Posts Tagged ‘organic food’

Fancifull and the Natural Products Expo

At Fancifull we’ve long been advocates of natural and organic food. They taste better and are better for you and the planet. Why wouldn’t we want to sell that? It is a matter of following our passion – after 24 years of running Fancifull we are actually more excited than ever about the direction we are going. We get to support the smaller artisan producers and introduce our clients to a world of good. Delicious isn’t it?

Trade shows help us locate sources for good food – we get to sample it and often get to talk to the producers themselves. The Natural Products Show West, which takes place this weekend in Anaheim, has become a very important resource for Fancifull. I remember when this show started. It was tiny. I think it took up only a few of the banquet halls at the Disneyland Hotel, but I found some interesting things. Smaller shows often are more affordable for the smaller businesses and start ups, which is why I attend them. A great opportunity to discover something new. The show has since grown considerably and is now busting at the seams, taking up the whole Anaheim Convention Center.

You can imagine our delight when we got a call from Danielle at New Hope Media, the company that puts on the Natural Products Expo. She needed over thirty gift baskets for people associated with the show. She saw our website and realized we carry many products from the shows exhibitors which of course made us the perfect company to use.
It was particularly validating because we’ve been working on our Healthy Gourmet and other special diet baskets so anyone can enjoy them, no matter the discipline they follow.

Right now, our van is full of gourmet gift baskets heading to Anaheim to delight attendees as they enter their hotel rooms. They’ll be munching on organic Falafel Chips, Bean Dip, Nuts, Fresh Fruit, Red Wine, Dark Chocolate – most of it is organic, gluten free, vegan and all of it is absolutely delicious.

I will be heading down there in a few days to sample foods, query vendors, and locate new goodies for Fancifull. The Natural Products show isn’t just about food. I have found organic baby clothes for our Baby Gift Baskets as well as all natural bath items for our Pamper and Spa Baskets. It is an exciting time in this industry right now. More people are joining the party when it comes to handcrafted food and organic products – and let’s face it, the more the merrier!

Gift Baskets for Specialized Diets

There is an growing emphasis in this country on “special” diets:
Gluten Free, Vegan, Kosher, Low Fat, Eastern, Western and so on and so on. It can get crazy sometimes trying to sort it all out. Because we are in the business of giving food as a gift, sort it out we must.
But first it has to be really good food, something that anyone would like no matter what diet they follow. We wouldn’t be interested in anything less for our gift baskets. If it’s not wholesome and delicious, why bother? It wouldn’t be a Fancifull basket.

Fortunately we are finding many fine things that also will fit into a specialized basket when necessary. For example, we have had terrific Kosher foods at Fancifull since our inception. We carried these foods because they were great and would work with all our gourmet gift baskets, not just the Kosher ones. Then again, one of our best selling baskets, Fine Food and Fresh Fruit, just happens to be a Kosher gift basket as well.
Same with Gluten Free and Vegan Baskets: our White Bean Spread matched with the Organic Hummus Chips in our Healthy Gourmet Gift Basket is a delicious snack whatever your regimen. Eating well prepared, good food is the key to good nutrition for everyone. And if some has special requirements we can make a Fancifull basket for them that meets their needs.

Vella Cheese

On a trip to Sonoma last year, we made a point of visiting Vella Cheese Headquarters. This aged Sonoma Jack took us by surprise the first time we had it while dining at the Hollywood Bowl. I thought it was an Italian Pecorino, and with good reason, as I later found out. When Tom Vella started his own dairy in Sonoma in 1931, the Italian families of Northern California wanted a hard grating cheese, like their sheep’s milk pecorino or Parmesan of home. The Vella cheese company responded by carefully aging and nurturing their jack cheese, resulting in a delicious cheese and enduring popularity. We feature it in our Handmade Cheese Gift Basket, which showcases artisan California Cheese.

The success of Vella Cheese lies in the personal attention each day’s production is given. Quality starts in the pasture. Every cow is not the same. Every day is not sunny; every blade of grass is not green and lush. But, if you insist on the finest breeding of herds, the best feeds, the greatest care in milking and transporting the top grade milk, you have the best possible natural raw material, and you have set the stage for super cheese. One big advantage to us at Fancifull is that Vella cheese, due to its low moisture content, can stay unrefrigerated for a few days. This enables us to ship a first rate cheese economically in our Gourmet Gift Baskets with FedEx Ground or 3Day services with no compromise in quality. We also feature it in many of our Organic Gift Baskets as well as our Green Gifting Line because Vella adheres to strict principles which make it a sustainable product. Among those are:
They are the first solar powered business in Sonoma.
All the milk in their cheese comes from local Sonoma Happy Cows.
Their whey is biodynamically recycled by the dairy and local wineries.
Only natural ingredients go into their cheese and coatings.
The result is that we have an artisan product sustainably made, which tastes fantastic – sounds like a Fancifull product to me!