Four Gourmet Housewares Best New Product Awards Presented at NY NOW

Four companies – Lifetime Brands, Zoku, SPARQ Home and Aquaovo – were named Gourmet Housewares Best New Product Award winners at the winter edition of NY NOW, the Market for Home + Lifestyle last week in New York.

The four honorees also are eligible for NY NOW’s Best of Home Award, which will be determined by online balloting during the show, and the winner will be announced on Feb. 6.

Lifetime Brands Inc. received Best of Show honors for its Savora Colander, a stainless steel colander with a premium, baked-on finish and drainage holes, designed in a vortex pattern.

Awards also were presented in three product-specific categories, including cooking (cookware, bakeware and electronics); dining (serveware, bar/wine accessories, picnic/barbecue accessories and specialty foods); and kitchen preparation (kitchen gadgets, kitchen textiles, cook books and storage/containers).

Winners and finalists in each category were selected by a panel of eight trade editors based on innovative design; creative use of materials/construction; and use of new materials/technology.

Product-specific category winners and finalists were:

• Cookware: Zoku of Hoboken, N.J., for its Zoku Ice Ball, which forms perfect ice spheres by pouring water through the hole on the top of the food-safe silicone mold and freezing. It comes in a stackable set of two, and is BPA- and phthalate-free. Finalists were Charmeur LLC of Provo, Utah, for its Chocolate Making Kit, and Uniware Housewares Corp. of Hauppauge, N.Y., for its Ecolon Ceramic Coated Cookware.

• Dining: SPARQ Home of Denver for its Dining S/4 Vodka Shooters with Caddy, which includes 2-ounce shooters with a rustic wooden serving tray for easy transport from freezer to table. Finalists were International Innovation Co./Vacu Vin of Indian Trail, N.C., for Dining Snap Wine Thermometer, and The French Farm of Houston for its 6 Stainless Steel Steak Knives in Wooden Block.

• Kitchen Preparations: Aquaovo of Montreal for its OVOPUR, an offline gravitational filter made from natural materials fusing age-old traditions with tomorrow’s trends. Finalists were Natural OliveWood of New York for its Rustic Cutting Board, and Picnic Time of Moorpark, Calif., for its Parlor Ice Cream Mixing Set.

 
The Best New Product Award judges were: Joanne Friedrick, Gourmet Business; Faith Durand, thekitchn.com; Sharon Franke, Good Housekeeping; Laurie O’Halloran, Home Style; Duke Ratliff, HFN; Amy Stavis, Tableware Today; and Anna Wolfe, The Gourmet Retailer.