With Valentine's Day just around the corner, there's no better time to be sampling chocolate-covered strawberries... or chocolate-covered raspberries, mandarin slices, pears or apples for that matter! The Fancy Food office recently got a sampling of the products from Bouquet of Fruits, a Fresno, California-based company with deep familial roots (pun intended) in farming. In 1987 Steve Paul and his wife Gina took the idea one step further and began to offer fruit baskets, sharing the fresh fruit of Fresno with the rest of the world. These highly perishable products didn't stick around long enough to perish. The strawberries, which were fresh, juicy, perfectly ripe four-bite berries, were enrobed in white, milk or dark chocolate and drizzled with pink (white) chocolate, coated with coconut, accented with almonds or covered in chocolate chips (chocolate-on-chocolate-on-strawberry -- mmmmm...).
As I was coming down from my chocolate-on-chocolate-on-strawberry-induced euphoria, it occurred to me to worry about the brief lifespan of such fresh fruit in regards to our retailing readers (man, I'm just full of alliteration today...) I asked Cory Colligan, directer of sales and marketing, about a wholesale/retail program, and found that the company does sell wholesale to retailers, and they do fulfillment and drop-shipping as well. In fact, the company has worked with such online giants as 1800flowers, costco.com, Red Envelope and Macys.com but is looking to connect with more independent, small-scale gourmet retailers.
In order to facilitate partnerships with smaller retailers, the company is in the process of creating a drop-ship network. Stay tuned for more info to come. In the meantime, check out the other fantastic chocolate creations from Bouquet of Fruits at www.bouquetoffruits.com.
|