Did you know that salt has got various properties and colours?
Apart from white crystal, it can be light brown like the one created from soil rocks or it can be pink from Himalya area.
As you can understand thinking about different salts, you can recall various version of salt, well known in the world, but in this post we will talk about 2 salts relatively unknown:
- Messolonghi salt,
- Senegalese salt

Messolonghi salt is collected from lakesea area in Western Greece. It has got high levels of magnesium (Mg) which is good mineral for regulating the levels of glucose in blood along with at least 10 beneficial minerals such as zinc (Zn). This salt is not processed other than washing and potassium iodine is not added. It is probably the best salt in the world as the gains from consuming are unique.

Himalyan salt is not the only salt which is pink. Senegal produces pink salt too from one of the saltiest lakes in the world.
Next time, you see pink salt in a dispenser or mill, think the salt may be coming not from Himalayan but Senegal.
Interesting is the video below how salt is harvested from the lake in Senegal.

You have decided to make a food product? The process goes like this

• Source the correct and the most delicious ingredients,
• Mix them (or cook, bake, or even fry them) and
• Place the propared concoction in the correct container and packaging, and
  
• Start selling
  

For a small food company start up, it is difficult to survive and increase the visibility of their product and therefore increasing some sales, unless their product is recognised as unique as one which deserves attention of the experts, the public or the foodies.

One way to make more sales through the product visibility increase is to win fine foods competition awards.
And that means the companies have to get registered into these competitions. The more the participation, the better! Through these competitions,  owners/producers evaluate where they stand with regards to flavour, aromas and texture. Competitors products exist in several thousands. 

Great Taste Awards have established themselves one of the best in Europe and possibly in the world.

We encourage every supplier/producer/farmer that they produce their own food product to take part in this competition every year. Awards need some hard work to be done on the product and winning one means makes you proud and creates a motivation momentum
Below, you will see a video with some instructions from Guild of Fine Food.    

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We have met many customers in London and around the country, searching online and in reality for the ideal or best delicatessen shop. We are talking about the shop which has got everything, from exceptional service and best coffee up to widest selection of fine products.
That ''everything'' which still remains mostly a subjective matter and less a subjective one. Therefore one will have a different opinion to second one for the same delicatessen shop.
We are not the experts or judges for such thing and we are not planning to do so in the future either. But what we would like to share is a few things and our little experience defining such ''title'':
The best or top deli shop around the country.

It is difficult task to unearth the top shop. There are so many factors, just to name a few:
- location, 
- variety of the products,
- Range of fine foods, 
- service level and its quality, 
- the type and variety of sandwiches and food offered, cold or hot.

We are sure the relevant annual awards have strict criteria for selecting the best amongst several scores of applicants. Still we recognise something else is critical too: ''soft'' factors, not easily revealed by visiting the deli or the fine grocery. These factors are often masked by the award. 
We have experienced these soft factors and that's what we wanted to share before you discover your best deli.

It is the passion of the owners for managing and developing a progressive business, 
it is their passion for introducing new foods, flavours and aromas: to learn more about the texture, the origin and the combination of food elements or to learn more about the coffee beans and coffee drinks served. Passion to manage better and teach more about food and management to their employees.
In several occasions, we have seen this passion reaching its highest point converting owners into experts in specific food categories.
We applaud such curiosity and thirst for knowledge which earns ''awards'' for the customer's benefit. Owners have taken the responsibility and risk to experiment with new flavours and stock some of the multi-awarded exceptional foods and finest ingredients. We have seen these shops in London but also in some less populated areas, away from big cities.
Those owners remind us of bees collecting the nectar from the best flowers, Well done to All of You!      

There is a very large number of producers around the world claiming their product is premium, of superior taste and packaging. And the extra virgin olive oil is not an exception.

As product the extra virgin olive oil has a superior taste, and from countries such as Greece could be characterised as a superb one. Acidity of no more than 0.8% is not anymore the only criterion for the characterisation of an extra virgin olive oil as premium.
Therefore, one might wonder what elements or technical features are making an extra virgin olive oil a finest product then? It is the features coming from the product flavour profile.

There are 3 major characteristics:
1. Fruity
2. Pungent
3. Bitter

The flavour profile is the main structure and the robust foundation for having a superior or premium extra virgin olive oil. While the chemical analysis remains as one the pillars, the tasting of the product by an accredited panel will put the final signature. Excellent and premium packaging completes the picture of the finest product following always the tasting and the analysis.
Whoever is your supplier, ask them to do a taste panel with you explaining some features to understand the extra virgin olive oil (evoo) flavour profile. All these three characteristics should be balanced well, and remember slight bitterness is not a defect on the contrary it indicates high content of antioxidants which is a benefit.
There are several competitions of olive oil products around the world, and the awards can not be given so easily to extra virgin olive oils that they do not meet the strict criteria. Such competitions can be used an indication or supporting hand to select the finest of all.
In these competitions, world experts/taste panellists ''tear apart'' the profile of an extra virgin olive oil and identify which one deserves a gold award.

If you would like to familiarise yourself with extra virgin olive flavours, it is wise to start a tasting session by yourself simply by smelling and tasting the several products and write down the intensiveness of each product characteristic.

Searching for the definition of premium foods, those finest and most eclectic foods, we found that apart from an exceptional and appealing packaging, consumers believe that their value should be defined by the top quality ingredients and subsequently superior taste. 
But a more ''scientific'' thorough look through the web and books, we sourced* that fine and specialty foods have the following characteristics:
- "Quality, innovation and style,
- Authenticity and originality,
- A commitment to specific processing rules or traditions, superior ingredients, limited supply or extraordinary packaging".

Since FOS-Squared set-up, we have made sure that the above definition is materialised, constantly taking into account that nature is something unique and should be protected and cared.
Thus we select organic finest and eclectic foods, ones of limited production, with uniqueness in texture, appearance and packaging. Some of them are hard work derived from family owned businesses.
Such selection of fine foods does not lack awards. On the contrary, some of these products have won multiple taste and design/packaging awards.
Now we have been looking for foods with even more unique combination of ingredients along with exceptional packaging, not previously found in the market.
Idea: What about some figs mixed with some eclectic ingredients, perfect accompaniment for Cheddar or Roquefort?   
If you are producer of such unique foods, please, feel free to contact us. Our products are now found in the best delicatessen shops in London and surrounding counties. We might be able to add your product into product list. 
Or if you would like to know more and stock organic, eclectic and fine foods, why don't you have a look on the Products Page? Or send us a message through ''Contact us'' form with your contact details and we will answer as soon as possible. 

* Source: Good Food Great Business

How to source the best high end / premium foods?
We see opportunities everywhere and we constantly try to find new flavours, unique to the UK market and have not been sold by anyone in the market, while at the same time we select producers or suppliers whose extensive hard ''work'' in cultivation and production has given them a lot of ''fruits'' awards in various international competitions but more importantly in Great Taste Awards. 
We meet and talk to the producers, the growers and the suppliers. We taste their products, and check thoroughly the ingredients used in the final product, and this is our advantage. We prefer products which are organic without chemical preservatives and free from the burden of residual pesticides.

We enrich our selection of products not from an office - we do not buy from ''the phone'' instead we travel to meet the producers at their facilities or fields, where soil and sun work continuously and silently to create these high end organic premium healthy foods.