Boxes are the best!

Earlier this week, our long awaited boxes arrived from the printers! Considering the fact that neither my mom nor I have had any previous experience designing packaging and neither of us have any formal training in graphic design, we think the boxes turned out quite well!

From start to finish, the whole process of designing and producing our new packaging took about 2 months. Here are some pics I took so you can check out the finish product for yourself. Now that we have the new boxes, in the next several weeks we will be sending samples to as many retailers as we can. Some are smaller individual specialty food stores while others are larger purveyors of fine foods, with multiple retail locations.

We have also given our website a mini-makeover. After getting some much needed pointers from my web design professor, the site is cleaner, simpler and easier to read. She pointed out that the text and logos on the previous site were much too large- definitely a good call. The site also features the most current product information, including details on our new line of savory snacks, Cupola Clouds.

The main updates made to the site:

• We've added a section that talks about the health benefits of our cookies
  
• We've added a gallery where you can check out even more delectable photos of our baked goods
• Our "How to Eat" section now has recipes and suggested beverage pairings for our products
  
• For now, we are going to hold off on selling our baked goods over eBay as we have in the past. Based on customer feedback and our current marketing and sales goals, we decided that it would be better to sell our products directly on our site once we have the capabilities to do this. This way we'll be able to provide you with a variety of payment options, (instead of just PayPal) and a quicker, easier and yes, more enjoyable online shopping experience!
  

Drumroll please....Product Updates!

In the last couple weeks, I've been a bit vague about what we’ve been working on in terms of product development, packaging and the like- but all with good reason. This is because we have been working hard on hashing out the related details and timing. We definitely have a much better idea of the direction we are moving in and we are aiming to launch a new, improved product line (including the addition of some savory snacks!) in March.

We also felt we owed it to our current retailers to share this information with them first. Now that we’ve relayed these details to them, I am excited to share some updates with you all! I’ll also pass along additional info throughout this month, leading up to the actual launch.

Marketing

• The cookies are getting a new name! In March, the cookies will be debuting as:
  

Why, you ask? Because after some time in the market and speaking with customers and retailers first hand, we realized that our cookies are quite different (in taste and recipe) than the traditional European meringues being sold. Traditional meringues are typically very sweet and contain lots of sugar, but our baked goods are lightly sweetened. In addition, meringues are primarily made out of egg whites and sugar, but our cookies also contain all natural ingredients such as garbanzo bean flour and nuts. To sum it up, we feel we need a unique name to describe our unique cookies.

Product Development

• The cookies (Chocolate Cashew, Chai Pistachio, Espresso Walnut) will be made with organic evaporated cane juice instead of sugar, making them even healthier and more natural.

• Per cookie calorie count will be 11 calories instead of 24 due to a new and improved recipe. But don’t worry, the taste and texture of the cookies are still the same.

• We will be introducing a line of savory snacks, made from real cheese. They will be called:

Packaging

• To make it easier for you to eat our cookies on-the-go, we are making them slightly smaller, but you will get the same exact amount of product in each bag. This is because we’re increasing the number of cookies in each bag from 5 to 7.

• The cookies will soon be available in boxes, which will contain 15 cookies- the boxes are simple and (I think) visually appealing. Great for sharing and to give as gifts. A larger package means they’ll last around your house a bit longer too!

More to details to come soon!