Tarazi Falafel Mix: Making something old new again.

Tarazai is found in specialty and ethnic food stores nationwide. For the past 40 years, consumers have used the traditional middle eastern mix of ground chickpeas and fava beans to recreate the familiar dishes they grew up with or left behind in their native countries.

But not long ago a funny thing happened. Falafel began showing up in restaurants and food trucks in places like New York City. A generation of new users is emerging eager to consume at home the foods they’ve grown to enjoy when eating out, or during travels abroad.

The management at Tarazi noticed the increase in interest in Falafel and asked MOI to help them expand the brand appeal to new markets. The challenge for the team at MOI was to refresh the brand to appeal to the new consumer while not alienating the old one.

An additional challenge the team discovered was the need to separate the product from “protein substitute” products. Research showed that traditional consumers and younger ones alike were attracted to the product because of its great taste and traditional nature, not because it made a good veggie burger or meat substitute.

Falafel and vegetables tumbling into the open pita signify the fresh taste experience consumers expect while portraying the well-known use of Falafel. Reference to meat substitutes was dropped, and copy was added on the benefits of the product.

The trademark was redrawn with proper letterforms, but retained the feel of the old logo for past consumers. The crisp and clean presentation sets the product apart from others in the ethnic foods section.

As agency CEO Mark Oliver noted, “this refreshing design creates the impact and interest to pull a consumer to a great old product, now new again.”

Ingredients

• 2 cups Tahini
• 3 cups honey
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 3 cups toasted sunflower seeds
• 8 cups oatmeal

Directions

• Combine oatmeal, sunflower seeds, and salt. Mix with remaining ingredients.
• Form crabcake-like patties and place on a greased pan.
• Bake about 10 minutes, or until brown around the edges and soft in the center.

We love a good “diner, drive-in or dive,” especially the ones featured on Guy Fieri’s show on The Food Network. Imagine our excitement when we saw our client featured on an episode! Falafel’s Drive-In in San Jose, Calif. uses Tarazi Tahini to make their special sauce. Check it out!

Try the world’s biggest falafel ball, made of Tarazi faladel mix, rolled out for the record books at the Santa Clarita Valley Jewish Food and Cultural Festival.

“We have a winner!,” said Dawn Walker, chef of Dawnsdinners.com, after weighing in the crusty colossus of 52.8 pounds. “We have the worlds’ biggest. It’s unbelievable.”

The 12.5-inch-high falafel, a spicy Middle Eastern snack made from ground chickpeas and fava beans, was certified at 5 p.m. for submission to the Guinness Book of World Records.

“It measured 3-feet, 10-inches round.

Call it chick pea destiny. Organizers of the intimate Jewish festival in Santa Clarita had hoped to beat the official Guinness World Record falafel of 24 pounds.

Only the falafel, prepared by an Israeli chef in New York last May, looked more like a garbanzo hockey puck.

“Our goal was to have a beautiful falafel that was traditional,” said festival volunteer Marlene Bernstein.

Meaning it must be round. Succulent. And mouth-watering enough to compel a hunt for a blanket-size pita.

More than 2,000 revelers who had flocked to the Jewish festival for Israeli dancing, a kugel cook-off and a run on Jewish food trucks had salivated for falafel greatness.

Robert Ingram had waited since noon hoping for a falafel crumb.

“It should have not too much crunch. The pita should be nice and toasty, not overdone. Tahini sauce. And it should all come together in one nice 50-pound falafel,” said Ingram, 64, of Valencia, “constructed of pure enjoyment.”

For Dawn Walker and her husband Dan, it meant borrowing a portable barbecue. Getting some falafel mix, courtesy of Tarazi. And experimenting with a custom stainless steel mold.

As the wind whipped through the festival grounds at College of the Canyons, two falafel lumps spent 8 hours in the oven vying for the record headline.

At 3:21 p.m., the first ball emerged during a blast of klezmer music, and weighed in at a frightening 22.9 – whoops, kilograms – or 50.4 pounds, a would-be record breaker.

The second emerged a couple pounds heftier at 3:30 p.m.

“Wow. I feel like David Caradine of ‘Kung Fu,’ said Dan Walker, hoping not to drop the 145-degree winner.

Many marveled at its garbanzo girth. And the musty aroma of its souffle-like caramel-colored crust.

“It looks like a falafel. It smells like one. Of course, it’ll taste like one,” said Ric Royce, Dawn’s dad, of Oxnard, who once supplied venerable dinner houses such as Trader Vic’s. “It’ll be the biggest – and the best – ever.

“In my wildest dreams, I never imagined her to be the falafel maven.”

There was only one problem: because of health regulations, no one would be allowed a taste of the chick-pea chariot. Instead, they could only dream.

“I think it’s fabulous,” said Sandi Hershenson, chair of the festival hosted by Chabad of SCV, Temple Beth Ami and Congregation Beth Shalom. “We are celebrating the joys of Jewish culture.”

“You’re in the history books,” added Leah Pollack, 39, of Valencia. “You know what’s monumental? Jews in Santa Clarita. And we put on the world’s biggest falafel ball.”

Not everyone, however, was impressed with its culinary charm

“That’s disgusting,” said Sandi’s daughter, Emma Hershenson, 11, of Stevenson Ranch. “I hate falafel. I mean I hate falafel. But I do think this is monumental event.”

For the Walkers, the question was what to do with their monumental feat.

“We’re going to frame it,” said Dawn Walker, known for her luscious brisket and matzoh ball soup, as well as for catering to special diets. “Put it in a Lucite box. Shellac it. Put it in my living room.

“We’ll be smelling falafel forever.”