Our Olive Dijon Mustard Won SOFI Gold: Here’s What That Means to Us
This award feels like a full-circle moment…
Our Olive Rosemary Dijon Mustard winning a SOFI Gold is more than a milestone for New Canaan Farms. It’s the culmination of years of training, travel, tasting, and quiet devotion to flavor, especially for Laurel.
France has long been a second home. After years of training towards her Grand Diplôme at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, Laurel spent time working in Michelin-starred restaurants across Provence. But some of the most formative learning didn’t happen in kitchens at all. It happened wandering through pretty much every single French country market in the region, cataloging the sights, sounds and especially the flavors that define everyday French tables.
Olives and rosemary are essential to that landscape and to the everyday cooking of Provence. They are familiar, grounding flavors, but rarely combined, and never before as the foundation of an American Dijon mustard. Olive Rosemary Dijon was sort of like Laurel’s first love letter back to Provence.
This mustard became the starting point for a new way of thinking about mustard entirely. Instead of sharpness dominating the experience, the goal was balance. Ingredients that mellow and enhance the mustard base, creating something nuanced and approachable. Even people who normally pass on mustard find themselves coming back for more.
Each of our mustards we have are made with gently chopped, thoughtfully blended ingredients that you can see and taste. Whole olives and rosemary in Olive Rosemary Dijon. Sundried tomatoes in our Sundried Tomato & Basil Mustard, giving it its soft pink hue. Fine herbs folded into our Creamy Goat Cheese & Herbes de Provence. Mild Hatch chiles and jalapeños bring warmth, not heat, to our Hatch Chile and Texas Pride Jalapeño Mustards.
What we hear again and again is excitement. About flavor, yes, but also about possibility. Once someone tastes our mustards, they immediately start imagining how to use them. With cheese and charcuterie. As a dip for vegetables. Stirred into dressings or sauces. Spread on sandwiches. Used as a cooking aid rather than just a condiment. Ninety percent of people who try them bring a jar home.
The SOFI judging process makes this award especially meaningful. Products are tasted completely blind by a panel made up of some of the most respected voices in the food industry, including veteran buyers, chefs, and distributors. The judges don’t know who made what. There’s no brand recognition, no story attached. Just taste, creativity, and innovation on the spoon. To know that Olive Rosemary Dijon was selected purely on those merits is something we’re incredibly proud of. We eat this mustard every week. It’s part of our table, our meals, our everyday cooking. Sharing it with more people now feels like sharing a piece of what we love most about food: where it comes from, how it’s made, and how it brings people together. If you try it, we truly believe you’ll love it too!
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