Finalist Products Named in SIAL D'Or Competition 2010-05-13

MARK HAMSTRA

PARIS — An international jury of trade journalists from around the world this week selected nine of the most innovative and successful new-product introductions of 2009 from a field of more than 250 products.

The nine products — one in each of nine different categories — are the finalists in the SIAL d'Or grand prize competition, to be presented at the SIAL trade show in Paris on Oct. 17. The finalists this year are:

• Sedlcansky Troubelin, a bake-at-home cheese from the Czech Republic that includes a spice packet for creating a crust and bake-and-serve, heat-resistant paper plates (chilled dairy category).

• Tuna-based hamburgers and sausages from Spain, under the Calvo brand, targeted to children and fish-eating vegetarians (chilled non-dairy category).

• Isio ActiStérol, a salad dressing from France that is guaranteed to reduce cholesterol; sold in boxes of seven, 20-milligram packets and produced by the Lesieur company (savory grocery category).

• Honibe Honey Drops, solid pieces of pure honey from Canada — the moisture of the honey has been extracted, but without additives or preservatives; produced by Island Abbey Foods (sweet grocery category).

• O2 sparkling wine from Argentina, produced by Bodegas Chandon; it is a sweet drink targeted to women, but contains no sugar (wine category).

• Tillman's Toasty frozen, breaded chicken patties made to fit in the toaster; from Germany (savory frozen category).

• Bits O' Juice frozen lemon segments from South Africa; the individual cells of lemons that are cryogenically frozen and then shattered while still in the membrane; produced by Dynamic Commodities PTY (sweet frozen category).

• Martini soda from Italy; this 8% alcohol aperitif from Gruppo Bacardi-Martini combines Martini Blanco with soda (alcoholic beverage category).

• Green-Up, an all-natural energy drink from Poland positioned as being more healthy than other energy drinks; produced by Herbapol (non-alcoholic beverage category).

No products from the U.S. were selected as finalists for the SIAL d'Or grand prize this year. The U.S. product that received the most votes was Smartfood Popcorn Clusters from Frito-Lay, which receives the "Country SIAL d'Or" for most innovative and successful U.S. product but does not compete for the grand prize because the Honibe product from Canada received more votes in the the sweet grocery category.

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