As you probably know, Green Giant® Fresh is a big supporter of the Box Tops for Education® program that has helped kids and parents raise more than $400 million for their schools since 1996. In fact, we’ve got Box Tops coupons on a whole bushel of our products so that you can help turn everyday activities into real money for cash-strapped schools.
So if your school’s Box Top crew is looking for some tried-and-true tips from the real experts on how to raise cash for your child’s school, the obvious go-to source for such information is the Box Tops for Education website and blog. There you’ll find a wealth of information provided by active members of the Box Tops team as well as moms and others who readily offer their own experience and insights.
In addition to a section called “Success Stories,” the Box Tops blog offers access to flyers and handouts, videos and webinars, images and logos, news and articles, and most important, tips on how to successfully rake in thousands of Box Tops for your school.
Here are just some of the tips we’ve garnered from the site:
Goal setting: By involving teachers and administrators, you can discover what the biggest need is, and then set your sites on accomplishing that goal before moving on to the next. Support comes more readily when your school community can actually visualize a tangible item to work toward.
Updates — always updates: Make sure the school family is well aware of Read the rest of this entry…
Be honest. You saw the headline above and said this recipe’s got failure written all over it because my kids hate Brussels Sprouts. No big surprise there. At the risk of sounding like Captain Obvious, a dim view of sprouts is pretty much a universal consensus among all those picky diners in the pre-grownup stage.
Maybe it’s because sprouts look like tiny little cabbages — and what self-respecting kid can trust tiny cabbages on a dinner plate?
Granted, if you’re a grownup or you’re young but possess mature taste buds, boiling (7 to 10 minutes), steaming (about 5 minutes) or microwaving (5 to 8 minutes) a batch of Brussels sprouts and then coating them with in butter & garlic is pretty much as good as it gets with these vegetables. Simple and delicious.
But for most youngsters, this is where the gag reflex kicks in. Again, we’re not here to judge, we’re here to offer you an alternative. Like maybe baking those little cabbages instead of cooking them in water. Everybody likes baked veggies, including kids!
How can you dislike something that’s cooked on a baking sheet? Cookies are prepared on baking sheets, for goodness sakes! So here’s our take on an alternative to drowning your sprouts. We won’t guarantee all kids will love it. But we’re betting you will.
So, on to our recipe of the day — Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Creamy Parmesan Basil Dip. Your prep time is going to Read the rest of this entry…
Brain Stepien
Below is another in our long-running series of Meet the Team blog posts that gives us the opportunity to introduce you to the staff and team members at Green Giant® Fresh, as well as those who work with us in a variety of produce-related positions. Today we’re featuring Brian Stepien, who’s been with us more than two years as vice president of technical services.
Green Giant® Fresh: Who are you and what do you do here at Green Giant Fresh?
Brian Stepien: I cover a pretty broad range of responsibilities for the Green Giant Fresh program, which includes product safety, quality, research and development, and sustainability. Essentially, my team insures that all of our products — in all parts of the world — are produced safely and according to our stringent standards, and are also produced in a manner that is environmentally responsible. We’ve got a great team and I’m really excited about the things we’re doing.
GGF: What was your major in college and how did that prepare you for the job you have now?
BS: I studied food science in college, and in grad school as well. Quite a bit of what I studied in college directly applies to Read the rest of this entry…
Two-Cheese & Rosemary Mashed Potato Casserole
If any vegetable has received a bad rap over the past decade or so, it’s the potato. In rapid fashion, the humble spud has been vilified as a high-carb, starchy side dish that should be banned from the plates of health seekers everywhere.
But here’s the thing, all these charges against the potato can be explained away in three words: guilty by association. It’s not the potato that’s the nutritional villain here; it’s the potato’s associates, the toppings! We’re talking about gobs of butter, ladles-full of gravy and a fistful of bacon bits. And, frying them up isn’t exactly in your heart’s best interest.
But take away or limit many of those unhealthy accouterments and what you end up with is a vegetable with an impressive nutritional content that includes 3-5 grams of fiber, tons of potassium and a boatload of Vitamin C, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP).
This doesn’t mean you have to eat your potato plain! There are recipes that take into consideration your pleasure in eating and your interest in nutrition.
One such recipe is our Two-Cheese & Rosemary Mashed Potato Casserole, a dish that’s perfect for the upcoming holidays. Better yet, you can make this dish ahead of time by covering the unbaked mashed potato mixture tightly with foil and then refrigerate for up to 24 hours. Just uncover it and bake for 40 to 50 minutes when you’re ready.
Each serving contains only 185 calories; 20 mg of cholesterol; 230 mg of sodium; 22 carbohydrates (minus 2 because of dietary fiber); and 9 grams of total fat.
Here’s what you’ll need to get started: Read the rest of this entry…
As the days get shorter and the weather forces you indoors for long stretches of dormant time, a regular dose of winter squash packs a healthy boost of blues-quelling B-complex vitamins.
Green Giant Fresh Winter Squash
The most common varieties of winter squash include: Butternut squash, Acorn squash, Hubbard squash, Turban squash, and the sweet Japanese Kabocha squash varietal.
Right now is the optimum time to buy winter squash, because the thick skin allows for longer shelf life in the winter months when other fresh vegetables might be harder to come by. You can store unmarred winter squash for up to six months in temperatures between 45 and 60 degree Fahrenheit.
You should make sure to select less shiny members of the winter squash brigade because a more matte fruit tends to be sweetest. Shiny skin is a sign your squash was probably uprooted just a tad early for maximum deliciousness. Choose unbruised, unmarred squash with at least an Read the rest of this entry…
We juggled a lot of activities at last week’s PMA Fresh Summit in Atlanta, Ga. Green Giant® Fresh introduced new products, launched a mobile marketing campaign, hosted a raffle to promote Box Tops for Education®, launched an online store locator, and one of own leaders even participated in presenting awards. If you’re not familiar with it, Fresh Summit is an annual event of the Produce Marketing Association (PMA), featuring more than 18,000 participants from the global fresh produce supply chain.
In addition to Green Giant Fresh, the four-day event attracts retail grocers, wholesalers, terminal markets, food distributors, growers, packers, shippers, packaging companies, and others including industry vendors and service providers and members of the media.
For those of us at Green Giant Fresh, a highlight of this year’s summit was the announcement that raisins will now be marketed under the Green Giant Fresh label as the result of a deal between Sun Dried Marketing and our own Growers Marketing, which owns the licensing rights to our brand. In the works for the past two years, the agreement means we can further our focus on healthy snack food for you and your family.
Green Giant Fresh Raisins will be sold in miniboxes, a six-ounce pack of small boxes, bulk packs in a 12-ounce zip bag, a 15-ounce box and a 24-ounce canister. And, like many other Green Giant Fresh products, each package of raisins will Read the rest of this entry…
Believe us when we say we’ll go to any lengths to make it easier for you to buy Green Giant® Fresh produce. And now you can find our latest effort in that endeavor on our web site — GreenGiantFresh.com — where we’ve gone ahead and created an online store locator.
Just click on the box that reads Store Locator and then type in your zip code to find a local grocer who sells Green Giant Fresh produce. You can select from locations within five, 25 or 50 miles from you, and it’s all available via our website
The locator also tells you whether the store is carrying Green Giant Fresh produce with the Box Tops For Education™ promotion.
Give it a try and let us know what you think. To get started, visit http://locator.greengiantfresh.com or click on the image below:
To get the best and most accurate information about anything, it’s always best to go directly to the source. And when it comes to gathering information about your fruit and vegetable purchases, that “source” has always been your grocery store’s produce manager. That store employee has always been the point man (or woman) when it comes to questions about nutrition, recipes, freshness and origins of your produce. In the changing landscape of produce departments and store formats, these experts aren’t always available and may not have all the information a consumer is looking for.
When it comes to getting good information about the food you’re purchasing for your family, another valuable source is the actual supplier of that produce. In other words… the grower. In an age where people want to know more about their food at point of sale and in their kitchen, technology is allowing consumers access to the producers of their food more directly.
Here at Green Giant® Fresh, we’re working hand in hand with TRUETRAC, a software company with its roots in agriculture, to bring you at-your-fingertips information about the produce you’re purchasing from us. TRUETRAC has developed a web-based system to trace produce from the fields to the market, as well as ensure food safety and sustainability. In particular, we’re working together on something called item-level traceability, which allows us to help you trace your food at the item level.
Green Giant Fresh has always had industry-leading quality control processes that are applied across our organization to ensure the fruits and vegetables that we grow and sell are fresh, wholesome, nourishing and safe to eat. These processes — growing, harvesting and shipping — are complex issues, which makes Green Giant Fresh the perfect candidate for the development of a traceability system.
Our recent decision to deliver our first commercialized consumer mobile marketing product – using TRUETRAC’s ItemTrac software – further signals our commitment to Read the rest of this entry…
Ah, the artichoke. Such an interesting-looking vegetable, one that dates back to Ethiopia and is recognized as one of the oldest-known cultivated foods. It was considered to be a reliable digestive aid by ancient Greeks and Romans, but due to its scarcity, was only available to royalty with big bucks in those Mediterranean countries.
Artichoke Mushroom Pasta Toss
This silvery green globe was brought here to the U.S. by French and Spanish explorers and, today, 75 percent of our chokes are grown in California’s Monterey County. In fact, the town of Castroville bills itself as the artichoke center of the world. (Here’s a fun fact: Guess who was crowned queen of the 1948 Castroville Artichoke Festival? Would you believe it was Marilyn Monroe?)
Those wealthy Greeks and Romans knew what they were talking about when they said artichokes are good for the digestion. Modern-day testing in the United States has shown that artichoke leaf extract has potential value in relieving symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome. In addition, the vegetable is an excellent source for fiber, magnesium and mineral chromium. They’re also a good place to find Vitamin C, folic acid, biotin, as well as niacin, riboflavin, thiamin, Vitamin A and potassium. Talk about a nutritional powerhouse!
But a real health benefit that’s drawn a lot of attention these days is the artichoke’s capability to Read the rest of this entry…
(The Lime Truck's Jesse Brockman, left; Daniel Shemtob, right)
Here at Green Giant® Fresh, we’ve always contended that those who partake of our fresh fruits and vegetables are the real winners in life, and for readers of our blog, that statement is like preaching to the choir.
But now we’ve got proof positive that our produce is not only good for you, but can lead you to first-place honors on the winner’s podium, not to mention accolades from local food critics and the admiration of millions of viewers of The Great Food Truck Race.
If you’re a fan of this reality cooking show that is currently airing on the Food Network Channel, you already know that the competition is down to the final two teams who, when last seen, were en route to Miami Beach for the finale of this cross-country food frenzy.
This season began with eight specialty food trucks competing against each other for six weeks in different cities, starting in Malibu, Calif. The winner each week is the truck with the highest food sales total in that municipality. The truck with the least sales is eliminated, and must return home, while the remaining trucks advance to the next city.
Two weeks ago, The Lime Truck team out of Irvine, Calif., was loading up on provisions when we caught a glimpse on the TV screen of two team members handling a load of supplies that included a box of Green Giant Fresh Asparagus. Imagine our excitement! Now imagine our joy when the Lime Truck boys went on to win immunity for their offering that included a Read the rest of this entry…
