Saturday February 26th, 2011

Join us Saturday at the Adrenalina Skate and Surf Store located in Gulfstream Park, Hallandale. Gabriel Gimenez will reveal his new masterpiece covering the walls of the store, adding a great touch of art to the best surf shop in South Florida. We have been treated to a glimpse of the piece, and it really is amazing. You don’t want to miss this!

Gabriel Gimenez, better known as “GG” is one of Miami’s most talented up and coming Artists. His work is based on a way of expression using characters, symbols and shapes, evolving into his many creations over the years. His inspirations spring from personal life experiences, feelings, emotions, goals and events that affect our environment in a negative or positive way.

Take a look at some of the artwork: www.ggartwork.com

“People like to buy it because of the can color and especially the leaf of marijuana,” said Hoque.

The leaf symbolizes hemp, a relative of marijuana, and the drink packs four percent of hemp seed extract.

“It [hemp] has potentially .3 percent of THC. Now to put that in perspective, your standard marijuana joint has somewhere between six and 20 percent THC, so if you took a mid range, say 12 percent, that would mean you would have to drink 40 cans of this 12 ounce Chillo to equal that,” explained Dr. Robert Anderson, an Emergency Room Physician at Lake Charles Memorial Hospital, based on research he conducted on hemp and its THC content.

Makers of other hemp products, like lotions and food, claim it has many health benefits like omega-3 fatty acids, but Dr. Anderson observed there is little research available on hemp.

“Unfortunately a lot of these things don’t get tested until there are some reported fatalities or major diseases that pop up. You don’t want your child to be the first one to have that,” said Dr. Anderson.

He also worries if there is a small amount of THC, it could be a red flag on a drug screen.

“They’re going to walk into a store get something over the counter and it tastes good […] they may drink 4 or 5 cans by noon and then get a random test at the plant and it could potentially pop up positive,” said Dr. Anderson.

Hoque recently started selling the drink two months ago and says they are selling very quickly.

LAKE CHARLES, LA (KPLC)

By Elizabeth Temple

Link: http://www.kplctv.com/Global/story.asp?S=13125137

Those are just a few of the thousands of food and food-related products that will be on display next week at the 14th Americas Food & Beverage Show in Miami Beach.

More than 370 exhibitors from 24 countries are expected at the food and beverage marketplace, which will be held Tuesday and Wednesday at the Miami Beach Convention Center. Sixty-plus are from Miami-Dade County; 26 others are from various locations around Florida.

Among the local companies that will be exhibiting are Marky’s Caviar, which imports, exports and distributes gourmet food, including farm-raised Osetra; Chill Drinks, maker of the hemp-based beverages; and EnviroCharcoal, which imports Charconut briquettes from Asia.

Exhibitors range from the very small Mediterranean Diet Online, which employs five locally, to Coosemans Miami, part of a worldwide network that imports everything from organic herbs to Turkish apricots.

About 7,200 buyers and visitors — from distributors and food and beverage managers at resorts and cruise lines to chefs and duty-free operators — are expected at the event. It’s the place to come to learn about the latest products and flavors from around the world, taste samples, check out packaging trends or do a bit of comparison shopping.

Although the event isn’t open to the public, the new products on display and traditional favorites will eventually make their way to store shelves and restaurant tables across the Americas.

The past few years have been tough ones for the food industry as consumers cut back on restaurant dining and purchases of gourmet food, and the same was true for the Americas Food & Beverage Show.

But this year, registration is up and exhibitors anticipate doing more business than last year, said Charlotte Gallogly, president of the World Trade Center Miami, which is organizing the event.

This year the USA Pavilion, with 107 exhibitors, will be the largest ever. A U.S. government initiative, it will focus on companies that are new to exporting or new to a particular market. More than 1,100 appointments with foreign buyers have been set up for Pavilion exhibitors.

“President [Barack] Obama has said he wants to double exports over the next five years. Well, you’re not going to do that with new-to-export companies,” Gallogly said. “You’ve got to do it with existing companies moving into new territories.

“We’re interested in helping these smaller players generate new sales,” Gallogly said. “You won’t see Coke on the exhibition floor by design.”

There will also be more than a dozen international pavilions from countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Jamaica, Peru and Thailand.

Since the show began, it has generated billions of dollars in sales and sales leads, Gallogly said. After last year’s show, exhibitors reported $103.6 million in sales or expected sales over the next 12 months. “I expect sales will be up about 10 percent for this year’s show,” she said.

For some local companies, the show is a way to introduce their products and get on the specialty food map.
Chill Drink, a start-up, will be showing its Chillo energy drink and C+Swiss, an all-natural hemp-infused ice tea. Chillo is now being distributed in about 400 South Florida stores, and the hemp tea is expected to reach the market in the next two to three months.

“We find trade shows a great way to get some start-up marketing going, especially among the big players in the industry,” said Ilan Behar, Chill marketing director.

While energy drinks are a very competitive segment of the beverage market, he said, Chillo — which has a slight hint of citrus but no medicinal aftertaste — has its own niche. “There are a couple of other hemp drinks out there, but they’re billed as relaxation drinks, rather than energy drinks,” Behar said.

This will be the third Americas Food & Beverage Show for Marky’s Caviar, a Miami Gardens company that has about 3,500 items in its product line, including cheeses, chocolates and truffles flown in from Europe; foie gras, smoked salmon, a wide selection of Spanish foods and, of course, caviar.

“The show is great for marketing,” said Moshe Cohen, the company’s sales director. Plus, he said, it’s a chance to stay in touch with Marky’s customers and distributors throughout the Caribbean and Latin America, where it has expanded in recent years.

Marky’s will have 180 to 200 products on display at its booth.

One of the most exciting for Cohen is the Osetra, a high-end caviar with a nutty flavor. “This is really an alternative to wild sturgeon — a breakthrough,” he said.

Farm-raised sturgeon are generally a “distant cousin” to the sturgeon that swim in the Caspian Sea, Cohen said. But Marky’s Osetra is harvested from fish that are descendants of sturgeon caught in the Caspian 18 years ago and then bred at a fish farm in Israel that uses river water fed by the snow melt from Mount Hermon.

Among other new products that Marky’s will have on display are jams and preserves from Bonne Maman, an old-line French company, in one-ounce mini-jars favored by hotels and cruise lines, and pyramid-shaped tea bags from Tea Forte, a company that promotes a contemporary take on the tea ceremony.

While Marky’s often visits clients around the region, “it’s not like you can bring 400 samples with you,” said Cohen, so the event is a good place to showcase products.

The show also will be about establishing bragging rights. There will be competitions in five categories to find the best coffee, confectionery, snack, sauce or condiment, and beverage. In partnership with the American Culinary Federation, 12 two-chef teams also will compete for honors and cash awards in the Americas Chef Competition.

The Miami Herald

By Mimi Whitefield

Link: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/22/1885726/about-7000-people-are-expected.html

Yet we embrace this plant. Heck, the United Nations deemed cannabis the most widely used illicit substance in the world. So it’s no wonder that Miami native Mark Levin, jumped on the bandwagon and launched Chillo earlier this year; it’s , one of two energy drinks on the market to contain hemp. The other, 420 Hemp Energy, is a California company that hits you over the head with a marketing campaign suggesting the product is great for those looking for a little pick me up while enjoying a “420 lifestyle”.

Chillo offers a more subtle approach by suggesting you remix your activity rather than adopting what the big name energy drink companies tell you to do. “We want our customers to take their everyday activities and do something unique”, says Ilan Behar, Marketing Director for Chill Drinks, “Be it riding the bus to work or sitting outside in the rain.” Not exactly what you associate with an energy drink campaign, but these guys are trying to carve a niche for themselves in a saturated energy drink market. Even their can, sleek, bright orange with a cannabis leave on the front is different, and even with no THC in the product it’s hard to deny the not so subliminal message.

Ilan gave us a few cans to try. The hemp is added to enhance the flavor and help prevent a crash. So at 4pm we popped it open and guzzled the orange sparkly liquid. We tasted a hint of the “nutty” hemp flavor but there is no mistaking that it’s an energy drink. The taurine, sugar and caffeine worked — but at 6 p.m. we crashed and had to resort to a cup of java for the drive home.

Miami New Times