In celebration of Independence Day, enjoy this red, white and blue collage of products from food producers who are living the American dream and representing entrepreneurship at its best! In some browsers, if you put your mouse over the photo you’ll see a short description about the product and company. Or click any photo to learn more:
Recently someone commented that they wished Foodzie could have a Willy Wonka-esque feature where the products could jump off the page like the chocolate bar and Mike Teavee in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Don’t we all!
Unfortunately that feature is in a future Foodzie release. In the meantime, I’ve started compiling a Food Photography Tips resource guide for our food producers to learn about taking utterly delicious, irresistable food photos (i.e., food porn) to visually communicate just how amazing all your food products are.
Please take a look and either email me or add comments / links to other food photography tips you know about. We’re always looking for food photographers and amateurs who “will work for food” to build up your photo portfolios. We’d love to hear from you as well.
Turn it into cheese!
Shy Brothers Farm has joined Foodzie to bring you their adorable and creamy, soft “Hannahbelles” thimble sized cheeses.
Like NY Cheese, which I recently wrote about, Shy Brothers is another great example of dairy farmers working with partners to create a small farmstead cheese operation.
The farm is also a future model of sustainability. The local paper reports that “Shy Brothers Farm has received $33,000 from the state Department of Agricultural Resources to design a new energy-efficient cheese-producing building and renovate a barn into a storage area and visitor’s center.”
Barbara Hanley, a friend of the brothers who helps sell the cheeses and keeps the books, explained that the farm will be tasked with finding ways to re-use all aspects of the operation including the water used for washing and cheese making.
Congrats for the farm’s Wall Street Journal feature today!
My first trip to the Portland Farmer’s Market blew me away, with an amazing array of local food producers. That’s where I first found Freddy Guys hazelnuts and snapped the shot of Dave, of Dave’s Killer Bread, shown here.
Then, the other day I was reading about a repeat criminal who now runs a bread company. Then it clicked: Dave! At the time, I thought he was, well, just another baker. Inc’s article tells Dave’s great story of redemption, determination, and entrepreneurial creativity as well as the story of his brother’s undying support.
Aspiring food entrepreneurs can learn lots of lessons from his story:
“Dave introduced his bread in August 2005. He drafted a few recipes and then took 100 loaves to a farmers’ market in Portland. In crunchy Oregon, amid a mounting nationwide taste for all things organic, Dave’s Bread, as it was first called, was a safe gambit and a modest one, until Dave threw the word Killer onto the label. Then, it was as though he had stepped into the shoes of Paul Newman. The Portland media lavished him with press. The families of ex-cons wrote Dave heartfelt letters. Women lined up at supermarket demos, hungry for a glimmering moment with the bad boy turned sweetie pie.”Coming soon on Foodzie: We’re thrilled to be working with several very cool artisan food makers with missions to help people rebuild their lives. Stay tuned!
Farm Aid has set up a petition to help small dairy farms get a fair price for their milk.
Foodzie would like to congratulate one of our producers, Empire Organics, for their part in helping out: The company was formed by a couple of guys with a goal of saving 10, then 20, and many more family dairy farms in New York by turning their milk into higher margin, and delicious, Certified Organic cheeses.
The company also sells milk, paying higher than the market price. Read more about how Dean and Dan are helping the dairy farms. If you’re a New York retailer and want to carry their products, we’re happy to help you contact them.
In thinking about Earth Day and what defines a company and product that is “earth friendly,” Taza Chocolate immediately came to mind.
So it was exciting to see an extremely in depth blog post and photo essay - including a great tattoo shot - on the Cake and Commerce blog today: Taza Chocolate: Bean-to-Bar Revolution by Way of Tradition
Linsey, who writes Cake and Commerce, notes that “There is no waste produced by their operation: everything, including cacao chaff and shell is reused or recycled or returned to the earth…and goes out of its way to source sustainably and pay a premium for products that are produced in keeping with the founders‘ ethics.”
In addition to Taza’s care for the growers and the environment, they are a great example of creating an incredible experience for the customer. I loved Linsey’s report that “A trip to a local Whole Foods yielded my first bar, which both thrilled and confused me.”
I had the very same experience, almost like finding a golden ticket, when I discovered Taza in an itsy bitsy local store in Boston, which literally caused me to start a food blog so I could post a photo and tell the world about them.
We’re proud that Taza Chocolates is a part of Foodzie. And I can’t wait to visit them when I’m in Boston next month! You too can take a virtual tour or catch them at an event or maybe even take a tour.
When it’s Phoebe, one of the Brown Swiss cows that has the pleasure of calling Oakvale Farm home. According to Dena, part of the human family members who has called the area home since 1853, Phoebe is always hamming it up for the camera.
We were excited to discover Oakvale Farm, where they make gouda by hand. (In fact their pound wedges often run over a pound, depending on who’s working on the cheese.) Hearing how these happy cows are like part of the family, it’s no wonder the cheese is so good. We welcome the moo cows, and the humans, to Foodzie in the new Oakvale Cheese store!
As if we weren’t addicted enough to p.o.p. candy’s nut butter crunch, we just learned about their Easter eggs and duckies, dipped in dark chocolate and sprinkled with colorful Easter flair. Buttery, sugary, chocolatey, nutty. What else could one want?
Make sure to order today if you want it for Easter! (I almost avoided saying hop to it.)
Fans of Entourage will be particularly intrigued that p.o.p. candy has become the snack of choice for Vince and the gang while shooting the show in LA! I’m so jealous Rachel got to hand deliver the first batch of butter crunch to the boys. Nice job team p.o.p.!
I’ll start by saying I’m not married. It’s not MY husband’s nuts that I’m referring to (or inviting you to try). It’s someone else’s.
And I do have permission to offer her husband’s nuts to you for snacking. In fact, they are available here on Foodzie.
My Husband’s Nuts come to you courtesy of Jennifer Rogers Etcheverry, who started this business to help her almond-growing husband find new markets for his nuts while he focused on the farming. The family works as a team to transform the nuts into great flavors like Butter Toffee, Chile Lime and Garlic Onion. The almonds, grown in California, have fans all over the world. We salute Jennifer’s cajones and hope she inspires many other growers with her marketing creativity!
My Husband’s Nuts may be the perfect gift, whether for fun or to say Get Well: Super food almonds with a sprinkle of laughter.
(We apologize that the photos in My Husband’s Nuts store are not very revealing. But what do you expect? This is a family website!)
A big congrats to Nina from BonBonBar for the mention today in The Daily Candy Everywhere Weekend Edition! The marshmallow slab idea was totally out of the blue and not a usual seller for Nina. We love working closely with our producers to help make them superstars! Here’s how the idea came to be, with a little bit of good timing, creativity, and collaboration…
1. Susie made a visit to LA and meets Nina to learn about making candy bars and marshmallows.
2. Susie brings home Passion Fruit Marshmallows to share with team. Although I think she regretted sharing…
3. Foodzie team devours whole package of passion fruit marshmallows in record speed.
4. Foodzie looks for an excuse to eat more marshmallows…Springtime, Easter, Peeps! All natural, handmade Peeps!
5. Phone call “Nina can you sell your marshmallows by the slab so we can make our own Peeps?” Nina: “Sure, why not!”
6. Nina makes a trip up to Northern California to visit friends and pops into Foodzie HQ in San Francisco to test out making peeps with cookie cutters and marshmallow slabs.
7. We make a sorta cheesy video of peep or shall I say “chickie”-making process and forced to eat more marshmallows in the process. Shucks.
8. With a little help from a friend and a vacuum sealer, Nina figures out how to package the big slabs.
9. Nina adds the marshmallow slab to her store.
10. Daily Candy writes about Nina’s all natural Marshmallow Slabs for Chickies and saves the masses from eating artificial jet-puffed marshmallows. Hooray!
If you have a fun idea for a food product tell us, we’d love to help you sell it and spread the word!
