Tuesday, July 27, 2010

First company event successful!

The Rosendale Music Festival was this past Saturday and Sunday on the main street in Rosendale, NY. There was a good amount of traffic to my booth throughout the day as there were lots of people who stopped by to try a sample of the Caribbean Hot Sauce and the Portuguese Repolho Relish. The overall reaction of those who sampled these gourmet products was positive- I got lots of "mmmmm"s, "that's really good" and "delicious!" which was rewarding to hear. There were several hard core hot sauce junkies who sampled the Caribbean Hot Sauce straight up, just like an alcoholic shot which was impressive and some kids who though young were already discriminating hot sauce Connoisseurs - also impressive. Many who sampled my gourmet products ended up making a purchase which I think demonstrated quite clearly just how important samples are in the (gourmet food) sales process.

I got to see Cory Kessler- the Ulster County Health Dept. Inspector- again. What a super nice guy! Cory was right there with me last year helping to get me going. He recommended the Reservoir Inn restaurant as the right kitchen space to rent and Shawn the Proprietor as a great person to work with. He helped finalize my gourmet product labels & pricing. Thanks so much for all your support Cory and for responding to my thousand and one questions over the past year :) It felt great to be at the Rosendale Music Festival with you now given where I was a year ago. I got a picture with Cory which I shared below.

One of the owners of Fleisher's Meat Market in Kingston stopped by and shared a recent experience. Fleisher's Meat Market which currently features my gourmet products served my Portuguese Repolho Relish and Caribbean Hot Sauce on hot dogs and burgers at an event and they were a big hit! Thanks for sharing that experience. I'd love to know more.

I also met a ton of just super nice and supportive folks at this event. First, there were the vendors who accepted jars of my 2 gourmet condiments and provided them as condiment options to their customers - thanks so much guys for helping to get the product to more people so they could try it. Genie and Ginette, my neighbors in the next booth baked delicious pretzel rolls in a variety of flavors and despite the incredible heat on Saturday (it sure did feel like 103 degrees out there) they kept their sense of humor and helped make the event fun. Genie and Ginette (sorry if I'm butchering your names here guys :) have built up a following at the local farm market over the past 4 weeks and from the positive reactions to their product at the Rosendale Music Festival, it seems it won't be long before they're ready to outsource the production of their gourmet food too. I also met Aimee who had just started her own handmade jewelry business- hang in there, Aimee. It's hard work and long hours but I suspect you'll find it a rewarding endeavor. Pat a fireman at the Rosendale Fire Company purchased some Jerk Sauce and mentioned he was planning to use the sauce to make some baby back ribs. He was going to marinate the ribs in the Jerk Sauce then slow cook them in a smoker. That sounds really delicious, Pat! I'm looking forward to knowing how they came out. I hope you'll post a comment here along with a picture or 2. I also met Franny an independent representative of several different brands who enjoyed my Caribbean Hot Sauce so much that she made a wholesale purchase which she was excited to resell. I'm looking forward to knowing how that turned out, Franny. Marty of Beechwood House Sauces, Marie of Kangen Water (it was cool that you'd just come back from Antigua, Marie!), Rory and Barbara Pinto (it was so great meeting and talking with you. I do hope we stay in touch) and of course, Johnny McLaughlin of Hearbreaking Dawns. Thanks a ton Johnny for all the great tips and advice. I'm psyched that you like my Caribbean Hot Sauce and I'll definitely take you up on the offer to pick your brain in the future. To all the potential future partners that I met at the Rosendale Music Festival- I'm looking forward to exploring partnership opportunities with you that benefit both our businesses. It really is about local businesses helping local businesses be successful. Finally but by no means least, a HUGE thank you to my hubby Josh for being my shlepper boy and helping out through the incredible heat wave (I know how much you hate the heat) and to Norman and Joyce for hanging out with our little ones Mina and Jake so I could do this. Lots of love to you all!

Well, I had a lot of fun but I'm glad it's over. It was a lot of work. I've attached a few pictures from the event. There's a picture of me with Cory and a few of my booth. The pics were taken on Saturday morning just as the event kicked off. I was hoping to get some pictures of the traffic to my booth throughout the day or on Sunday but it proved too busy to capture those. Maybe next time.

Thanks so much to everyone who stopped by to say hi and try my gourmet products. I really appreciate all your support.

Terry






1 comment:

  1. I had a great time being the manual labor for the event...it was great to see how much interest there was in your products!

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