| January 23, 2005 | Vol 2, Issue 10 |
Happy New
Year!
I hope that everyone had a restful and peaceful
holiday season. Jim and I are working on putting the final touches on
the new Farmers' Market Program for 2006. They should be mailed by the
end of the month. In the new Program will be the updated "Your
Markets" form to sign and return to us just as soon as possible.
Below are excerpts from Your Ideas section of the
survey:
Your Ideas:
- Sending out weekly emails to our customers has helped our sales. Our holiday gift baskets have also been very successful. The baskets were dressed up with the most popular flavors and included garlic bulbs, pasta spoon and olive oil.
- We’re contacting management companies at office buildings to sell the pasta during lunch time like some book sellers that come in for the day.
- We have contacted individuals that need different gift ideas to put in baskets for their customers. To get exposure for the products, we have donated baskets for non-profits to generate future customer interest.
- Next year I’m going to offer discount cards. I’m thinking of “buy 20lbs of pasta and get a pound free.”
- Gave each customer a Ziplock bag with ice cubes when they purchased the frozen ravioli.
- We have done a few home shows and participated in local events (fairs at the high school for example).
- We used foil wine bags at Christmas with 3 half-pounds of either flat-cuts or blends in the bag for $12. We sold over 300 bags!
Don't forget:
tell your customers to find us on the web or call our 800# to order more
products if they can't make it to the market. You will receive a 20%
product credit on all gross sales. And, be sure to mention the
newly designed website and easier ordering
capabilities!
Recipes
Attached are two new
recipes. The first is an incredibly simple sauce using pancetta, a cured
meat similar to bacon which I made with the Garlic Parsley
pasta. The second is a classic Roman pasta using well-browned
garlic and chiles that I paired with the Italian Pesto Pasta.
Did You Know?
One percent of Americans are waiters.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, there are more than 2 million restaurant servers in the U.S.
Food for Thought
“A complete lack of caution is
perhaps one of the true signs of a real gourmet: he has no need for it,
being filled as he is with a God-given and intelligently self-cultivated
sense of gastronomical freedom.”
M.F.K. Fisher (1908-1992), 'An Alphabet for Gourmets' (1949)
M.F.K. Fisher (1908-1992), 'An Alphabet for Gourmets' (1949)
Mange!
Annie