Whodunnit?

Selling my chocolates face to face with my customers is so unbelievably rewarding and invaluable to me. If you are a small, niche producer and like me you think, obsess, dream and even have nightmares about your product there's nothing quite like receiving an instantaneous thumbs-up for your efforts.

Showing your product at food festivals, fairs and farmers markets is a brilliant barometer of how good your product is. There's nowhere to hide and nothing to separate you from the customer comments and facial expressions other than your flimsy stall so you better be ready and be as confident as you possibly can be with your product before you brave the unapologetically opinionated masses.



About 10 years ago I became a devotee of the organic movement and a little later became concerned with food production, provenance and trading ethics and I've talked a little bit before about my experiences with sourcing fine, organic and ethical chocolate; that I found almost impossible. I digress. While I'm sensible enough to know that not everyone shares my view and that in fact I'm in a minority, my extensive consumer research all but proved that a niche/gourmet food buyer (the kind of person who enthuses about food and attends farmers markets and food events across the country in search of quality or simply for something different) would absolutely be concerned with pesticides, trading ethics, E numbers etc. Not so. Not a single customer has asked me if my chocolate is ethical, organic, natural, whether it contains E numbers and so on and I have to say I'm surprised. When I'm researching and sourcing ingredients or conceptualising a new flavour I'm often so preoccupied with the aforementioned that it's small wonder I ever produce a solitary truffle.



So, reporting back from ground level I can tell you unequivocally that what the customer really wants to know is if you have made the product yourself. "Are you the producer?" and "Did you make this yourself?" are the two most common questions I'm asked. You could put this down to geography or demographics of course and maybe time will tell a different story but all of this has really made me think. Media and marketing groups muddy our perceptions more than I ever thought possible. There is still nothing and no better way of measuring your product than good old fashioned face to face customer contact and I hope that will continue to thrive.

For more information on excellent farmers markets and food festivals in your area please do not hesitate to contact me. You can meet me and sample my chocolates at the Speciality & Gourmet Food Market in Nottingham and various places around the country, all year round. For more information, regular updates and exclusive chocolate offers visit

http://www.boutiquearomatique.com/market/

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Love, Shelly