what people are doing all around the world, and how this can apply to Austin. We were just blown away by how this conference went for its first year; bringing it to Austin next year just makes so much sense. We can make it coincide with the 10th Annual Bug Eating Festival.”
Similar to Part I of the 9th Annual Bug (Eating) Festival, Part II will have an Ento Raffle benefitting Little Herds Barnraiser campaign with insect cookbooks, edible insect t-shirts and tote bags, and baking ingredients like cricket flour and Delysia chocolate. The event is open to the public and entrance costs a suggested donation of $10 to Little Herds (kids are free!) – purchase tickets in advance online or at the door.
First time trying insects? Little Herds encourages people to check out their website for resources on how to eat insects safely.
Garden Volunteer Day 6/18
Interested in getting your hands dirty and learning how to garden? Join us for our Garden Volunteer day this Saturday, 6/18 from 9-11:30AM! Email Josh at joshua@in.gredients.com to sign up.
Urban Roots
About Urban Roots
Urban Roots is a nonprofit organization that use sustainable agriculture to transform the lives of young people in the community and increase access to healthy food in Austin.
Founded in 2007 as a program of YouthLaunch, they became an independent non-profit in the Fall of 2011. Urban Roots provides paid internships to youth (ages 14-17) to work on the farm. They set a goal of growing 30,000 pounds of produce, with 40% of that being donated to local soup kitchens and food pantries. The other 60% is sold at farmers’ markets (and at in.gredients!) and through their CSA.
Social handles
Quick Facts
Location: Austin, TX
Distance from in.gredients: 5.2 miles
Delivery to in.gredients: By truck, in reusable cardboard boxes.
Products
A variety of seasonal vegetables. What we have in stock is dependent on what’s in season.
Johnson’s Backyard Garden
About Johnson’s Backyard Garden
Johnson’s Backyard Garden is a family-run and community-supported farm, serving the Austin TX area. They started in East Austin in 2004, growing vegetables in their backyard. Their goal is to provide the Austin community with the best quality, locally grown, organic vegetables possible.
Social handles
Quick Facts
Location: Austin, TX
Distance from in.gredients: 6.9 miles
Delivery to in.gredients: By truck, in reusable cardboard boxes.
Products
A variety of seasonal vegetables. What we have in stock is dependent on what’s in season.
Eagle Mountain Cheese
About Eagle Mountain Cheese
An avid cheese-lover with an affinity for these specialty cheeses from Europe, Dave began his journey into the world of making raw milk artisan cheese in Texas. After all, since Texas is the ninth largest dairy state in the United States, why shouldn’t Texans be making fine artisan cheeses as found in Europe, and to some extent, as found in Vermont, California and Wisconsin?
After attending artisan cheese school in Vermont, Dave returned to Texas to refine the process of fine cheese-making and to teach the art of artisan cheese-making to his son, Matt.
Now, Dave Eagle, along with his son, Matt, offer you some of the finest hand-made cheeses found anywhere in the world.
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Quick Facts
Location: Granbury, TX
Distance from in.gredients: 166 miles
Delivery to in.gredients: Delivered by Antonelli’s Cheese Shop.
Products
Drunken Monk Cheddar: This trappist-style cheese is washed with local Balcones Distillery’s whiskey. It has a semi-soft texture and an acidic sharpness. The drunken monk will pair nicely with an IPA.
Green Gate Farms
We want to give a shout out to Green Gate Farms. They don’t just cultivate delicious foods, but they believe in involving the community in the process – something we really value. Skip Connett and Erin Flynn, who head Green Gate, provide farm tours, run the farm stand, host camps, and connect farmers with consumers through Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). You can even reserve their farm for your own special events. They once held an amazing Mad Hatter Tea Party.
The best part? It’s close by. Green Gate Farms is located in Austin’s historic greenbelt, on the east side of town (8310 Canoga Avenue). Visiting the farm would be a great trip with the kids, and you’ll come home with fresh produce to cook for dinner!
You can spend “Friday on the Farm” or this Saturday head over there to learn how to pickle okra with Farmer Mary.
(image via: Green Gate Farm)
Third Coast Coffee
About Third Coast Coffee
Coffee was one of the first global commodities, driving the engines of empire and shaping the destinies of entire continents. It remains one of the world’s most problematic articles of trade, with the ability to radically alter ecosystems, economies, and social structures. As the vital intermediaries in the coffee trade, connecting farmers in the coffee lands with consumers in the developed world, coffee importers and roasters bear an immense responsibility. Our work touches the lives of people all over the world, directly and indirectly, and every business decision we make has global consequences.
Different coffee companies confront these challenges in different ways–and some, of course, ignore them altogether. Third Coast’s business model rests on environmental sustainability, a commitment to social justice, and complete transparency. As any of you who’ve been to the shop well know, we like to talk people’s ears off about all three: why we buy organic and transitional coffee, what Fair Trade means to us, how we go about getting our coffee, etc. We figured it was high time we put all of that down in writing. So consider this our manifesto: What we do, how we do it, and why.
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Quick Facts
Location: Austin, TX (South Austin)
Distance from in.gredients: 7.6 miles
Delivery to in.gredients: 100% package-free | Trade-off system using re-usable air-tight containers
Products
PERU (WHOLE BEAN): Bright and sweet with sparkling acidity, medium body, very clean.
TRES COSTAS ESPRESSO (WHOLE BEAN): A bright, sweetly citrus espresso with a milk chocolate finish that goes for miles. Shines in milk.
MIXTLÁN (WHOLE BEAN): Semi-sweet chocolate notes round out this remarkably clean Mexican French roast.
Third Coast Coffee’s Route to in.gredients
Bona Dea
About Bona Dea
We are three women on a MISSION: To maximize the food options available for those with gluten intolerances whether dining out or baking in their home.
Our conscientious combination of gluten-free flours and whole grains paired with our meticulous production techniques allow Bona Dea to provide baking blends that are both delicious and healthy.
Each mix is carefully prepared using the national guidelines outlined by the Gluten Intolerance Group. We are serious about our products and want to ensure that they are produced using the safest practices possible. We take this one step further by educating our wholesale clients on safe baking practices when preparing baked goods for the gluten-intolerant community.
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Quick Facts
Location: Austin, TX (East Austin)
Distance from in.gredients: 2.2 miles
Delivery to in.gredients: 100% package-free | Re-usable container exchange system
Products
GF All-Purpose Flour: A versatile, sans-leavening mix to suite your basic kitchen needs. Can be prepared vegan or with dairy and eggs and is the perfect on-hand solution for cookies, muffins and quick breads.
Ingredients: Whole grain sorghum flour*, potato starch, tapioca starch, whole grain brown rice flour, sweet rice flour
*Certified Organic
GF Pancake and Waffle Mix: This breakfast mix companion is a must for whipping up a quick batch of pancakes or waffles. Can be prepared with dairy or any non-dairy substitute, yogurt or kefir. Add fruit, seeds, nuts or flax for a delicious healthful punch. Here’s a recipe you can try!
Ingredients: Whole grain millet flour*, brown rice flour, potato starch, evaporated can juice sugar, vanilla sugar*, baking powder, baking soda, xanthan gum.
*Certified Organic
GF Pizza Dough Flour: A great dough which can be made ahead par-baked and frozen or mixed to order. Creates a texture similar to whole wheat and can be prepared with eggs or vegan by using soaked ground flax seed. Here’s a recipe you can try!
Banyan Foods
About Banyan Foods
Banyan Foods is making a commitment to you, our local community. Like any solid commitment, that means we aren’t dating anyone else outside of Texas. So if provocative Idaho or peachy Georgia asks us out to see a movie, we’re going to say “Nah, we’re staying home. Texas and us have some big plans.”* Even glitzy New York called us a few times, but rest assured, we haven’t returned their calls.
We began as a family business in 1978 in Houston, making tofu and real soymilk, and we plan to remain that way for as long as possible. “Why?” you ask.
It’s very simple. Distribute products halfway across the country, and the meaning of “fresh” becomes meaningless. In spite of technology, nothing trucked from hundred of miles away is ever “fresh,” just like nothing made with a lot of junk is ever worthy of being called “natural.” None of our products ever contain added preservatives, artificial or “natural” flavorings**, or monosodium glutamate (MSG). From countless conversations with you during our demos, we know you don’t want unnecessary junk in your food and you want the freshest ingredients possible. We’ve always understood this.
Local foods offer tremendous variety and richness; whether or not that diversity will survive in the shadow of the mega-food-factories remains to be seen. Until then, our response to them will be “in our house, Momma Chiu is in the kitchen. Take a seat, or order out.”
Remember, you’re the only ones that keep us going. And we greatly ‘preciate it.
Social handles
Quick Facts
Location: Houston, TX
Distance from in.gredients: 158 miles
Delivery to in.gredients: Packaged (“Potentially hazardous food” – What’s that?)
Products
Organic Soy Milk: Real Soymilk© doesn’t have any carrageenan, xanthum gum, guar gum, cellulose gel, color, sea salt, corn and barley extracts, seaweed, brown rice starch, malted cereal extract, “natural” flavors (the biggest loophole in the food industry), sodium hexametaphosphate, potassium citrate, or dipotassium phosphate added to it… all the junk you’ve grown to grudgingly tolerate in your soymilk.
Why all the complex ingredients? I find it strange of all the effort to conceal the natural flavor of products that claim a soy heritage. The only “natural” flavor of soy… is, not surprisingly, just soy. But you wouldn’t drink coffee without the aroma in the beans, would you?
Lose the junk, keep the soy.
in.gredients 