ONTARIO, CA - I love making a fresh salad from scratch, combining unique ingredients or kitchen staples to fit that current mood I am in. And then there are other times when I want someone to take the flavor search off my plate and take it onto theirs. Enter FiveStar Gourmet Foods and its Deluxe Simply Fresh Salads®.

“We launched our new line up of Deluxe Simply Fresh Salads just weeks ago and retailers fell in love with them right away,” Tal Shoshan shares with me adding that the line just landed in Costco and Publix with more to come. “Demand has already been amazing. Our buyers really took to the idea of offering consumers a more premium single-serve salad offering that had ingredients that were restaurant inspired.”

Customers of FiveStar know about the company’s keen attention to detail, demand for excellence, and the incredible taste of its signature dressings the team makes in-house. But it really has been the consumer responses that have delighted FiveStar most.

“We engage with consumers on all our social media channels and they just love the Simply Fresh Salad brand and have become accustomed to our high standards. On top of that, we just entered into a formal partnership with Church Brothers Farms who has exceptional growing operations that allow us to provide a vertically integrated program from the more than 40,000 conventional and organic crop acres.”

The line offers a host of flavor combinations:

• Chicken Cobb With a Zesty Avocado Ranch Dressing
• Greek Inspired Chicken Caesar With Lemon Caesar Dressing
• Chicken Caesar Loaded With Double Chicken and Creamy Caesar Dressing
• Santa Fe Style With Chicken, Roasted Corn, Black Beans, and Sun-Dried Tomato Chipotle Dressing
• Chopped Wedge With Grilled Chicken, Natural Bacon, and Creamy Ranch Dressing
• Gourmet Caprese With Fresh Mozzarella Cheese and Ripe Sweet Tomatoes With Our Signature Balsamic Vinaigrette

“Our consumer research indicates that consumers buy packaged salads for the convenience, flavors, and proteins. Our Deluxe Simply Fresh Salads exceeds these needs on all three points. It is our first release that features great familiar flavors with a twist,” Tal tells me.

Current supplies for the new line are shipping from Salinas, California, and when the season changes, the harvest will move to Yuma, Arizona.

Each salad is 8 to 10 oz for each entrée-sized salad. FiveStar partners with leading suppliers to bring “green” packaging into the marketplace. The team also designs and patents each and every packaging it uses in its product lines.

The salad line showcases a unique square bowl with a patented diagonal condiments insert. The design allows for the toppings to be featured front and center and for the consumer to see the amazing quality. Aside from amazing flavors and presentation, the salads utilize FiveStars’ patented Fresh Sealed technology which offers the longest shelf life in the industry without compromising on quality and food safety.

“What sets us apart is our extreme innovation and our desire to bring restaurant-quality salads to retail. We continue to be a pioneer within the single-serve salad category and this latest product line is a perfect example,” Tal reflects. “The ‘Deluxe’ line of Simply Fresh Salads are more premium with restaurant-quality ingredients with an average 25 percent more condiment toppings than most other pre-packaged retail salads.”

Time to update my shopping list before the next grocery shopping trip! FiveStar? Check!

FiveStar Gourmet