FOURTH ANNUAL COCHON 555 RETURNS TO SAN FRANCISCO TO CLOSE ANOTHER US TOUR

Annual Touring Culinary Competition and Tasting Event Celebrates Heritage Breed Pigs at the Fairmont Hotel San Francisco

COCHON 555 – five chefs, five pigs, five winemakers – is a one‐of‐a‐kind traveling culinary competition and tasting event to promote sustainable farming of heritage breed pigs. Cochon 555 San Francisco will challenge five local chefs to prepare a menu created from heritage breed pigs, nose‐to‐tail, for an audience of pork‐loving epicureans. The evening will be hosted by Fairmont Hotel San Francisco.

THE FIVE CHEFS: 2012 San Francisco competing chefs include Nico Borzee of Bouche, Traci Des Jardins of Jardiniere, Jason Fox of Commonwealth, Anthony Strong of Locanda, and Thomas McNaughton of Salumeria and flour + water.

GENERAL ADMISSION GUEST EXPERIENCE & THE FIVE FARMS: The event will spotlight over 1200lbs of heritage porc including Red Wattle from Walnut Keep Farm, Berkshire from Jubilee Farm, Large Black from Prather Ranch Meat Company, Wild Boar / Berkshire Cross from Magruder Ranch and an Old Spot from Clark Summit Farm. Guests will be treated to an epic pork feast of five whole heritage pigs prepared by five chefs and wines from five family wineries, including Arnot‐Roberts, Elk Cove, K Vintners, Matthiasson and Scholium Project. The evening will also include wines from event sponsors SALDO, Sokol Blosser, Cornerstone Cellars and Simi, a butcher demonstration from David the Butcher of Marina Meats, an interactive tasting contest with 2011 Grand Cochon Winners , John Stewart and Le Creuset. Sample great beers from Anchor Brewing, tastings of Chinaco Tequila, indulge in the "Perfect Manhattan" Cochon 555 Bar with Daniel Hyatt of Alembic featuring five craft American spirits including Templeton Rye, Hirsch, Angel's Envy, Eagle Rare, Buffalo Trace, Hudson Whiskey's Baby Bourbon and Luxardo. In preview of Cochon’s new Labor Day event, Ronnie New of Magnolia Brewery will serve up a Heritage BBQ whole hog family meal. The feast will conclude with a 25th anniversary champagne toast to the James Beard Foundation, sponsored by Laurent‐Perrier Champagne, now celebrating its 200th year. In addition, we will offer an exclusive chocolate experience from Xocolatl de David and cold‐brew from Safari Cup Coffee.

Experience the new C555 Perfect Manhattan Bar featuring Hirsch, Templeton Rye, Hudson Whiskey's Baby Bourbon and Luxardo. Don't miss a local chef serving one whole BBQ pig family-style in anticipation of our new event, Heritage BBQ, next Labor Day. Grab a glass as we kick off the award ceremony with a special 25th anniversary champagne toast to the James Beard Foundation, sponsored by Laurent-Perrier Champagne, now celebrating its 200th year. Following the awards, we invite you to experience swine & sweets with [3] Cochon Exclusive chocolate bars from Xocolatl de David and cold brewed coffee from Safari Cup Coffee Roasters.

At the end of the night, attendees and local judges will select the Prince or Princess of Porc. The winning chef will go on to compete against other regional winners at the finale Grand Cochon event at the FOOD & WINE Classic in Aspen, June 17, 2012.

WHEN
Sunday, May 20th 4 pm VIP opening; 5 pm general admission

WHERE
Fairmont Hotel San Francisco – Official Hotel Partner 950 Mason Street San Francisco, CA 94108

TICKETS
$125 per person for general admission; $200 for VIP (including a welcome cocktail from The King's Ginger, Oysters, reserve wine tastings, artisan cheese from Mission Cheese, a sample of bacon from Black Pig Meat Co. and the chance to win a year's supply of meat and cheese from Cochon 555 and Murray's Cheese.

MEDIA CONTACT Lori Lefevre
914.630.0961, lori@cochon555.com

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ABOUT COCHON 555
Created by Taste Network’s Brady Lowe in 2009 in response to the lack of consumer education around heritage breeds, COCHON is a national event series that takes place in 14 major markets. Every January, COCHON 555 embarks on a 10-city culinary competition and tasting tour where 50 chefs are selected to prepare a ‘snout -to-tail’ menu created from heritage breed pigs. The 10 winners of each regional event are flown to Aspen for the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen for the final competition, Grand Cochon. Cochon All-Star, Cochon Heritage Fire and a new event called Cochon Heritage BBQ competition will be hosted in Memphis on Labor Day every year starting in 2012. For more details about the events, visit www.cochon555.com or follow @cochon555 on twitter.

Today's Nugget - Why should the average consumer care about these different breeds? Why should we care? First, imagine if we only had one or two types of dogs in the world. One small dog, and one large dog. Everyone had the same dog, and there was no variety. Taking your child to pick out a dog and there were no choices. How boring would that be? For me, diversity is the flavor of life. I want choices, I deserve choices for different days, different moods and different recipes and techniques. I can't imagine going bakery on Sunday morning and not having any choices, can you? Again, imagine a world with only one doughnut. The idea is standardization defined. My goal is to provide choices to chefs and to diversify the pig landscape so life is more interesting for those of us who care. It's important to let family farms know that we care about the choice to buy a better, more flavorful product, even if cost is higher. In the end, we diversify the conversation on the pasture and hopefully that will reach your kitchen someday soon. The context of the event is better for the ecosystem, it's better for the marketplace, it's the choice we want. Buying into heritage pork is synonymous with putting your money directly into the farmer's pocket and creating a diversified landscape of flavor for the future. That feels good to me, and don't forget flavor is king. The best part, heritage pork is not super expensive, it just takes time to find a local farmer, butcher shop or restaurant buying from these farms.