Specialty Food Magazine

JAN-FEB 2013

Specialty Food Magazine is the leading publication for retailers, manufacturers and foodservice professionals in the specialty food trade. It provides news, trends and business-building insights that help readers keep their businesses competitive.

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Finding Shoppers in Restaurant Patrons "My education is in art—zero culinary school training. But I traveled a lot, and in my travels I discovered amazing foods," says the chef who, on top of the pickle business, now owns three restaurants. When Boat Street Cafe's owner wanted to sell, Erickson jumped at the opportunity. Having worked at the restaurant in roles from server to lead line cook, the young chef had just begun experimenting with pickling, and found it a great way to preserve foods that couldn't be kept year-round, a tactic she still employs today. "All our restaurant produce is local," she says. "We just did 40 pounds of chanterelles that are in season [in the fall]. By preserving them, we can have them through February." Though she can't specifically recall the first thing she pickled, Erickson does remember the trial and error. "We've had tons of duds. Apples blow up. All sorts of curious things happen," she explains. "The process is kind of aggressive, so some fruits don't work." But those that did worked so well that customers wanted to buy them to take home. "We realized there wasn't much like that in the market, so it was an opportunity to make something unique in the specialty food world." Making Key Choices By the time Erickson was ready to move forward with the business, she had experimented enough to know which varieties she wanted to sell, how she wanted to package them and which ingredients would provide the quality she demanded. Ingredients. Erickson started with pickled plums, figs, raisins and red onions. As a chef, she already had strong connections in the food world. "We had all our food connections in place from the restaurant, so that made it much easier," she says. All dried fruits came from a California farm. "We tried to get plums from eastern Washington [to source locally], but they didn't have the bulk we needed." That's still the case for Boat Street Pickles today. "Our volume has increased dramatically, so we buy more bulk and now work directly with the farmers," Erickson says. "It's great to have a relationship with the person who grows the food." Influenced by French aesthetic, Erickson envisioned an old French country look: a slightly Provencal, almost handmade label. "I wanted them to be unique and beautiful. I didn't want them to look like other things in the market— not so shiny and bright," she says. Packaging. Influenced by French aesthetic, Erickson envisioned an old French country look: a slightly Provencal, almost handmade label. "I have a friend who designed the labels for us. I wanted them to be unique and beautiful," she says. "I didn't want them to look like other things in the market—not so shiny and bright." The label has changed many times in the past four years to include different information in various markets, such as adding a bar code to get into bigger stores on the East Coast, as well as adding a nutrition label. One of the company's early missteps was printing a large volume of labels without completely understanding what needed to be on them, and being stuck with extra labels when they discontinued a product. Conveying the vision for the packaging while accommodating practicalities proved challenging. "How can we hold to our aesthetic and remain true to our original ideas but make necessary changes as we expand?" she recalls wondering. Pricing. Erickson had some help from a friend she hired as a consultant who had experience in the specialty food business. "The grocery business was so different than anything I knew," she says. The consultant helped Erickson price her pickles by factoring in the costs, from labor to storage. The average suggested retail price is around $9, though it can run higher on the East Coast. Erickson notes that because they are so different from other pickles she doesn't compare their prices to other pickled products. "On other special condiment items, we are right in line," she says. Going National from the Get-Go BRAND TIME LINE 2008: Launches business from Boat Street Cafe's 100-squarefoot kitchen; launches website same year; Zingerman's Delicatessen begins selling 2009: Joins NASFT; Murray's Cheese Shop begins selling; exhibits at the Winter Fancy Food Show 2012: Becomes sofi Silver Finalist for Outstanding Condiment with Pickled Figs; finds co-packer Boat Street Pickles effectively hit the ground running when it was ready for store shelves, as distribution offers came naturally— and quickly. "We started nationally," remembers Erickson, whose very first retail client was DeLaurenti Specialty Food & Wine in Seattle. "The consultant I hired knew Zingerman's. He took the pickles with him and Ari Weinzweig picked them up for his catalog (raisin and plums). That was the best thing that could have happened." In 2008 the products arrived at Zingerman's Delicatessen, and in 2009 they were picked up by Murray's Cheese Shop in New York. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013 113

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