sofi Awards

Hello everyone! Apologies for the spotty blog entries recently. We have been really busy with the launch of our improved, more natural cupola cookies and our brand new savory snacks, cupola clouds. Our days have been spent touching base with numerous retailers and sending them samples of our products. The response has been positive overall, but with the Easter holiday upon us, many of our contacts at the retailers where we would like to get on the shelves have been quite busy.

Since cupola cookies and cupola clouds are now available in custom-printed boxes, which are simple but more visually appealing, higher quality and more shelf-friendly than our previous packaging, we are able to approach a lot more retail locations than we were in the past. So far we've reached out to more retailers in PA, OH, NY, VA, MA, NH and FL.

But today, I wanted to talk about the sofi Awards, because they have been on my mind a lot lately. Up until last year, the sofi Awards used to be called the Product Awards. The competition is sponsored by NASFT (National Association for the Specialty Food Trade and is the specialty food industry's premiere product competition (The Oscar or Tony Awards for the specialty food industry if you will). This year, there are over 32 different award categories, such as Outstanding Pasta Sauce, Outstanding Salad Dressing and Outstanding Chocolate.

It's pretty interesting to see what products and companies have won awards in the past. NASFT features this information in the Product Awards section of their site. I warn you though, that you will work up an appetite as you check out the award winners and finalists.

Each year NASFT receives about 2,000 entries for the competition, so the competition, in the words of Christian Siriano, winner of this season's Project Runway, is FIERCE! But we think our cupola cookies and our cupola clouds have that something special, so we're going to enter them into the competition this year. Whether we place or not, I think it will be a good experience for us and we'll learn a lot about our products and how they measure up to the competition.

On your mark, get set, eat!

Blogging About Blogs

I thought it would be ironic, and kind of fun to do a post about blogs on this blog. Since I've started blogging, I've paid a lot more attention to blogs in general. If they're written well, blogs can be witty, entertaining, while still providing good information. The thing that I love about blogs is that they can be as personal or impersonal as you want them to be. Some people blog with their hearts on their sleeves, others censor themselves a bit more, but all blogs provide bloggers and readers an opportunity to say what's on their minds.

The only downfall to finding a blog that you like, is that as a reader, they can be addictive. I'll be the first to admit that I read a mixture of blogs- most are related to food (naturally, I'm a bit biased towards this particular genre), but others are about current events, pop culture or the arts.

One of the best things I think I've gotten out of starting this blog is that it makes me stop every so often and reflect on what we've been doing with the business. I think this is important, especially with how busy we've been lately. As a kid, I attempted numerous times to keep a journal or diary of sorts, but was never dedicated enough to making regular entries. In fact, I think I still have a slew of bubblegum pink and Barney purple notebooks, each with just two or three entries. A testament to my lack of commitment as an 8-year old, really. Since I've started this blog in July 2007, I've done my best to update it with new post and articles at least every other week.

A blog is a great space to discuss, to inform, to vent and to applaud. If you think you might want to start a blog, here are some links to a couple sites that will help you set one up for free:

Blogger
MovableType
WordPress

I also thought I'd share a couple of the food blogs that I've been following:

SimplyRecipes.com- a constantly updated collection of great recipes, peppered with entries about specific foods and eating. I love that each recipe has a little bit of a narrative or background story to go with it.

EAT- started by a 20-something foodie from Pittsburgh who moved to New York and chronicles his eating, dining and cooking experiences in the Big Apple. his mom chimes in from time to time with a post or two.

Happy Blogging!