together with
13 - 16 February 2024 // Nürnberg, Germany
BIOFACH Newsroom
Taste & Stories – A marketplace for artisanal production
Young innovative companies pavilion
The Berlin-based online platform TASTE & STORIES is all about “food with passion”. “In times of industrialised organic production, we want to draw attention to the fact that authentic culinary pleasure is only possible through artisanal skill and a devotion to detail,” explains TASTE & STORIES owner Tobias Stetter.
The organic gourmet professional specialises in slow food products with a focus on the distinctive features of artisanal organic production using ancient varieties and breeds. “Our goal is to present better taste in a modern form,” says Stetter. And he uses the platform to tell the stories behind the special products. Why is slow food Parmesan made with white Modena cow umami? Why is the designation “Extra Virgin” not a quality criterion for olive oil?
“We are not an ordinary online gourmet store. We only buy products that we have looked into very closely,” says Stetter. By buying directly from the manufacturers, he minimises the supply chain and costs while establishing a direct connection to the people behind the production.
The company purchases cherry tomatoes in Sicily, where it then has them made into a tomato sauce (known as sugo in Italy). So that people understand that tomatoes taste much better when they are cooked for a long time, the gourmet newcomer will be telling the story behind the new tomato sauce at BIOFACH 2018. The sauce is cooked for up to five hours in a vacuum-pan evaporator at a temperature of 65 to 80 degrees. “This process causes the umami constituents of the tomatoes to be released,” says Stetter, explaining the special product concept. Whereas the four tastes sweet, sour, salty and bitter were already known in antiquity, umami was long undiscovered. It was not until the start of the 20th century that Kikunae Ikeda from Japan discovered the fifth taste and called it umami, which means “delicious” in Japanese. The tomato sauce can be used in many different ways. As well as its traditional inclusion in pasta sauces and soups, Stetter also developed special cocktail recipes that use it.
TASTE & STORIES (www.tasteandstories.com) is one of exhibitors at the pavilion for young innovative companies, which receives funding from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWI) and is designed for newcomers and start-ups from Germany. At BIOFACH, the world's leading fair for organic food (www.biofach.de),
from 14 -17 February 2018, a total of 20 companies will take part in this pavilion located in Hall 9.