Industry | Specialty Food |
---|---|
Founder | Tom Knibbs and Jim Dygas |
Headquarters | Chicago, IL , USA |
Area served | Throughout USA |
Key people | Tom Knibbs - President & Mixmaster; Jim Dygas - Chief Creative and Flavorista |
Products | spice blends, grilling rubs, seasoned sea salts, creative pancake mixes |
Owner | Tom Knibbs and Jim Dygas |
Website | www |
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(June 2010) |
Urban Accents is a specialty food company based in Chicago, Illinois that manufactures and distributes spice blends, grilling rubs, sea salts and a full collection of products designed for use in gourmet cooking. The company's products are sold in major retail chains such as Target, Macy's, Sur La Table, Neiman Marcus and Cost Plus and local gourmet stores across North America.
Tom Knibbs and Jim Dygas started Urban Accents in 1996, and the company has experienced double digit growth annually. [1] In the first years of the company's existence, Urban Accents focused solely on developing spice blends. Now, they manufacture over 100 different items today and are still best known for some of their first spice blends. In the spring of 2008, the business acquired a new 40,000-square-foot (3,700 m2) warehouse and office space in the Ravenswood neighborhood in Chicago.
The company began with 24 spice basics and blends, the majority of which are still sold today. Now, the company manufactures 42 different spice blends and divides them among five flavor families: American Adventures, Pan Asian, Old World Classics, Latin Heat and Global Exotics. They also use these flavor families to categorize other products.
In early 2007, the company released a new type of seasoning called Dryglaze, which combines savory spices and natural sweetening agents like honey, molasses and vanilla sugar to form a glaze on baked or grilled meat dishes. This new creation received attention at the July Fancy Food Show in New York. The Philadelphia Inquirer mentioned two types of these Dryglazes in its review of the show. [2] The following year, the company was voted into the Top 10 Summer Grilling Essentials by the Chicago Tribune's free daily newspaper, Red Eye. The company was also featured in the April issue of Fancy Food Magazine for their Athenian Herb Dryglaze. [3]
The company sells seven types of Dryglazes: Athenian Herb, Santa Fe BBQ, Bombay Blitz, Cayman Citrus, Puebla Mole Mole (sauce), Vermont Grill and Pan Asian Zing.
Knibbs and Dygas have expanded the focus of Urban Accents to include a collection of drink mixes and lemonade mixes. The company sells six cocktail mixes: Spicy Bloody Mary, Minty-Lime Mojito, Mixed Fruit Sangria, Key Lime Margarita, Triple Berry Cosmo and Creme Brule Chocotini. Their lemonade mixes include traditional fruit flavorings and unexpected flavor pairings: Black Cherry, Tropical Key Lime, Strawberry, Tangerine, Raspberry, Jalapeño, Cucumber, Ginger, Lavender and Spiced.
In recent years, the company has focused on developing products for the holidays. The majority of their holiday products are designed for Thanksgiving and Christmas. There are four instant powdered drink mixes for spiced cocoa, hot buttered rum, mulling spice and eggnog. The company also makes meat rubs for turkey, ham and lamb, and its turkey brine received favorable reviews from The Washington Post's commuter newspaper, Express.
In 2008, the company introduced a line of side dish seasonings for Thanksgiving that includes spice blends for gravy, cranberry dishes, yams and stuffing. Also included in its new items for the holiday season are two chocolate martini mixes.
The company's packaging and design received recognition in Package Design Magazine in 2008. [4] It was a finalist for Product Line of the Year in 1996 by the National Association of Special Food Trade.
They are well known in the specialty food world for product design innovation.
Seasoning is the process of supplementing food via herbs, spices, and/or salts, intended to enhance a particular flavour.
Spice mixes are blended spices or herbs. When a certain combination of herbs or spices is called for in a recipe, it is convenient to blend these ingredients beforehand. Blends such as chili powder, curry powder, herbes de Provence, garlic salt, and other seasoned salts are traditionally sold pre-made by grocers, and sometimes baking blends such as pumpkin pie spice are also available. These spice mixes are also easily made by the home cook for later use.
McCormick & Company, Incorporated is an American food company that manufactures, markets, and distributes spices, seasoning mixes, condiments, and other flavoring products to retail outlets, food manufacturers, and foodservice businesses.
Adobo or adobar is the immersion of food in a stock composed variously of paprika, oregano, salt, garlic, and vinegar to preserve and enhance its flavor. The Portuguese variant is known as carne de vinha d'alhos. The practice, native to Iberia, was widely adopted in Latin America, as well as Spanish and Portuguese colonies in Africa and Asia.
Crystal Light is an American brand of powdered and artificially sweetened beverage mixes produced by Kraft Heinz. It was introduced in 1982 to a test market and released to the public in April 1984. General Foods, a now defunct company, were the original sellers of the product, but now it is sold by Kraft Foods. It is available in a wide variety of flavors, such as lemonade, sweet tea, and fruit punch.
Lawry's and Adolph's are food, seasoning, and beverage brands owned by McCormick & Company, and formerly owned by Unilever and Lawry's. Products include marinades, spice blends, breadings, Spatini sauce, and other seasoning mixes.
Shichi-mi tōgarashi, also known as nana-iro tōgarashi or simply shichimi, is a common Japanese spice mixture containing seven ingredients. Tōgarashi is the Japanese name for Capsicum annuum peppers, and it is this ingredient that makes shichimi spicy.
Old Bay Seasoning is a blend of herbs and spices that is marketed in the United States by McCormick & Company and originally created in Baltimore, Maryland.
Onion powder is dehydrated, ground onion used as a seasoning. It is a common ingredient in seasoned salt and spice mixes, such as beau monde seasoning. Some varieties are prepared using toasted onion. White, yellow, and red onions may be used. Onion powder is a commercially prepared food product that has several culinary uses. Onion powder can also be homemade.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the preparation of food:
Tajín Clásico, often referred to as simply Tajín, is a Mexican spice mix consisting predominantly of lime, chili peppers and salt. It is used in a variety of preparations.
Instant soup is a type of soup designed for fast and simple preparation. Some are homemade, and some are mass-produced on an industrial scale and treated in various ways to preserve them. A wide variety of types, styles and flavors of instant soups exist. Commercial instant soups are usually dried or dehydrated, canned, or treated by freezing.
Mrs. Dash is an American brand of salt-free seasoning that was introduced in 1983 and was marketed by B&G Foods. The best known varieties of Mrs. Dash are granulated mixtures of dried herbs and spices which are sold in small plastic shaker bottles holding 2.5 oz of product, 1.25 oz packets, for seasoning a 'family-size' meal, and .02 oz single-serving packets for consumers and institutional use, e.g. for patients on sodium-restricted diets.
Pumpkin pie spice, also known as pumpkin spice, is an American spice mix, originally developed for flavoring the filling of a pumpkin pie. It does not include pumpkin as an ingredient.
Coca-Cola Freestyle is a touch screen soda fountain introduced by The Coca-Cola Company in 2009. The machine features 165 different Coca-Cola drink products, as well as custom flavors. The machine allows users to select from mixtures of flavors of Coca-Cola branded products which are then individually dispensed. The machines are currently located in major Coca-Cola partners and retail locations as a part of a gradual and ongoing deployment.
Fire & Flavor is a privately held cooking products company located in Athens, Georgia. It specializes in all-natural cooking products and was founded by husband-and-wife team Davis and Gena Knox in 2003. Fire & Flavor is known for helping to popularize the plank grilling technique and for producing all natural cooking products such as grilling charcoal, brines, dry rubs and seasonings.
Popcorn seasoning is any ingredient used to add flavor to popcorn. In the United States, popcorn seasoning is mass-produced by several companies for commercial and consumer use. Popcorn seasonings may be used to enhance the flavor of popcorn, and some are used to add a buttery flavor to popcorn. Significant amounts are often used to ensure the adequate flavoring of popcorn, due to popcorn's low density. It is also sometimes utilized to add coloring to popcorn. Some popcorn seasoning may contain monosodium glutamate. Some specialty products exist in unique flavors, such as chocolate and bubble gum. Some popcorn seasoning products may be referred to as popcorn salt.
Tom Knibbs and Jim Dygas experimented with flavor pairings, blending spices from every region of the world to create interesting blends, with interesting names to share with their friends.
There were slightly less authentic, but equally tasty, homages to other ethnic flavors, like the gingery Korean marinade from Wild Thymes (great for beef ribs or pork), or the inventive "dry glaze" rubs from Urban Accents in Chicago, which add an extra sweetness to cocoa mole and Bombay curry that lends the cling of a caramelizing crust. All-American Niman Ranch went international with its lemongrass-spiked Thai-spiced sausage.
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: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)Such were the realities faced by seasonings purveyor Urban Accents and its design firm, Creative Commune, in repackaging the Dryglaze™ line of granulated flavorings for grilling and baking. Nevertheless, the strategy that the Chicago partners chose for redesigning the existing container was radical: leave nothing unchanged except the product inside.