I have always felt that Fancy Food Show in particular for a store like ours, is a perfect place to educate our employees aka potential sales people. So ... somehow I have managed to talk the owners of Sunshine into sending as many people as possible. Sunshine Foods sends no less than 10 people per year, some years, even more. That's a lot for a single market.
If you have never been to this show, it is an overwhelming amount of product information.
Each year the 17,000+ Winter Fancy Food Show attendees may discover more than 80,000 products featuring the world's finest foods and beverages from more than 1,300 exhibitors representing 35+ countries.
Yes I said 1,300 exhibitors, not to mention that most of these exhibitors most likely have multiple products to taste. Soo, now that the show is over, Sunshine's buying team will begin searching thru all of the aftermath. E-mails sent from hopeful partners, information on companies via snail mail as well as the information brought back directly from the show. I know that I have 3 bags myself. Multiply all of this by 11 people this year and we have our work cut out for us.
Our store is an independent market, with only 8,000 sq feet of selling space. This is not a lot folks, especially when we hopefully carry what everyone in town expects. You know, soap, full deli, meat, all of the old standby conventional products, natural & organic as well as specialty foods. We are in a constant state of flux and change to meet the demands of our customer.
So... for a while I will be blogging about the products we review from the show with pros and cons of why they will or why they won't be a fit for our market.
I can't wait to read some of your comments!
I can't wait to read some of your comments!
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This is the first in a series of articles on what happens when we get back to the store after a massive event like this. There is a lot more than meets the eye and we are going to attempt to take you through the entire process. With some luck you will more than a few laughs and some interesting back stories.
ReplyDeletePlease leave us a comment so that we can make improvements to this blog. We hope to be doing it for a long time! Thanks!