Going Green

The Fancy Food Show re-uses about 90% of the signs and banners you see at our Shows

When I first heard the term “greening your event” back around 2003, I have to admit that that I initially did not pay much attention to it thinking it had something to do with monetizing more areas of your trade Show.  Working for the NASFT (a not-for-profit), I had no interest in how to make more money, but was more concerned with how I could provide better service to our members, exhibitors and show attendees.

The word “green” kept creeping up in different industry magazines and websites, so I thought that I had better look into what all the chatter was about.  As I quickly found out, it had nothing to do with making money and had everything to do with thinking about your show in a more responsible and environmentally-conscious way.  This was very interesting to me as I have always tried to be very conscious of my personal impact on the environment.  What I was happy to find out, was that we (the NASFT) were actually already doing a pretty good job at making the Fancy Food Shows a “green” event, but there was a lot more to learn and a lot more that could be done.

I quickly learned as much as I could and as quickly as I could, never wanting to be one that was behind on the times on any topic affecting our shows.  I started to compile a list of all the things we were doing that could be considered an effort to green the show.  We had quite an impressive list of things that we were already doing, but there were many opportunities to do them better and to do more.  With that, a plan was put into place to make the Fancy Food Shows a leader in sustainability.  We quickly shaped up our existing efforts and then each year introduced more ideas and programs into the mix.  Some achieved great success and are still in play today (like our food donation program) while others were not as well received (digital signage became too expensive and turned out to be not as eco-friendly).

Each year, the NASFT and the Fancy Food Shows donate over 300,000 pounds of food to the cities and surrounding areas of New York and San Francisco

Here we are almost 7 years later and through all of our trials, we have achieved many more successes in this area than we ever imagined.  It’s the efforts of the entire NASFT staff, our board of directors, members, exhibitors, attendees and show partners (suppliers, convention centers, etc.) that have gotten this program to where it is today.  The hundreds of thousands of people in need who we have provided meals for, the schools whose art programs have benefited from our discarded signs/banners and the personal thanks we have received from each city we work in makes these efforts well worth it.  Perhaps the biggest accomplishment of these efforts will not be recognized until after we are all long gone, but our hope is that the Fancy Food Shows can be a model for future generations and something the future of our association and industry can be proud of.

For more details about our program, please visit www.fancyfoodshows.com/green.

-Bill Lynch, CEM, Senior Director, Membership & Exhibitions

sofi Gold Winners Shine in DC

Henry Wainer, a sofi Gold winner, chats with Joan Nathan, a New York Times writer

We put out quite a spread—if I may say so—Wednesday night for local journalists in Washington, DC. We, meaning the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade, hosted a tasting and reception to showcase the winners of our 2009 sofi Gold Awards for the outstanding specialty foods of the year.

The event was designed to show off this year’s winning chocolate, cheese, frozen savory, snack, food gift and USDA-approved organic product and much more to journalists who may not know our not-for-profit organization, or realize that a sofi™ is a true honor for any food artisan or entrepreneur. “sofi” stands for “Specialty Outstanding Food Innovation.”

Ed Tobias of the Associated Press samples Appledore Cove's Seaside Barbecue Sauce

I help run the awards program. This was a new effort to take our winners on the road and give them the attention they deserve. We held the event at a lovely culinary school, CulinAerie, just six blocks from the White House. CulinAerie is co-owned by Susan Holt, a chef/entrepreneur who has attended, and spoken at, our Winter Fancy Food Show.

The evening attracted an impressive bunch, including Joan Nathan, the noted cookbook author and food writer for The New York Times, and journalists from the Associated Press, Crain’s, BizBash, and more. One local writer, Andrew Evans, who writes for National Geographic Traveler and others, covered the event and tweeted about it live. Check it out at: @AEEvans.

We held the bash at CulinAerie, a cooking school near the White House

The stars of the show were the speakers: Henry Wainer of Sid Wainer & Son Specialty Produce and Specialty Food, who won the sofi for Sakurachi Sa Yuzu Marmalade, and Jeffrey Gartska and

Appledore Cove's Jeffrey Garstka and Tom Gorski, "The two guys from Maine."

Tom Gorski of Appledore Cove, who term themselves “the two guys from Maine.” The two guys won for their Seaside Barbecue Sauce. Ron Tanner, our vp of communications and education, introduced them, and noted that Henry Wainer, whose family business is based in New Bedford, Mass., has won so many sofi Awards over the years that it is hard to keep count.

We hope to do more of these regional sofi Gold road shows. Why DC? We thought it would be great to say hello to the marketplace, now that we plan to have our 2011 Summer Fancy Food Show there. Plus we’re participating in another DC event much sooner: Nov. 7 and 8 at the Metropolitan Entertaining & Cooking Show.

A big thanks to all the sofi Gold winners, many small companies, who sent us product samples for the event and for great sofi gift bags. And thanks to Susan of CulinAerie, for a great venue and soiree.

–Louise Kramer

Two Stroke Exhausts and Stilton

Scooters and stilton, really not that different.

As soon as I hear about anything intriguing I go to Google.

As someone with interests that range from bicycle racing to finding the best falafel, it would be almost impossible to indulge them without the internet at my fingertips. I’m sure the same lets-go-to-the-web behavior is true for most of you.

Sometimes I find the hunt for a particular must-have item—such as a proper Italian exhaust for my Lambretta Series III Li150 scooter—to be part of the fun. But when I’m looking for where to buy a specific specialty food brand or product, say a great Stilton or a grilling sauce, I want to have it sooner rather than later. And just as with my scooter, I know that a substitute will not be as satisfying. So, I scour the web for great sites and helpful content to get me what I need.

My information quests are no different than those you in the specialty food business encounter daily. After our Specialty Food Magazine readers learn about a cool product or trend the next step is researching it on the web. (This is confirmed in our yearly readership survey where they say that whenever an advertisement piques interest, they go straight to the company’s website.)

The problem is that in the specialty food trade, effective website, you’ll find a dozen or more that, at best, are underselling the company’s products and at worst, turning customers away through a lack of information or difficult navigation. When I’ve asked these companies why there is a disconnect between the quality of their products and the quality of their online presence, the answers come down to one or all of three things: time, resources and money. The NASFT might just have the solution for you.

The Foodspring Network is an online specialty food marketing community developed by the NASFT to help you build your website and leverage the latest digital marketing tools while saving you time and money. Hundreds of design options allow you to represent your brands professionally, and you can leverage the Foodspring Network community to drive revenue and increase the number of customers—trade and consumer—that come to your site. If you’re one of the lucky companies that already has a first-rate site you can still connect it to the network to manage your e-newsletter, trade banner ads and develop cross-marketing partnerships.

I invite you to visit Foodspring Network to see if it is the right solution for your business. If it’s not, keep looking for the best answer for your company. The marketing power of the internet can be a great equalizer between the reach of both large and small companies—if you know how to draw in your consumers and they know how to find you.

Matt Thomas

Publisher, NASFT’s Specialty Food Magazine

In case you missed it…

See the Fancy Food Show in all its splendor in NASFT’s new video, shot at the 55th Summer Show. Noted chefs Ming Tsai, Bobby Flay and Sarah Molton are featured along with dozens of NASFT members, executives and Show attendees. And, of course, there are hundreds of specialty products from around the world captured on tape in the crowded Show aisles.

Giving Back In Style

For close to 20 years, I’ve been volunteering for anti-hunger organizations. First I was a prep cook for an AIDS organization. Then I made sandwiches at a soup kitchen for homeless men. Now, on Saturday mornings, I deliver meals to homebound elderly men and women for Citymeals-on-Wheels, an organization co-founded by James Beard and Gael Greene.

Drew Nieporent at Citymeals bash

All this was separate from my professional life as a business journalist. But last year the personal and professional started to connect when I shifted careers and joined the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade as Communications Director. It turns out that the NASFT has a direct and strong connection to anti-hunger efforts.

We are a not-for-profit trade association that helps food artisans, entrepreneurs and specialty food importers grow their businesses and succeed in markets around the world. But we’re also committed to sharing our bounty with people in need. After our Fancy Food Shows in New York and San Francisco, our exhibitors donate crazy amounts of chocolate, cheese and olive oil, not to mention produce, pâté, salami and biscotti, to area food programs.

This year, exhibitors at our 55th Summer Fancy Food Show at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center donated 204,100 pounds of specialty food and beverages to City Harvest at the end of the three-day show. That’s enough to fill five tractor trailers, and the shelves of hundreds of food pantries throughout New York City. Stay tuned for more on this amazing effort!

Another recent donation was to Citymeals-on-Wheels. We reached out to many of the 128 finalists for our 2009 sofi Awards to donate their finalist products to an annual fundraiser at Rockefeller Center in New York. The sofi Awards recognize excellence in specialty foods and beverages and our considered our industry’s Oscars.

The Citymeals event featured some of the most prominent chefs in the United States, who all donated their time and food to help raise money for the organization. Our members donated chocolate, pasta, spice rubs, snazzy snack chips, harissa, unusual rice and more for gift bags for the chefs.

Chef Alfred Portale donating his time to Citymeals event at Rockefeller Center

The roster included Daniel Boulud, Alfred Portale, and Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Restaurateur Drew Nieporent, partner in Myriad Restaurant Group of Nobu, Corton and Tribeca Grill fame, was there, as was John Schenk, executive chef of Strip House. Schenk declared his good bag, brimming with sofi products, “the best gift bag ever.” I had a chance to attend, and it was a fabulous New York night. The food was spectacular, and even the design was beautiful, donated by David Rockwell, the architect and designer.

For me, what made our small gift bag effort so nice was the eagerness of our members to contribute. Of course they wanted to get their food in the hands of these great chefs, but there was a true desire to help a great food cause too. Also, my colleague Betsy Schwartz, our creative director, jumped in and made a beautiful thank-you card to all the chefs for donating their time.

My only regret is that we had to turn away some of the sofi finalists who wanted to donate. The gift bags weren’t big enough, and we had to limit the donations to products the chefs could transport on airplanes. So there are a few great olive oils and vinegars that did not make it into the bags because they were too heavy, and exceeded that pesky 3-oz. limit for liquids in carry-on bags.

–Louise Kramer

Roll out the red carpet for our new sofi video!

This year we gave our annual sofi Awards the star treatment they truly deserve. They’ve always been a highlight of the Summer Fancy Food Show, but we felt they deserved much more considering how important a sofi Award is for our members. So we staged our most glamorous Awards Ceremony ever. And we decided to capture the entire sofi process on video so we could try to capture the essence of the sofi Awards, the highest honor in the specialty food trade. sofi stands for Specialty Outstanding Food Innovation.

The NASFT is typically very “hands on.” But this time we wanted to do it right. So we left our personal cameras to our family vacations, and brought in professional videographers, David Horvilleur and Patrick Sasso of Loop Seven in NYC.  Both are true “foodies” and they said this was a dream assignment. We engaged them right before the first phase of judging last spring at our offices on Wall Street. (sofi awards are open to members of the NASFT). The finalists are picked by a nine-member panel of specialty food experts who meet at our offices to evaluate all the submissions. Then to pick the gold winners, the finalists are judged by retailers and foodservice buyers at the Summer Fancy Food Show.

During the initial judging David and Patrick arrived ready to shoot. They interviewed several of the judges, who were great about taking a break from their huge task of tasting and evaulating close to 2,000 specialty foods and beverages. Our final video features these interviews, including with Julie Wyrick of Pier 1 Imports and Tim Calderone from Meijer in Minneapolis. Once the finalists were selected, the video team visited a few including Rick’s Picks, Sarabeth’s Kitchen and Gustiamo.

Then the big event was the Summer Fancy Food Show at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center last month. Loop Seven arrived ready to roll. They set up an interview room off of the huge show floor and interviewed 100+ exhibitors and shot 15 + hours of footage. They had two crews blanket the 316,000 square feet of exhibit space that was filled with was filled with 140,000 specialty foods and beverages from across the U.S. and 70-plus countries.

They captured everything from the final sofi judging (more than 260 retailers sampled 125 finalists across all 33 awards categories) to the dazzling red-carpet awards ceremony hosted by noted Boston chef Ming Tsai. Chef Tsai delivered an inspiring and in-the-know keynote address about taste and innovation. Then he announced the winner in each category, alongside NASFT president Ann Daw and Vice President Ron Tanner. The video crew was there to capture the excitement. The next morning, the last day of the 55th Summer Fancy Food Show, Loop Seven raced through the show to capture many of the gold winners at their booths, who were still dazzled by their gold wins.

Then Loop Seven got to work again. The team spent four full days reviewing the footage, and another five in the editing suite. The fruits of their labor is our first ever sofi Awards video. We hope you enjoy it. Please let us know what you think.

–Betsy Schwartz (bschwartz@nasft.org), NASFT Creative Director

Summer Fancy Food Show: A Visual Recap

Opening day crowds. Attendance was higher than at any Fancy Food Show in the past decade.

Just one of the 140,000 products on display.

The show attracted 24,000+ attendees & 2,300 exhibitors.

sofi Awards juding: a record breaking 550 retail/foodservice buyers particpated.

Bobby Flay talks with Chuao Chocolatier

The sofi Awards ceremony got the red carpet treatment this year!

Ming Tsai gave addresses the crowd at the sofi Awards ceremony. His remarks on innovation were inspirational!

Oustanding New Product 2009 Winners Danielle Fruit Chips - Coconut

Tammy Shaipro from Talk of the Town Gifts giving her seminar on Profiting through Gift Basket Packaging. She was one of the 30+ presenters at the Show.

Calling All Speakers!

Here is Tammy Shaipro from Talk of the Town Gifts giving her seminar on Profiting through Gift Basket Packaging. She is one of the 30+ presenters at the Summer FFS that shared her expertise in the industry with her peers

Although the Summer Fancy Food Show has just wrapped, NASFT is in the throes of deciding on educational programming for the 2010 Fancy Food Show season.

I’m Laura Lozada, Education Programs Director for NASFT, and I’m charged with keeping our members and trade show attendees in–the-know. NASFT is nearing the end of our annual “Call for Presentations” period where we ask for proposals for educational programming from industry professionals. Last year, we collected, reviewed and analyzed over 100 proposals before arriving on the topics presented at the two Fancy Food Shows.

From my vantage point, it continues to be truly fantastic to see the wealth of information, passion and willingness to share throughout this industry. Speakers who have presented with us in the past continue to be interested in leading sessions and each year, we recruit new exciting speakers as well.

Our seminars are well attended by a variety of industry professionals. Depending on the topics, our sessions can draw from 25-100+ people - with quality attendees focused on bettering their businesses.

Our onsite seminars, workshops, tastings and tours help to train the specialty food professionals that attend the Fancy Food Show and are promoted leading up to the Show in a variety of media. The experience provides great exposure for the speakers as well as concrete experience/knowledge for our trade show attendees and exhibitors alike. We’ll continue to share about the process here as we announce education programs linked to the shows in 2010 and our ongoing webinars@work series, which allows the specialty food community to continue their learning away from the trade show atmosphere through a series of live and archived webinars. (Click here to learn more).

If you are a specialty food professional or professional speaker, we’d love to hear from you as well – please click here . To learn more about the process or email me at llozada@nasft.org . The deadline for proposals is July 10 but we’ll waive the rule for Under the Lid readers! Please send along by July 17.

The Blogosphere Gets Fancy!

Imagine being at the first Fancy Food Show 55 years ago. You walk up to a booth, sample the food and love it. You mention to the person who handed you your sample that it was great and you want to take a picture and post a review on your blog. He looks at you as though you have three heads. “A Blog? What’s that?” he says with suspicion. Now fast forward to the 55th Summer Fancy Food Show. The same scenario happens and he simply smiles, says go ahead and is glad that you loved his product. And will tell all of your friends.

Blogger’s came out in large numbers for this summer’s Fancy Food Show. These bloggers included food critics who were out to find the best of this year’s show, companies who were attending the show and blogging about their experiences, members of traditional and non traditional media and buyers who came looking to find the next great product that would help their business out. Each of these bloggers wrote about unique aspects of the show and used different forms of media to convey their message. Some bloggers talked about only the kosher food and used pictures to really drive their message home, others looked at only the chocolate products and accompanied their writing with a video, and some bloggers wrote extremely detailed reviews of their top ten finds. The blogosphere is constantly growing, evolving and becoming more common in today’s society, in fact in some cases these bloggers – or citizen journalists, can impact your business more than traditional media.

NASFT takes press credentials very seriously, and only bloggers who have industry related blogs or heavily trafficked food related blogs are granted press privileges.

Here is a sampling of some of the coverage the Fancy Food Show received in the blogosphere:

The New York Times, City Room Blog: At Javits Center, Food Delicacies Dot the Menu
The Martha Stewart Living Radio Blog: What We Discovered at the Fancy Food Show
Slashfood.com: Fancy Food Show Favorites
ReMARKable Palate: Chef Mark’s Quick Bites
Inventorspot.com: 10 New & Exotic Foods Coming To NYC’s 2009 Summer Fancy Food Show
Jewlicious.com: What’s New In Kosher Foods?
NJSpice: Fancy Food
Fully Booked.biz: Fancy Food Show
PhatGuru.com: Sofi Awards Gold Winners Announced
Dankster.org, A NYC food and culture blog: Fancy Food Show Round Up
An Educated Palate: My Favorite Thing/2009 Fancy Food Show Summer NYC
The Candy’s Store Blog From San Fransisco’s Premier Candy Boutique: NY Fancy Food Show 2009
SandyHuFm.com, Food for Thought: Walking the Fancy Food Show
Foodinjars.com: Food in Jars at the Fancy Food Show
Animalwelfareapproved.org/blog: Report from the Trade Show Trenches: Whats this Fancy Food Show All About?
Ready Made, Instuctions for Everyday Life: Fancy Food Show Highlights
TeacherTipz.com: Best of the 2009 Summer Fancy Food Show
Foodmayhem.com: Fancy Food Show 2009
Saucytart, Eat Drink Memory: Let Them Eat Fancy Foods
Eat To Blog, It’s All About The Food: Fancy Food Show ‘09
Gothamgal.com: Fancy Food Show
Whrefresh.com: Less Fancy at the Fancy Food Show
Otismaxwell.com/blog: Digesting the Fancy Food Show

If we have missed any, let us know in the comments section – and be sure to provide a link!

Fancy Food Footage

You may have seen them at the show. They were holding pen to paper and taking copious notes on what they tasted and what they saw.  They were holding cameras and zooming in on products.  They were interviewing exhibitors and attendees about the best finds at the show.
If you have not guessed, they were the ones with “Press” passes.

We welcomed a record number of press to the 55th Summer Fancy Food Show.  And they all seemed to have amazing backgrounds – from Top Chef to Food Network, to CBS and the New York Times. They came, they tasted, and best of all they reported!

Ron being interviewed by Bobby Flay for CBS

Here’s a sampling of traditional media coverage of the show:

The New York Times:  In a Cold Economy, Fancy Food Is Hot

The Early Show on CBS – Bobby Flay Takes On Fancy Foods

Epicurious – Best of the 2009 Summer Fancy Food Show

Supermarket News – Specialty Food Products Honored

USA Today – Pop Candy and Specialty-food makers hope to cook up some sweet deals

Pittsburgh Post Gazette – ‘Fancy’ food also can be homey

This is by no means the full list.  In fact, many reporters have yet to file their stories and coverage will continue through the coming months.  We’ll be sure to keep you posted!

In an upcoming post we will highlight all blogs that covered the Show.