Rid here:
Well folks, it's been a long, long time since we added to this blog. For a good reason though....we're extremely busy! Michael A and I are jumping through so many hoops to drum up business and market ourselves to the trade, that I feel like I've joined a friggin circus.
I'm not sure where to even begin.... so I'll start at the beginning.
We started on our "get the word out" efforts by hiring marketing maven, Eileen Acello. She's a foodie and has been marketing food items for a zillion years. She also teaches at St Josephs University in....tada... food marketing. wow..... It seems like everywhere we go, there is someone who says they are in the food biz or know of someone in the food biz. Totally amazing.
So, our first piece of business was with a great, 2 store chain of stores called, "A Taste of Olives". I called them out of the blue and they called back and said they wanted to place a pretty big order! So Michael and I were running around like knuckleheads getting it all together. We delivered the sauces and point of sale.
As it turns out, they sold the sauces in a matter of a few weeks and ordered more. People were actually buying our simmer sauces and loving them. Hey, whats not to love, right?
We are in PA, NJ, MD. WA and more stores are calling every day! (They saw our ad in the 2011 Gourmet Retailer Buyers Guide.)
We have done sampling in a few stores and have found that when people try them, they buy them.
I mean, people are going totally nuts for these sauces! We had to do a second production run within weeks of our first sales.
We've also tightened up our accounting, inventory controls and have been able to reduce online shipping costs. UPS prices are a killer if you dont't make it to a threshold where prices drop considerably. And--did you know they charge an extra $2 to deliver to a residence? Yup. They do.
Well, 2011 is the year in my mind where we will know whether these sauces fly or not. We are targeting volume sales by trying to get into upscale food chains like Whole Foods and Fresh Market. We are also finding that being gluten-free is a really big deal. Its opening up a whole new market for us as well. We are going to be picky though. Our sauces are the finest out there. So the stores, whether brick & mortar or online, need to be the finest, too. We're hunting for reliable distributors, too. We are going to focus on the mid-atlantic area this year and "Go west" from there. (well, we certainly arent going east)
We are also working on a super secret line of gourmet pizza sauces. Mind blowingly delicious and different than anything you'll find in stores. We have a ways to go. Finessing and getting them on par with the simmer sauces. These will not be your typical red sauces. Oh no......these are Lizbeth Lane Gourmet pizza sauces. A whole new niche... a new world of "gourmet pizza saucedom".
Stay tuned. Stay hungry for more.
