New holiday must-haves plus old favorites lead to incremental sales
Los Alamitos, CA – (September 2018) – Consumers are craving new tastes and flavors at this year’s holiday table. In fact, according to Wakefield Consulting, 59 percent of holiday hosts are looking to serve something new at Thanksgiving this year.
“Now more than ever, consumers are interested in sharing new holiday recipes with their family and friends,” said Alex Jackson Berkley, assistant sales manager at Frieda’s Specialty Produce. “They’re looking to try new holiday food experiences, without losing sight of their favorite classic dishes.”
Even Berkley plans to update her family’s menu this year. “At our house, we’re planning to serve something new, Stokes Purple® sweet potato pie, an updated version of a beloved tradition. And, of course, it would not be Thanksgiving without our traditional honey-roasted rainbow carrots.”
With 69 percent of hosts planning to buy their holiday produce from their standard chain grocery stores and 81 percent of them looking to purchase additional items outside of their lists, we expect an overall increase in consumer spending for the holidays. So make sure your holiday resets are stocked and ready with items by mid-October because today’s host is planning early and comfortable experimenting in the kitchen.
Call your Frieda’s account manager today to pre-book your holiday produce essentials.
About Frieda’s Inc.
Frieda’s Specialty Produce has been inspiring new food experiences for friends, families, and food lovers everywhere since 1962. From kiwifruit to dragon fruit and from Stokes Purple® sweet potatoes to habanero peppers, Frieda’s has introduced more than 200 unique fruits and vegetables to the U.S. marketplace. Founded by produce industry trailblazer Dr. Frieda Rapoport Caplan, subject of the 2015 documentary “Fear No Fruit,” the family company is owned and operated by Frieda’s daughters, Karen Caplan and Jackie Caplan Wiggins, in Orange County, California. Find Frieda’s on Facebook, @FriedasProduce, and Friedas.com. Inspire. Taste. Love.
Though I wasn’t able to watch Tiger Woods surprise the whole world by winning his 80th championship in Atlanta, the lessons from his journey have not been lost on me.
Tiger started young, learning to golf at the Cypress, California, golf course, which is only 50 yards from my office building. To say Tiger was a child prodigy would be an understatement.
From a young age, he became an athletic sensation and then he became overconfident, cocky, and eventually hit a brick wall.
I am a firm believer that what’s happening in your life can manifest itself in your body. So, if you’re thinking a lot, you might get a headache. If you are feeling a lot of pressure at work, you might start to have poor posture and “feel the weight of the world on your shoulders.”
So, I wonder if the troubles that Tiger had in his personal life manifested in his physical maladies.
After reading about his win on Sunday, I surmised these lessons:
When you want to accomplish a goal, the most effective way to achieve it is through laser focus. Professional athletes like Tiger practice every day, at least eight hours a day, and have coaches to advise them (even when they are champions). Practice makes permanent.
Don’t be overly confident to the point of arrogance. Winning easily doesn’t guarantee future success. Don’t assume your current success will continue forever. Being humble is a great attribute.
Your professional success does not mean you automatically will have success in your personal life. It’s imperative to give the same attention to your personal life as you do to your professional life. (Many of us stumble in our personal lives simply because we don’t put the same type of energy and hard work into it.)
Sometimes you must hit rock bottom before things turn around. Really rock bottom. Think of the personal and physical pain that Tiger suffered. Not to mention the public scrutiny and embarrassment. Most of us don’t have our lives played out and examined like Hollywood stars or athletes do. But we can hit rock bottom, just the same.
When a goal or accomplishment is critically important to you, even after you’ve hit rock bottom, go back to No. 1 above.
Whether or not you play golf, have a lucky shirt color, or have had a physical or mental brick wall you’ve come up against, there are always lessons to be learned from other people’s experiences.
I took up golf about 18 months ago and I wrote about it in May and November of last year. I never appreciated that the game was not really played on grass. It is played in your head. And it really makes you think.
Karen
Prepare your produce department for shoppers seeking stranger things
Los Alamitos, CA – (September 2018) – Excite shoppers in the produce department with an offering of “Spooky Foods” to bring more fruits and vegetables to this sugary treat-filled holiday. Traditional fall pumpkins and squash with a Spooky Foods destination display will inspire shoppers to take home some nutritious treats that are also fun for kids to play with and try!
“Halloween is the perfect time to showcase the weirdest tropical fruits and specialty vegetables that you offer,” says Alex Jackson Berkley, assistant sales manager of Frieda’s. “Shoppers will be picking up their Halloween essentials during their regular shopping trip, so take advantage of their time in the produce department and build Halloween sales.”
“Build out your Spooky Foods displays with eye-catching items like Jackfruit and Kiwano, and keep shoppers exploring the display with Rambutan, Buddha’s Hand, Fresh Ghost Peppers, and Dragon Fruit,” added Berkley. “Why should the center aisles have all the Halloween fun?”
Call your Frieda’s account manager today to help you pre-book your Spooky Foods essentials.
About Frieda’s Inc.
Frieda’s Specialty Produce has been inspiring new food experiences for friends, families, and food lovers everywhere since 1962. From kiwifruit to dragon fruit and from Stokes Purple® sweet potatoes to habanero peppers, Frieda’s has introduced more than 200 unique fruits and vegetables to the U.S. marketplace. Founded by produce industry trailblazer Dr. Frieda Rapoport Caplan, subject of the 2015 documentary “Fear No Fruit,” the family company is owned and operated by Frieda’s daughters, Karen Caplan and Jackie Caplan Wiggins, in Orange County, California. Find Frieda’s on Facebook, @FriedasProduce, and Friedas.com. Inspire. Taste. Love.
Recently I met Dan Buettner, the New York Times best-selling author and National Geographic writer of “The Blue Zones of Happiness.” I have since become fascinated with his discoveries for living a longer life.
In case you aren’t aware, blue zones are regions of the world where people live much longer than average (usually to over 100). The term first appeared in the November 2015 National Geographic magazine cover story “The Secrets of a Long Life,” which Dan wrote. He identified five geographic areas around the world where people live statistically longer: Okinawa (Japan); Sardinia (Italy); Nicoya (Costa Rica); Icaria (Greece); and among the Seventh-day Adventists in Loma Linda, California. Based on empirical data and firsthand observations, Dan offers an explanation as to why these populations live healthier and longer lives.
I became aware of the “Blue Zones” book when we started marketing and selling our Stokes Purple® Sweet Potatoes in 2011. We started getting an overwhelming number of emails and phone calls from consumers who were going crazy to find our purple sweet potatoes. They told us that purple sweet potatoes were highlighted in Buettner’s book as the food people in Okinawa ate that helped them to live significantly longer lives.
Well, my dream came true when I met Dan in July. He spoke at the Organic Produce Summit in Monterey, California. I snuck my way into the green room before his presentation to say hello and tell him the impact his book had had on our company.
Then I heard him speak. He started his presentation by asking the audience to answer “yes” or “no” to the following nine questions. At the end, he asked us how many we answered “yes” to:
Do we do some sort of exercise daily? It could be as simple as a neighborhood walk. The world’s longest-lived people are constantly moving. Every trip is an excuse for a walk. For example, taking the stairs vs. the elevator.
Do you have a sense of purpose? Do you live for something beyond work? For example, do you have a purpose for waking up in the morning?
Do you have a way to de-stress? The long-lived people have routines to shed stress. It might be meditation or prayer. Or napping.
Do you eat until you are “almost full?” Okinawans remind themselves to stop eating when their stomachs are 80 percent full.
Is your diet mostly plant-based? Many centenarian diets are mostly plant-based with beans as the cornerstone of the diet and relatively small amounts of meat.
Do you drink wine regularly? People in all blue zones drink alcohol moderately—one to two glasses a day with friends or food. Moderate drinkers tend to outlive non-drinkers.
Who is in your tribe? Social circles support healthy behaviors. Okinawans create groups of five friends (“moais”), who are committed to each other for life. He showed photos of them sitting around a table, catching up with each other nightly.
Do you have a faith? Not only having a faith, but attending a faith-based service four times a month, adds four to 14 years to life expectancy. The choice of denomination doesn’t seem to matter.
How is your family relationship? Centenarians tend to put their families first, investing time and love in them. And they take care of their elders.
As Dan asked us all to raise our hands, many of us commented to each other about how we should rethink or modify some of our current behaviors.
I recalled that earlier this year I had changed my diet to mostly plant-based, using seafood and egg whites as my protein source (no red meat or poultry). I started a daily meditation practice a year ago and added hot yoga to my weekly routine this year. I recently reconnected with many of my close friends and make a concerted effort to allow time for my family every week. (I am quite lucky that I work with both my daughters, who indulge me with a morning hug each day.)
If you are curious about what it would take to modify your lifestyle (diet, exercise, etc.) to live a longer life (of over 100 years), National Geographic just issued a special publication entitled, “Blue Zones: The Science of Living Longer.” Part 1 is information on the five blue zones around the world and what foods and lifestyles are enjoyed there. Part 2 is how to create your own blue zones. Part 3 is about cooking in the blue zone with recipes and shopping lists. I purchased my items at my local grocery store.
I don’t know about you, but every year around my birthday, I think about my own mortality. This also makes me reflect on the lifestyle changes my parents made as they got older, and, for my mom, as she continues to get older. When I was young, like most people, I was more reckless and felt immortal.
Now I’m mindful of the choices I make and what impact they may have on my mortality: better-for-you food choices; more rest; more exercise; more enjoyment; less stress; smaller meals; sipping red wine; and enjoying long conversations with friends and family.
I plan to continue to make mindful choices to help create my own blue zone. Perhaps you will, too.
Karen
This week, Jewish people around the world are celebrating the new year, Rosh Hashana. It’s a big food holiday, and even bigger for the fruit business, as I learned a few years ago. Most observant Jews, especially in the New York metro area and other big cities, strive to serve a new fruit on their holiday tables in the new year. It’s actually a biblical tradition.
Think about it. A new fruit? Yes, many of the kosher grocery stores in Brooklyn call us every year, trying to top each other with the selection of exotic fruits they feature during the two weeks before Rosh Hashana. It’s kind of fun. Two years ago, even the Wall Street Journal wrote about this phenomenon.
[youtube=https://youtu.be/IkRmJHTOVsI]
So, while most of us might think about serving peaches, grapes, berries, apples, or watermelon for a fruit dessert, observant Jews are looking for persimmons, dragon fruit, feijoas (aka pineapple guavas), and starfruit. And if they really want to go all out, they might share a jackfruit with the whole family—a jackfruit party!
For virtually all Jewish holidays, food is at the heart of the celebration. For Hanukkah, we serve fried foods like latkes (fried potato pancakes) and fried jelly donuts. For Passover, freshly grated horseradish is a must-have for the traditional Seder dinner.
But in just a week is the one holiday when we don’t eat. As a matter of fact, we fast from sundown the night before until sundown the next day, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. On Yom Kippur, you literally atone for your sins. I am not always good at fasting for Yom Kippur, but when I do, it allows me to be reminded of those who have suffered without food or other conveniences.
What I find most interesting about this time of year is the 10 days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. That 10-day period is one of prayer, self-examination, and repentance. We make amends with anyone with whom we have a disagreement. During this time, I consciously reach out to friends I may have had issues with. Maybe a family member that made me mad. Or have dinner with a long-lost friend. Sometimes I choose to email or text them to reach out. And just touching base is all it takes.
Even if you aren’t Jewish, have you tried reaching out to people you no longer talk to?
Wouldn’t it be kind to consciously think about those you don’t have the best relationships with and just reach out? Say hi. Meet for a glass of wine. Or have a phone conversation. Tell them something you like about them or what made you think of them.
So, on Sunday night for Rosh Hashana, I went to temple for the first time in a while. It was good to see so many old friends. The service is short, with many beautiful songs sung, the same songs that are sung at every Jewish synagogue around the world celebrating Rosh Hashana.
And when the service was over, as we exited, large platters of sliced apples with bowls of honey greeted us. Apples and honey. Did you know that is a tradition, too? Yes, for Jews whose families came from Eastern Europe, dipping a slice of apple in honey expresses hope for a sweet and fruitful year.
And I think all of us want that. A sweet and fruitful year.
So, to all my Jewish and non-Jewish friends, I wish you a l’shana tova (a good year) or l’shana tova u’metukah (a good and sweet year).
Karen
Shoppers’ favorite purple sweet potatoes are the new holiday table must-have
Los Alamitos, CA – (September 2018) – Purple is the new orange…at the holiday table! The new crop of shoppers’ favorite Stokes Purple® sweet potatoes will start shipping in September, just in time for holiday ad planning and pre-book.
Exclusively distributed by Frieda’s Specialty Produce, Stokes Purple® sweet potatoes stand apart from other purple sweet potatoes with their vibrant color, smooth texture, balanced sweetness, and more antioxidants than blueberries. And shoppers love them.
“Our Stokes Purple® sweet potatoes sales volume has gone up nearly 30 percent since 2017, and there is no sign of slowing down,” said Alex Jackson Berkley, assistant sales manager at Frieda’s. “According to Google Trends, ‘purple sweet potato’ search has spiked every year around Thanksgiving for the past five years, and we’re expecting the spike to be even bigger this year.
“Today’s shoppers are literally looking for visually pleasing foods to serve at the holidays. They are more comfortable in the kitchen than ever before and not afraid to put a new twist on their traditional holiday menus with sweet potato pies and other Instagram-worthy dishes for their friends and family,” said Berkley.
Stokes Purple® Sweet Potato Pie. Click for recipe.
Stokes Purple® sweet potatoes are not only gorgeous on the plate, they look wonderful in ads. “Purple stands out from the sea of orange and brown for the fall, and pops against the red and green of the holiday season.”
Frieda’s Specialty Produce has been inspiring new food experiences for friends, families, and food lovers everywhere since 1962. From kiwifruit to dragon fruit and from Stokes Purple® sweet potatoes to habanero peppers, Frieda’s has introduced more than 200 unique fruits and vegetables to the U.S. marketplace. Founded by produce industry trailblazer Dr. Frieda Rapoport Caplan, subject of the 2015 documentary “Fear No Fruit,” the family company is owned and operated by Frieda’s daughters, Karen Caplan and Jackie Caplan Wiggins, in Orange County, California. Find Frieda’s on Facebook, @FriedasProduce, and Friedas.com. Inspire. Taste. Love.
