Christmas is Coming (Halloween too)

We start selling Halloween / Fall / Christmas / Chanukah in mid May. Keep an eye out for more information or call your sales rep or our office for an appointment.

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Funky Chunky

Great news about Funky Chunky...

FunkyChunky is in the December issue of Redbook Magazine on page 184.

Please let us know how your customers respond...

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Drinking Chocolates - Schokinag

The idea behind drinking chocolates is this - its like drinking a chocolate bar. It is rich, think, and delightful. Its not the kind of thing you would drink a huge mug of in front of the TV or at a coffee bar. It is far to rich for that. To prepare it, you warm milk and put the drinking chocolate in the milk. Drinking chocolate is essentially a shaved chocolate bar and therefore it is heat sensitive in the same way that a chocolate bar is.

In a word, drinking chocolate is much closer to a fine chocolate bar, than to cocoa that you would use in chocolate milk.

Schokinag drinking chocolate is one of our strongest sellers. Though we do well with drinking chocolate from Santander (available in the fall), the E. Guittard, Dagoba, Scharffenberger, and others, Schokinag is the fastest mover and the one with the most flavors. Just so you know, Schokinag is one of the worlds top chocolate manufacturers, in the states, they do not have a retail presence, but in Europe they are huge.

A bit about the drinking chocolate, from their sales material...
Our European Drinking Chocolate line was created in the style of traditional European chocolate drinks of the 17th century. Made with tiny bits of real chocolate and prepared with milk rather than water, your customers will wonder why they ever drank instant hot chocolate.

This line sells best for us from September through February, but it is available year round. Later, I will post a bit about each of the flavors.


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Flavored Candy Corn

The newest and host rage in the Mellowcream world, is flavored candy corn. For those of you unfamiliar with Mellowcream or Mellowcreme as some spell it, Mellowcream is a distinct type of candy. Most people are familiar with it as candy corn, though it can come in all shapes, sizes, and colors.

This year, the color/flavor combinations are stepped up a bit. We have lots of flavors for our customers and the colors to match. This product is from Zachary and the price is right. Click below for pictures and call us for more information.

For Halloween
05021 ZACHARY CARAMEL APPLE CANDY CORN
05027 ZACHARY CARAMEL CANDY CORN

For Christmas
05869 ZACHARY CANDY CORN - CANDY CANE
05871 ZACHARY CANDY CORN – EGGNOG
05870 ZACHARY CANDY CORN – GINGERBREAD

Give it a shot, its something new and exciting!

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Great Ideas for 2008

Howdy folks! Sorry it has been so long since we posted last. Our New Year’s resolution is do post more. We hope this blog can be a valuable resource to you. What follows in the next few weeks will be some new and hot ideas for 2008. We have previously posted about some neat gummy and mallow items. We just got some additional items in recently that were too fun to miss out on for the blog. They are bulk items. Details are below. If you want to see a picture, click on the item number.

1013487 Gummi Chickenfeet / 5lb.
1015494 Gummi Filled Strawberries /2.2lb.
1019045 Gummi Filled Turtles /2.2lb.
1006608 Gummi Watermelon Slices /5lb.

Of coruse, we cannot forget to mention the chocolate covered gummi bears, always a best seller.

K164 Kopper’s Choc Covered Gummi Bears /8lb.
K457 Kopper’s Choc Covered Gummi Polar Bears White /8lbs.

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Everyday Christmas Ideas, Part 2

Lets talk a bit more about some every day items that go particularly well for Christmas, the Fall Season, and Gifting. Today, we will talk about 3 separate categories...

1) Van Lys
Van Lys is a belgian truffle, dusted in cocoa powder. This is a fantastic item. The price is very good and the markup that most of our customers get is among the best of any gift item. There are 5 flavors:

08209	VAN LYS TRUFFLE BALLOTIN-COFFEE	20/7oz
08310	VAN LYS TRUFFLE BALLOTIN-COGNAC	20/7oz
08109	VAN LYS TRUFFLE BALLOTIN-HAZELNUT	20/7oz
08009	VAN LYS TRUFFLE BALLOTIN-NATURE ORIG	20/7oz
08409	VAN LYS TRUFFLE BALLOTIN-ORANGE	20/7oz

2) Make Your Own Mix
Some of our customers make their own mixes of everyday product to be a holiday product. This works with the colors of any holiday. Favorite candies to mix into holiday colors are Jelly Belly, M&M Colorworks, Ghiradelli Squares, and Lindor Balls.

Think red and green lindor balls for Christmas or Orange and Black M&Ms for Halloween, Ghiradelli Squares mint and dark (green and red) for Christmas, Green, Yellow, and Purple Jelly Bellies for Mardi Gras, etc. You get the idea.

3) Bags and Containers
Redstone has lots of different containers and bags for each season and for every day. Where we use customer orders to purchase candy, we usually buy way ahead for bags and containers so that we can meet last minute needs. The idea is to take a cute bag or container and fill it with nice, but inexpensive product to make it a nice gift. For example, a clear bag with gold stripes filled with Red and Green Jordan Almonds is a nice Christmas gift. As is a Green and Red bag filled with white chocolate pretzel balls. I could go on and on, but if you use your imagination, your options are limitless.

Another hint - if you use every day product or product you already have, you can try a small number of different bags to see how customers react. For gift baskets, customer reaction is sometimes secondary to price or look and you can also play around with several options.

Good luck with this and please tell us what you tried and how it went.


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Great Everyday Christmas Ideas

Certain items are seasonal, like Christmas Wreaths and Turkeys, Pumpkins and Red Hearts. However, some items sell very well, but aren't obvious Christmas items. These are all strong sellers, but volume really spikes during the Christmas holiday season. Some examples are below. I hope to do a few more posts later that will give additional examples. Please comment about what works for you and your stores.

Great Christmas Bulk Ideas
Marich Bing Cherries 956M
Marich Ice Creams 748M
Redstone Pecans - Milk 1010C
Redstone Pecans - Dark 1010D

Of course, any chocolate covered nut works fantastic for the holidays, as well.


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