Over the past few days it has been exceptionally hectic in our household. We just wrapped up the Junior League’s Holiday Market held at The Woodlands Waterway Marriott. This was our first time participating in this holiday shopping event and it went very well. Our booth was extremely busy the entire event mostly due to our hot chocolate and marshmallow samplings. During the event we shared the following products with interested customers:
- Omanhene’s Hot Cocoa Mix from
- The King’s Cupboard Dark Chocolate Chunk Hot Chocolate from the
- Dufflet Extra Brut +
- Dufflet Mocha + Espresso from
- Ghirardelli’s Peppermint Hot Chocolate Mix from the
- Mocafe Azteca D’Oro 1519 Mexican Spiced Ground Chocolate from the
- Vanilla Bean Marshmallows from Plush Puffs from the
- Dagoba Organic Xocoltal Hot Chocolate from the
Mom and Dad flew out as reinforcements for the 4-day event. This was my Dad’s first time setting up, viewing and participating in a tradeshow. He found it very chaotic and a lot of hard work. Previously, when my mom would return home from these events, he really never understood why she was so tired. Now with his first hand experience at tradeshows, he definitely understands the madness.
It was such a pleasure to see the faces of customers trying these hot chocolates for the first time. About 99% of them have never tried a true hot chocolate before. Especially after I would engage them about the product and they would ask “can you make it with water”. I just wanted to cringe when I hear that remark! The hot chocolates at the tasting booth are not made with “tri’s & di’s” or powdered milk. All of the samples were made with 2% milk and were extremely tasty. If they wished to tr
y a milk alterative, my mother would talk to the customer as she isn’t milk drinking person. Personally, as I have said before…”I am all about the cow.”
As the show wrapped up and we ran out of the King’s Cupboard Dark Chocolate Chunk, Mocafe Mexican Spice and Dagoba hot chocolate mixes. I even ran out of the Sugar Free Dark Chocolate Chunk! Normally, I do not bring sugar free mixes to the show since they never sell. However, we had a large contingency of people watching their sugar intake or had diabetes.
Initially, I planned on only sampling the Omanhene, Ghirardelli and The King’s Cupboard.
However, I became inspired by the reaction to the hot chocolates began sampling and opening up cans of Dufflet and Dagoba. The visitors have never tried anything remotely close to the sample selections and were extremely surprised at the kick of Dagoba’s Xocoltal chilies and cinnamon blend and Mocafe’s mildly spicy recipe. However, overwhelmingly the winner of the event was Omanhene’s Hot Cocoa Mix due to the chocolately flavor, simple recipe and perfect price point (6.50).
As we broke down the booth Sunday night, the chair of the Junior League came by my booth to re-introduce herself and the chair for the next year’s event. This year’s chair asked how the show was for me and noticed how consistently busy I was throughout the event. This was an honor since it was my first time being selected to participate in the event. Some of these shows are extremely difficult to get into. Hopefully, this means good news for 2009?
So, it get ready
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