Premium quality, plate-ready watercress, wild red watercress, pea tendrils, wild baby arugula, Bordeaux baby leaf spinach and a special blend of these leaves can spark menu offerings, excite consumers and increase check averages.
All of these Distinctive Baby Leaves™ come from B&W Gourmet Farms, Fellsmere, FL, the king of the category, because the five generations of this family company have kept their focus on quality for over 140 years. B&W is the country’s leading grower of watercress, and also grows and range of unique additional Distinctive Baby Leaf™ specialties, including wild baby arugula, Bordeaux baby leaf spinach, gourmet pea tendrils and their stunning wild red watercress. More Distinctive Baby Leaves™ are currently in the research stage, as B&W continues to expand its position as the world’s leader for the Distinctive Baby Leaves™ category.
B&W understands the foodservice market because it has forged links with chefs and the culinary community over the years, working to provide products, packaging and distribution to meet the demands of the industry. B&W’s Gourmet Specialty Blend #1 is just one example of the company’s response to chef input. (More on the blend below.)
As patrons continue to seek innovative, healthy menu items, B&W has developed its positioning for watercress as the Superleaf™, working with nutrition experts to explain and promote the many benefits of watercress and the other Distinctive Baby Leaves™. The company’s recent Gold sponsorship of the Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives conference, sponsored by the Harvard School of Public Health and the Culinary Institute of America, as well as sponsorship of the CIA’s Healthy Flavors conference, set forth its commitment to healthy eating. (For more about the company’s nutrition strategies please visit www.watercress.com/nutrition.)
Adding Flavor to the Menu
B&W is all about flavor. Each of its several Distinctive Baby Leaves™ sets the standard for bright and unique flavor, be it watercress, wild red watercress, wild baby arugula, pea tendrils or Bordeaux baby leaf spinach. As just a few examples: Watercress as a bed for grilled salmon, pea tendrils to give a signature touch to risotto, wild baby arugula to add color and spunk to pork or poultry entrees, Bordeaux baby leaf spinach atop grilled fish fillets, brand new wild red watercress to garnish steaks, or a combination of all these unique greens as a signature salad worthy of a premium menu price.
B&W’s watercress and wild red watercress, thanks to B&W’s special plants and how they are grown, harvested and packed, have the peppery bite that is expected but not delivered by all cress. The wild baby arugula had its origins in Southern Italy, where its pungent flavor is prized. B&W’s proprietary Bordeaux baby leaf spinach stands above other baby spinach for its sweet, mild flavor as well as the red color of the tender stalks. Pea tendrils are from a unique variety of spring pea plant, picked while still tender and crisp to bring the sweet delicacy of peas in a leafy form.
Consistent Supply
B&W fields span eight states, where the crops follow the sun, meaning that the leaves are always in season.
Quality and Safety
B&W’s very strict and focused quality assurance programs start with the seed and carry through to the plants, the soil, the water, the harvest, rinsing, cooling, drying and packing, with every step state of the art to create and capture the flavor and integrity of each leaf.
Independent audits are an essential part of B&W’s quality assurance programs for their world-wide customers, and B&W meets the highest standards for food safety, including HAACP programs, Global GAP and GMP processes, the stringent qualifications for the UK’s Marks and Spencer “Field to Fork” safety standards and Primus audits resulting in superior food safety ratings. B&W is also certified organic for both EU and USDA standards, two of the most comprehensive and stringent in the world.
Distribution
B&W’s Distinctive Baby Leaves™ are available through full-line and specialty food distributors, across the county and internationally. For information about distributors please visit www.watercress.com/foodservice .
Products
Each of the Distinctive Baby Leaves™ is harvested with state of the art equipment designed especially for B&W, to capture the leaves and maintain their quality. The leaves go into sterilized totes for a quick trip to the nearby packing facilities for gentle and thorough washing, cooling, air-drying and optical sorting to remove any leaves that don’t match the standard.
The plate-ready leaves go in bags and then into cardboard boxes and to coolers, and move out within a matter of hours. The bags are made of a special film that is a highly engineered respiration specific package for optimum controlled atmosphere, insuring food safety and optimum shelf life.
Watercress, the foundation crop of the family farms, is packed in convenient 1.5-pound film bags for foodservice, either one bag to a box, or 2 (1.5-pound bags) to a larger box. In addition to this very convenient pack, B&W also packs bunched watercress with stems, preferred by ethnic markets, in 12-ct and 24-ct bunch boxes and packed in ice. The 12-ct bunched cress, with stems trimmed, is equivalent to the 1.5-pound bag of leaves.
Wild Red Watercress, a B&W exclusive, comes in 1.5 pound bags.
Gourmet pea tendrils, also a B&W exclusive, come in special packaging to preserve freshness and flavor and reduce spoilage. The bags are 1.25 pounds and are shipped one bag to a box.
Bordeaux baby leaf spinach, like all the other leaves, is plate-ready and with no waste. The mild, sweet and small leaves come in 2-pound bags, with either one or two bags to a box.
Wild baby arugula comes in a 1.5-pound bag in one box, or 2 bags to a 3-pound box, ready to use.
Specialty blend #1 is a combination of watercress, wild baby arugula, pea tendrils and other seasonal specialties – ready to pour for a signature salad. The combo of greens comes in 1.5-pound bags.
B&W Gourmet Farms is the brand for B&W Quality Growers, Inc., a 140+ year young family-owned farming operation specializing in Distinctive Baby Leaves™ with seasonal farms in eight states and year-round processing facilities in Florida.
Chef Suggestions
Chefs across the country are discovering that topping a center of the plate item with a mini salad or generous garnish of one of the B&W's Distinctive Baby Leaves can elevate the plating, add to the excitement of the menu descriptors and command a higher price.
Peter Glander, Executive Chef at the Ruby Tuesdays HQ, in Tennessee, prepared a chilled soup of watercress and Greek yogurt with crisp red watercress garnish at the Market Basket session of the recent Produce First at the conference at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone.
Chef Joyce Goldstein presented several Mediterranean preparations at the recent Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives conference of the Harvard Medical School and CIA/Greystone: Spinach Borani – sautéed B&W spinach with basil, cilantro and thyme dressed with Greek yogurt spiced with cinnamon and turmeric; and Persian-Style Spinach – spinach wilted with onion and garlic and seasoned with chopped fresh mint, toasted walnuts and Greek yogurt.
Chef Mark Furstenberg, at the same conference, created a salad of B&W wild baby arugula, grapefruit sections, wheat berries, sliced fennel, celery, radish and avocado, and dressed it with an orange juice/champagne vinaigrette with minced tarragon.
Chef John Ash, again at the CIA Healthy Kitchen, Healthy Lives event prepared a grilled peach and fig salad, served on mixed arugula and watercress, topped with slices of salami and hard cheese and dressed with a rice vinegar, lemon and honey dressing.
Harold Dieterle, Top Chef season one winner, of Perilla, New York City serves Watercress and Crispy Calamari Tempura as a salad with mint and a chili lime vinaigrette.
Suzie Maitland of Trina’s Starlight Lounge in Boston uses the Gourmet Blend in her beet salad, and as the greens on an asparagus sandwich. She also tosses the pea tendrils with a little olive oil and then uses them to garnish the house special pea ravioli.
James Laird, Restaurant Serenade, New Jersey, tosses watercress with diced avocado, cara cara oranges, black and white sesame seeds and a light apple cider vinaigrette. Sometimes the watercress salad is a first course, other times served atop grilled Kona Kampachi or tuna.
Brian Poe, Poe’s Kitchen at the Rattlesnake Bar in Boston adds watercress to his Maraschino Cherry Smoked Pork Taco with Serrano, Basil and Ginger Puree and Candied Wild Boar Bacon.
Marilyn Schlossbach, owner of several restaurants in Asbury Park, NJ, sautés the wild baby arugula and red watercress to serve over Seared Char with Meyer Lemon Risotto Fondue.
Source: B&W Gourmet Farms
