Small Bites
July 14, 2022
Making a difference by creating opportunities to promote & sell more VT products to more buyers
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Wilcox: A long history of summer flavors |
Vermont Summers:
Chilling Out with Frozen Novelties
Wilcox Premium Ice Cream, located in Arlington, is a longstanding Vermont business with farming origins back to the 189os. They started as a dairy, evolving into processing & distribution. They have been tailoring to meet the changing times for over one hundred years. The family has a wide skill set that encompasses processing & new ice cream SKUs, sales & customer service, & the distribution of frozen products to a wide area of New England.
Known for their premium ice cream, generations of the Wilcox family have built a business that crossed from production to statewide distribution of frozen products across categories.
Summer of course is "ice cream season" & their novelty 802 Bars are a huge hit with travelers & locals alike. Besides ice cream, they created a fabulous non-dairy line to widen their sales & make use of their operational capacity. Everything from single serve pints, up to gallons, they have sizes & flavors to fit your need for local ice cream & nondairy summer scooping.
Fill your coolers with their range of Vermont made or from the list of products they distribute from the region.
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Speaking of Summer...
Our stores know how to do summer fun! They roll with all the variables of making & sustaining strong community connections with thoughtful business decisions.
Up north in Craftsbury & Albany, The Genny celebrated its 10th anniversary. The team has made a few changes to their summer Globetrotting Series with a pause to regroup. With their customer allegiance, this break will help the team retool while keeping all the summer foods in house fully stocked. Customers love the Genny so much they are grateful for the nine years (NINE!) of global flavors but love that the crew is taking a break for other creative & sustainable outlets.
Brownsville Butcher & Pantry (BBP) kicked off the summer season with their community Curbside Cook Out. With music, comradery, & a hot grill, local meat was expertly cooked outside with scents & sounds rising above Ascutney Mountain. BBP team has another in the works for August 12th. Along with their food they always take pride in working with area breweries & pairing wines for a full-on summer event.
Meanwhile, down in the Shire, the Bennington Community Market though not yet open, has a strong presence on social media featuring farms & local food businesses. This community-supported grocery store supports local farmers & makes healthy food accessible to everyone in their community. With pre-opening features, they are inviting locals to become familiar with products before the planned opening on Main Street. It is also an incentive to introduce area producers to the soon-to-open store.
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"We were staying at the resort behind you last week. I heard this music Friday night, & it made me smile. Thank you for showcasing the wonderful sense of community that is small town VT. And the yummy food you folks provide isn't bad, either! "
-a very happy BBP customer
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SORO Market Celebrated
20 years!
South Royalton Coop staff, board members, & vendors created a day of food & festivities on the Green in the heart of town. Fabulous food (of course!) along with great local live music had families dancing & all things good on a perfect Vermont July day.
Local food trucks & vendors had to hustle to meet the demand of so many hungry partiers: Moon and Stars, Carlita's Cocina, Kiss the Cow Farm organic ice-cream, Smith Brothers Snowballs - a kid powered business. Of significant note, recently retired Associated Buyers sales rep & SORO Market Co-op member, Glenn Gobielle, pulled in some favors that enabled he & his successor Mary Pelkey, to raise $100 to the South Royalton Food Shelf. Stores rely on their long-term suppliers to help in celebrations & AB certainly stepped up.
It takes a village & a village green to throw a party like SORO did celebrating its commitment to the local economy. Congratulations for serving your community for 20 years!
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The Beverage Cooler
Summer is for beverages. Cool drinks for hot days. Promote some of our VT beverages with creative displays- think filling a cooler or create an endcap with VT producers front & center at eye level. Remember to have your "fun foods & bevies" signage in place.
Local drinks are often made with ingredients from multiplier effect suppliers. Think maple, blueberries, cider, & herbs for unique blends & medleys.
Savoure, maker of non-alcoholic beverages known for their abundant flavors was a 2022 finalist for a Seven Days "Daisy" an award. Well done for the nomination!
Venetian, Burlington based ginger ale made with organic unfiltered ginger, lime & natural spices. The original Venetian Ginger Ale was bottled from 1917 until the early ‘40s & then lost to time. 100 years after the original founding the descendants reimagined the premium beverage in 2017. Available through Associated Buyers & Baker in cans or bottles. A summer quencher for sure.
And let's not forget we need a caffeine boost. Cold Brewtus delivers espresso in a can! his cold brew is a lighter roast, which allows the nuttier chocolate flavors to sing, but with a balance that never gets too acidic. They also have Nitro Cans as another option. The Espresso cans are available in 4, 8, & 12 packs, shipped in an insulated box, with a cold pack.
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Because we love promoting refreshing bevies- remember a few months ago we mentioned Green Valley Coconut water ? Well, it deserves front & center placement this time of year. A family-owned operation connects Vermont & Vietnam with super flavorful coconut water sold in cans. Place in the middle of the beverage section for optimal sightlines. Don't place on the top shelf: bring it down & consider cross-promoting with summer fruits too. Use a travel cooler or a grab & go display to build summer sales.
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Joe Can Help
Is your cafe in a funk from three summers of pandemic weirdness? Or are you in need of a coffee that aligns with your operational value-statement? Mocha Joe’s in Brattleboro, might be just who you need to speak with for your wholesale set up. They have helped dozens of cafes get off the ground or retool layout, equipment, barista training & even signature drinks.
This company has been forward thinking for over 30 years as they have developed some of the most environmentally friendly roasting practices in the trade. They are "100% solar energized".
Specialty, single origin coffees are the most delicious & sought-after coffee in the world. All of Mocha Joe's coffees are carefully selected for seasonal freshness & a diversity of flavor. They roast only specialty grade coffee on a vintage 1950 Probat roaster in small batches, always fresh to order, visit their cafe in the heart of Brattleboro. They offer wholesale services & have a full line of retail packs. Contact the MJ Team for all the details.
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Since 2009 Mocha Joe's invested in the Cameroon community raising the quality of coffee grown there through 0% interest microloans for equipment & infrastructure improvements. A focus on cultivation formed a coffee tree nursery to replant with younger, disease-resistant, higher-yield coffee trees. These & other efforts help farmers & mill workers get more money for specialty grade coffee. This is a coffee company with a high level of social responsibility. Find out more about them & what they offer.
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July 12th was National Cow Day!
But we celebrate everyday
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Fresh produce rolls in daily at Springfield Coop |
Did You Ever Wonder:
Juggling at Produce Departments
It is said that a day in a Produce Department is a metaphor for the universe.
No two days are the same. Expect the unexpected. Decomposition is a biologic reality. And early bird gets the worm... oh wait what?
Everyday really is different & in these continued times of staffing struggles, trucking irregularities, supply chain funk, climate induced environmental stressors, distributor & food manufacturing out of stocks all add up to a major juggling act every day in a Produce Department no matter its size.
Creativity plays a role in the overall look & feel of produce. Balancing & mixing colors & textures create variations in the "landscape" of a produce stand resulting in a fruit & vegetable theater.
Unfortunately, labor/staffing issues & the need to reduce labor rates makes for uniformity that often doesn't flex. So, rectangles beget rectangles for ease of stocking but can be flat in the overall feel of the department.
In Hardwick the new Buffalo Mountain Community Market is flexing its creativity & balancing efficient set up & maintenance of its produce with multiple display props to add color & texture & encourage sales as well as easy product rotation & cleaning. The store is a merging of two types of "merchandising culture".
At the Springfield Coop receiving copious amount of local produce is part of their daily workload. Having merchandising plans for how you display in-season must-have produce helps drive sales. this is best accomplished with strong communication among the buyer, lead stockers, the receiving team, & sign makers.
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Seasonal Farmstand Rainbows
Down on the farm, it is a rainbow full of sounds. It might as well be fireworks, calliopes & clowns in the farmstands. A veritable feast of summer sights, sounds, & scents arrive fresh from the fields.
Produce has distinct sounds that might be hard for some to grasp. The squeak of a fresh zucchini as it is placed on the display, the sounds of fresh corn ears partially shucked to reveal the tender kernels & think of the "tapping sound" of a ripe watermelon. Right now, along with the summer squashes, the beans are squeaking ready for summer salads, pickling & eating right out of hand. Diligent produce stockers love this time of year for the five senses come alive when working the produce stand.
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High Summer Crops
It is full tilt busy at farmstands- especially with PYO blueberries & raspberries in all their summer glory. Displays are full of the pairing of PA peaches, which means that VT peaches are getting larger by the day!
Strawberries are done with everbearing to kick in later, but cherries are this week's big hot item. Champlain Orchards added trees years ago to complement their apples & everyone is loving the local option. Beautiful color, flavor & strong sales especially with a colorful fruit display.
And as mentioned all things vegetable are coming in from every corner of the state. Along Route 5 from Root 5 Farm in Fairlee down through Windsor to Brattleboro, every color & type of "greens" are harvested, washed & shipped DSD to stores & through distributors. Deep Meadow Farm, the very first certified organic farm in the state continues its long history of superior vegetables & selling to area stores including Springfield Coop.
Harlow Farmstand in Westminster is harvesting a full range of summer produce including fresh cabbage for slaw & broccoli for summer salads. Their produce is used in the farmstand cafe, a hit for locals & summer travelers looking for healthy meals. See how they have grown the retail business for over 30 years.
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Attention
Cheese Professionals
It is an event open to cheese buyers & industry personnel: Cheesemongers & sellers, cheese & specialty food retail shops, grocery store buyers, restaurants & chefs, food writers & educators, & all you other industry peeps out there.
Saturday Aug 13 there are farm & production facility small group tours to get to know VT cheesemakers. Sunday will be an educational day & sampling event at Shelburne Farms featuring incredible cheeses & their production teams from across Vermont. Meet the makers in one-on-one conversations. Don't delay! Sign up now space is limited.
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Nothing says summer picnic food quite like a nice Italian inspired salami from VT Salumi. Based in Barre, a town with strong cultural ties to Italy through our historic granite quarries. Keeping with tradition, their mission is to produce great food with classic Italian flavors. All products are made from simple ingredients, careful craftsmanship, & always with antibiotic-free pork. They make products to be part of good conversations, an end of the day reward, fuel our active lives, or just for summer relaxation with friends & family.
If you are in Barre, stop by their retail store AR Market & pick up some to take on a road trip. And for stores anywhere in the country VT Salumi is available wholesale to stores & farmstands through Mable & Faire.
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Climate & Growing Conditions:
Yikes What lies ahead?
You may be seeing headlines - the ones about the western rivers, prolonged drought & excessive heat.
The long term forecast for western ag is looking bleak. Water allocation issues are county, state, & federally enforced. Each Western state has unique laws or "allowances" in a less than optimal system. Now states are getting tougher on creating new efficiency standards with regulations impacting water usage. This includes new irrigation systems & updated above ground reservoir storage systems. In Utah, a large ag state, water rights are sold as "real property" & are sold much like real estate. The state has also implemented changes so farmers can leave some of their water in streams without losing their allotted amount.
Lack of water impacts product yields & quality that are evident in plant stressors affecting flavor, size & diseases. Not only growing our produce but ranching & product processing also utilize enormous amounts of water. A funny thing about soil & water for ag is that a drought compounded with intense heat makes it hard for plants to produce & be sold at the highest quality.
Climate emergencies continue to reveal that systems we have been accustomed to are changing leading us to further value relocalization & regional production efforts.
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In Case You Didn't Know
Farm to Plate updated its website in June. With its new layout, there is new content relevant to Vermont's food & farm economy. Remember to post your job announcements along with activities that move the local food needle all while staying up to date with F2P news.
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Small Bites comes to you via USDA & High Meadows grants. Content is created for farmers, food manufacturers, distributors, grocers to increase VT food sales
Contact: Annie H Harlow
smallbites802@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, photo credits are from company social media, websites or Annie Harlow
photo credits: CA Drought- Gary Coronado LA Times
All info is subject to change; thank you to all the who contributed to this issue!
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