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** for an exciting announcement from Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread **  Don’t go anywhere – our next blog update will be this coming Friday….

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I don’t write too much about the technology side of the business, but operating on a shoestring budget requires self-

troubleshooting.  The shopping cart system I use is called ‘Zen-Cart,” a free open source shopping cart that allows customers to order Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread online.  One of the features of my web host is that whenever Zen Cart upgrades their software, all I have to do is click a button and my site www.auntermas.com gets upgraded to the latest version of Zen Cart.  But that’s where my trouble began last week.  I was following a typical one click upgrade for Zen Cart through my web host when things went haywire.  After the upgrade was completed, all of the information on auntermas.com defaulted back to the original sample text.  So if you clicked on “Contact”  what you would see is a piece of text that said “Sample text…etc.  I had to manually go in to every page of my site and recreate the text, even re-link the mandel bread image.  But still I had troubles.  When I would go to auntermas.com I would get this message in a big red banner at the top of the page:

Your database appears to need patching to a higher level

I googled how to fix this error and got some really complicated techie explanations.  Took about three days to figure it all out.

For you do it yourself Zen Cart folks, here’s how I fixed it.

Go to zencart and download zen cart to your desktop

In the downloaded zen cart folder you’ll find a folder called zc_install

Log in to your web host ( I use bluehost) and upload the zc_install folder to your site

In your web browser type in www.your web site.com/zc_install

Follow the instructions to upgrade your database

All fixed!

Don’t forget to back to your web host and delete the zc_install folder from your site or you’ll get a warning message.

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What you’re looking at is the first baking test of Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread from our co-pack manufacturing facility.

This is the first time anyone outside the family has had access to the recipe for Aunt Erma’s Mandel and baked a batch without our supervision.  The results are encouraging.  There are some size and flavor issues.  In their test, the mandel bread pieces were larger and thicker, giving the finished product a ‘cakey’ sort of texture, and there is a distinct after taste.  Not that it’s a bad taste, just different.  Right now were trying to determine where the flavor deviation comes from.  Oven temp too high?  Different brand of vanilla?  or maybe there was some other product in their oven at the time and there was some flavor migration.  The good news is that for a first whack at it it was pretty close, with some minor adjustments we should be ready to take a swing at a big push for the jewish holidays.

I also wanted to mention my friend Souheil at Ms. Cotti in Cleveland Ohio.  Souheil makes a really great alternative to regular biscottis, a softer and tastier version in a bunch of different flavors.  I found Souheil back in 2008 when we were just starting to look for mandel bread manufacturers.  Some day, we hope to go national, and Souheils manufacturing facility could be the perfect fit for out of state mandel bread production.  Check out his products and and don’t forget to tell him you heard about Ms. Cotti from Aunt Erma.

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I can’t believe it, but after all this time we’re finally getting a baking test this week from a co-pack baker who is willing to take on Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread!

The place can produce the volume we need to handle the big push for the jewish holidays, up to 100 cases.  And they’re kosher!  Up until now, Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread has only been able to claim “100% kosher ingredients”  because the last two rental kitchens we’ve used were not kosher.  If the new place works out, we’ll be faced with new challenges.  First, we’ll need to get a sticker promoting the fact that we are kosher.  Second problem, in order to run Aunt Erma’s mandel bread thru a sealer, we needed to add a tray internally to the box.  No big deal except that we can’t fit 16 pieces in that box with the tray and the seal wrap.  So 12 is a nice round number.  Now we have to adjust the nutritional panel (another sticker) to reflect the total number of servings per package and total pieces in the box.  For those of you noticing, the online pricing has been reduced, and the packaging now says “12 pieces.”  But I feel so bad about the ridiculous cost of shipping everybody ordering a 12 piece box online actually gets a 16 piece box.

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Our tried and true Whole Foods Store still continues to do good business.  Whole Foods Beverly Hills, our first Whole Foods market has been consistently going through 1 to 2 cases a month of Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread. They just ordered another case in less than a month.  I’ll drive by tomorrow to see if they’re sold out, or just running low.

As we inch our way towards the Jewish New Year in the beginning of September, we have some evidence that Aunt Erma’s could be a year round product, in the right store.  September will be an interesting month, if sales go through the roof in Beverly Hills like they did last September, we’ll have some real numbers to show.

We’re still faced with the ‘finding a baker’ dilemma, and we haven’t had a response from our sticker shocked Whole Foods regional buyer.

Meanwhile, thanks to Michel Algazi’s fantastic LA Fine Foods Group, we were able to get some samples in front of our regional Costco last Tuesday.  As always, we are waiting for response.

But if you need some fresh baked mandel bread, truck on down to Crescent Avenue in Beverly Hills this weekend, they will be restocked with mandel bread in our new longer shelf life packaging.  (Still all natural!)

Three generations of Mandel Bread eaters.   My son Noah on the left, my father Milton in the middle and me

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Awhile back I went to a tech meet up in Santa Monica and the guests were people from Google, who convinced our crowd that inserting google ads in to blog posts was a great way to increase revenue to your blog.  I tried it for awhile but never liked the way they cheapened the way my blog looked, and the revenue wasn’t worth it.  No more google ads!  If you want to support this blog, spread the word about Aunt Erma’s – Phil

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I had trouble sleeping a few weeks back.  It was 3:30 am, and unable to fall back asleep I wandered downstairs and sat in front of the computer to surf.  We’ve been in four Whole Foods Markets since late last September, and I haven’t wanted to expand to more stores until we could find a suitable co-pack partner for Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread.  Fantasy Cookie was and still is the best fit for our product, but with business booming for Fantasy, they never found the time to do a test bake run of Aunt Erma’s.  When we toured their factory they even found a mould that looked to be about the right size to put Aunt Erma’s in their production chain.   Fantasy also did a packaging test for us which worked great.  We still have one of those sealed boxes, which almost 6 months later remains fresh in the box.  But without a sizable order, and Fantasy’s already busy schedule we were caught between a rock and a hard place.  I had stopped checking in on our stores, only those that used the DVO system were getting orders filled, otherwise I figured I’d wait until Fantasy was ready for us before requesting a regional push.  But in the early hours I started to have other ideas.  I sent an email to the regional buyer at Whole Foods Southern California.  I asked for consideration for regional coverage.  This would mean I no longer go store by store and instead deal with the regional buyer.  I already knew what the regional buyers response would be before I sent the email.  We simply didn’t have  strong enough sales for regional consideration.  And this is exactly what she said in her response at 7:45 am that morning.  But, as I pointed out in my reply to the buyer, we started at one Whole Foods Market late last September, two days before the Jewish new year.  The first day on the shelves we almost completely sold out.  From Rosh Hashana (Jewish new year) and past Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) we sold about 8 cases of Aunt Erma’s mandel bread, averaging over 1.5 cases a week at that one store.  Here is part of my reply to the Whole Foods buyer.

“So my thought was maybe we could try a special once a year thing when you guys have your Jewish holiday stuff out?  We could take back any unsold stock after the Rosh Hashana Yom Kippur window peters out.”

The buyer responded by saying that she’d like to get some samples and pricing.  I was excited that she was even going to consider the idea,  and confident that our combination of being the only branded shelf ready mandel bread that contained Whole Foods acceptable ingredients, and a great tasting product, might do the trick.  Even our wholesale pricing gives Whole Foods a greater margin than their average grocery item.  I also offered to take back any unsold stock after the Jewish holidays were over.

Which brings me to the sticker.

Back when I first tried to get in to Whole Foods Markets I made the newbie mistake of not checking carefully the list of Whole Foods unacceptable ingredients.  Turns out, Nestle Mini Morsels (in Aunt Erma’s original recipe) contain vanillin, an unacceptable ingredient.  At that point I had already printed thousands of boxes with Nestle Mini Morsels ingredients in the nutritional panel.  We switched to Wilbur chocolate drops, virtually identical in size to Nestle mini morsels but Wilbur chocolate contains vanilla, an approved Whole Foods ingredient.  And the Wilbur chips taste great!  So, I made a new nutritional label with the Wilbur chocolate drops ingredients correction and stickered over the old nutritional panel. We’ve been baking with Wilbur chips ever since.  (  btw – I have three cases of leftover Nestle mini morsels in the closet at home, enough to make chocolate chip pancakes everyday for my kids for the next 50 years.)

Little did I know what kind of impression that little sticker would have.  Noticing the sticker label, the regional buyer peeled off the sticker on her sample box of Aunt Erma’s to reveal the original nutritional label underneath.  She became suspicious of our ingredients and said so in an email.  I think the net effect is that she thought I was trying to put one over on her.

All I could do was explain why I put the sticker on the box in the first place.  I’m waiting on a response from the buyer, but it was definitely a curve ball I wasn’t expecting.  I think I need to stop sending emails at 3:00 in the morning.

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I’ve talked about my friend Jeff Cohen from The Granola Gourmet in previous posts. (see Shark Tank) and also talked Michel Algazi’s very cool food networking group the LA Fine Foods Group.  Thru The LA Fine Foods I found my food product liability and met many great food entrepreneurs like Jeff.  Anyone in the LA area looking for a fantastic food networking group should join.  It’s free.  Jeff was on ABC’s short lived show, “The Shark Tank”, he presented his product “The Granola Gourmet.”  I’ve read alot about raising Venture Capital, and the way they went about interviewing the entrepreneurs on the Shark Tank was more about television ratings than real “in the room” pitching.

Jeff’s home kitchen experiment to make a tasty low glycemic energy bar took a big leap this week as The Granola Gourmet rolls in to Vons/Pavillions and Safeway stores across the state of California!  Jeff even has a special roll out offer.  Check it out his cool offer here!

Congratulations Jeff!

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What you’re looking at is an Impulse Sealer.  These machines come in various sizes and are used to heat seal packages.  Fantasy Cookie did a version of this for us in a test for Aunt Erma’s.  We have a test package from Fantasy Cookie that was sealed over six months ago and the cookies are stable.  No mold, no moisture.  Sealing is critical for shelf life.  Up until now, our product has been  packed on food grade tissue paper.  After 6 weeks or so we have to replace stale stock.  We’re picking up an Impulse sealer this week so when we deliver to Whole Foods and other places, product will be ok on the shelves for months.

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We’ve been working to find a co-pack manufacturer to help us our little mandel bread business grow.  The challenge has been finding the right fit.  Cookie factories have minimums that are way off our target size.  Smaller factories are better, but because of the economy they are all booming.  That’s right, I said booming.  The issue is that because of the economy people are eating out less and grocery shopping more.  So manufacturers making goods for grocery stores have seen their volumes go way up, and the cost of raw materials go way down.  The result?  24/7 factories are running 24/7.  No time to stop the production line to do a mandel bread baking test.  Beverly Hills and Fairfax have re ordered, but we are on hold until things ease up in the day job to fill the orders.  Stay tuned!

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Congratulations!  You are on the shelves at Whole Foods Market.  You have reached your first goal.  The next step is to get your product in to more stores.  So here’s how this works.  Things get progressively easier, because now you have the name of a Leader and a product in a store.  You might even ask the Leader of the store carrying your product what other Whole Foods stores your product might sell well at.  Most of the Leaders are great folks, they’ll usually refer another store and that stores leader by name.  So for store number two, when you walk in ask for the stores Leader by name  (remembering they generally work very early in the morning, so 7:00 am sales calls are acceptable).  Show the Leader what you have, give him a sample and say something like ‘Eddie (Grocery Leader) over at Beverly Hills is carrying my product and he thought it might sell well here too.”  If the Leader of store two agrees to carry your product they’ll have to contact the regional office and get them to connect your product to their store so they can ‘scan the product in’.  Meaning the regional office has to make your product that is only visible in the computer of store one, visible in store two.  Make sure you get the leaders e-mail address so you can gently remind him to do this for you if nothing happens after a few days.  The magic store for you now is store number three.  If you can get a third Whole Foods Market to carry your product (usuing the same approach as store two), you can then send a request (by email) to the Whole Foods regional office to be put in the DVO system.  What is DVO?  This is Whole Foods Market database.  If you get in to the DVO system, this means your product is available in the computer region wide.  Every Whole Foods Market in your region will see your product in their computer.  This doesn’t mean every store is going to order your product.  But it does mean that selling becomes easier.  All you have to do now is tell the Leader at stores four and beyond that you are in DVO, they can easily place an order online.  If they do, you’ll get a DVO order request by e-mail, and you and your amazing product are off to the races!

Up next – Part 7 going big!

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So you met a really cool team leader, and he agreed to carry your product.  The leader sent your product information over to the regional office and they sent you some information to get you set up for direct deposit.  After a few pestering calls and emails to the team leader he finally says “Ok, you’re in our system.” and he places his first order.  So now what do you do?  First I should clarify something.  When the leader puts you ‘in the system’, you are only available in that one Whole Foods Market.  You’ll have to check in on how things are selling at the store, and see when he wants to reorder.  But I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself.  The question you might have next is.  How does the delivery work?  This is pretty easy.  Create duplicate invoices on the computer, there is no standard format, just create something that has the store name and location, and all the order details including price.  You’ll also need to come up with some kind of invoice number.  I used an abbreviation of the Whole Foods location followed by the date of the delivery.  For example, Whole Foods Market Beverly Hills order delivered on March 1st, 2010 invoice number would read WHBVH030110.  Take the order to the store, there will always be someone in the back who can sign for your order.  Give him a copy to keep (that’s how you get paid!), and keep the signed copy for your records.  Whole Foods generally will pay you in about 45 days or less by direct deposit.  Next posting, DVO and beyond!

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Ok, so you’ve got your great product samples, you’re casually dressed, it’s 7:00 am in the morning and your ready to go to your first Whole Foods Market.  First tip, always ask for the team leader.  Reason why I say this is because if the leader is not around they will refer you to an assistant leader.  Now the assistant leader may be a nice guy or girl (and most are) they do not have purchasing power.  So if you leave a sample with an assistant, odds are it will never make it to the leader for a decision.  If the team leader is not in, give a sample to the assistant (they will appreciate it), find out when the leader is working and come back with another sample for your team leader.

You  can meet the team leader anywhere in the store, don’t feel awkward about standing right in a food aisle presenting to your leader while customers are walking around.  If the leader likes your product he will ask you if you are local.  ”Yes!”  This is the magic answer.  Leaders love to support local businesses.  He will ask you how you will deliver.  ’Direct’ is the correct answer, meaning you will likely drive it yourself to the store.  ’Are you in the system?’  The leader will ask.  This is a tricky one, because if this is your first store then the only way you can get on the shelves is to have someone in the regional office put you in the system.  And the only way you can do that is to have a leader who believes in your product send it over on your behalf.  This means you have to be ready with proof of insurance, business docs, bar code, and an ingredients listing sheet that proves all of your ingredients are approved by Whole Foods Market.  The regional office will also set you up with direct deposit to get paid.  Now the first leader of your first store is going to have to do a lot of work to get you in the system.  This guy will launch your entire career at Whole Foods, no other leader will have to work as hard for you as your first leader. Every leader after that is an easier sell.  And when you’ve gotten in to three stores you can petition regional to put you in DVO.  What is DVO?  Google it now to find out, or stay tuned – Next up.  First delivery

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So unless you are a well heeled super funded food start-up you will unlikely get an audience with your regional Whole Foods market office.  There are 11 regions for Whole Foods Market across the United States.  Here is a listing of all of them. The best approach for a small start-up is the grass roots approach, which means going store to store, one by one, trying to get them to carry your product.  Now not all grocery chains allow this, in fact, most do not.  But Whole Foods is different.  They like the experience for the shopper to be slightly different at each store.  So if you’re local, you’re encouraged to go right to your store and pitch your product.  Yeah, it seems a little awkward, but this is the way to do it in the beginning.  So here are a few tips before you walk blind in to your local Whole Foods Market.

#1.  Whole Foods uses the term, ‘ Leader .’  So never go in and ask for ‘The manager,’ or the ‘The buyer’

If you are trying to sell an item that belongs in the grocery section – go to any cashier and ask for ‘The Grocery Leader.”  For bakery, “The Bakery Leader” and so on.  The are very informal at Whole Foods, so it’s cool to say ‘Hey, who’s the person I try to sell my stuff too?”

#2. Dress code .  Remember, the Grocery Leaders are regular working folks.  I find alot more common ground when I’m dressed as casual as they are, usually jeans and a t-shirt.  And, if this is your product, your baby, you should go in yourself to show it.  The Grocery Leader will respect you for that.  Save the fancy clothes and sales teams for when you are big time, when you need to present for national distribution.

#3.  Grocery Leaders work early in the morning.  The Grocery Leader that I sold Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread too works from 5:30 am to 1:30 pm.  This is good news for those of you that have a ‘day job.’  If you don’t mind getting up early, you’ll have a good shot at a face to face with a Grocery Leader before the store usually opens for business, and still have plenty of time to get to your day job.  If it’s your first time, don’t be afraid to drive up to the loading dock (usually at the back of the store) and ask for the Leader.

Coming up next.  What do I say?  What will they ask?

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This is also a good time to think about your pricing.

I used google docs to create a spreadsheet of all my costs.  I made assumptions on production.  For example, if I bake two cases of mandel bread per hour (twelve boxes per case) in the rental kitchen, and the kitchen costs twenty five dollars per hour, then I should expect about one dollar per box to pay for the kitchen rental (twenty-four boxes in one hour equals twenty-four dollars).  I used the same model for employees.  One ten dollar an hour baker costs me about forty cents per box if they are baking two cases per hour (forty cents per box times twenty four equals nine dollars and sixty cents).  For every worker I add another forty cents per box.  The cost of product liability insurance is averaged across the ten thousand boxes I was required to purchase.  I included a percentage for distribution….cardboard boxes…and of of course raw ingredients.  Then add in my profit margin to come up with a wholesale cost.  With this type of spreadsheet it is easy to figure out how to lower costs to be more efficient.  For example, the price of flour goes down if I buy a larger volume.  The eggs are cheaper at Costco than buying through the distributor.  And maybe there is a way to streamline the baking so we can bake more than two cases per hour.

Whole Foods Market likes to maintain an average margin of around forty two percent, some items are higher (like bakery), and some slightly lower (like grocery).  This means that if you sell your great cookies to Whole Foods Market for four dollars a box, Whole Foods will add around forty two percent mark up or more to come up with their retail price.  This is important to consider, because before you dive head first in to your great cookie venture, remember that this is a volume business.  Say you go to the store and buy some low priced item like say a Lara Bar for about one dollar and fifty-nine cents.  The stores mark up is around sixty-seven cents, which means Lara Bar sells to Whole Foods for about ninety three cents per bar or less.  Lara Bar factors in the costs for raw materials, manufacturing, advertising and distribution, and their margins are very low.  I’m going to take a guess and say twenty cents cents a bar.  So the only way Lara Bar can be successful is to be huge.  Which they are of course.  You will spend a tremendous amount of time developing and getting your product to market, but until you are a regional, or national – it’s alot of output for a little return.  But don’t be discouraged, in 2001 Famous Amos cookies generated an estimated 100 M in sales, in 2001!  That’s 100 hundred million!  Wally ‘Famous’ Amos himself started as an agent in Hollywood, who would bring homemade cookies to his client meetings, as a calling card.  But Wally understood the value of brand, and so you should always think of your product as a great brand, that happens to taste good, instead of just a great recipe that everybody loves.  There is no value in a great recipe, but huge potential in a great brand.

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My great product!

” My wife makes the best cookies!  She could sell them in stores. ”  Let’s start from scratch. Getting your great product in to a store like Whole Foods can be challenging, but not impossible. For anyone considering a run at Whole Foods Market you must first check out their list of unapproved ingredients .  Make sure your product has none of that stuff, or it will be flat out rejected.  And be careful to check sub-ingredients.  Aunt Erma’s original recipe mandel bread was made with Nestle mini morsels, but we discovered that Netsle’s mini chips had ‘vanillin’ and not ‘vanilla.’  Vanillin is on Whole Foods unapproved list, so we found a chocolatier (Wilbur Chocolate in Lititz, PA) that made an all natural chip virtually identical in size to Nestle’s.  If you are trying to figure out where to print your package, get a nutritional panel,..stuff like that, refer to this blog post for all you ever wanted to know about getting your product ready for the shelves.  By the way, when thinking about packaging, think about the way your package will sit on the shelf.  If it lies flat, is the logo and item name visible?

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Forward:

I don’t know anything about the food business.  Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread began at my work computer.  Bored staring at the computer screen all day, I started goofing around in photoshop.  I made a fake mandel bread box and a fake web site.  Before I knew it I was invited to pitch my package design on CNBC on a show called “The Big Idea With Donny Deutsch.”  I had no real package, it was all a fake, just clever photoshop work to make it look real.  The mandel bread box Donny held up on TV was printed on my inkjet printer, complete with fake bar code and fake nutritional panel.  The mandel bread he tasted was baked by my wife in our kitchen at home.  Donny had no idea, but he loved it!  By the beginning of 2009 I convinced myself that I should make real boxes, maybe even form a real company.  By September of 2009 Aunt Erma’s World Famous Mandel Bread landed it’s first Whole Foods Market, in Beverly Hills.  We sold out our first day on the shelves.  Today, we are not ‘big time’ not by any stretch.  Comfortably holding at four Whole Foods Markets in Los Angeles (for reasons which will be explained later), we are now working with a large cookie manufacturer to try and scale up Aunt Erma’s production to handle not just a few stores, but an entire region.  And all of this on a product that most people have never heard of.  ’Man dell bread?’ No, it’s ‘mondel bread.’  But say the word mandel bread to a Jewish person and you will stir up nostalgic memories of grandma baking in the kitchen.  I heard a great quote from an entrepreneur who said “Your business is a story wrapped around you.”  Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread is a story of a long lost recipe, nostalgia, family and home.  Never heard of mandel bread?  That’s ok, there was a time in American history when no one ever heard of a bagel either.  And there was a time in history when no one ever heard of a photocopier.  But it was the genius of Xerox to instill their brand so deeply in the American subconscience that today you’re just as likely to say “I need a xerox of this” than “I need a photocopy of this.”  If we ever make that leap, if mandel bread ever becomes ubiquitous for ‘a better tasting biscotti,’ I hope that people won’t think ‘mandel bread’, but will think Aunt Erma’s.

No doubt if you’re reading this blog you may have dreamed of bringing your favorite family recipe to market.  Is it a cookie?  A great BBQ sauce, or the most incredible cakes ever?  Well here it is, here’s how I got in.  As this story goes so does my little mandel bread company.  You will see links in this online guide, mostly too earlier posts from the last two years I have kept this blog.  So get your recipe ready, it’s time to hit the shelves!

Phil Weinstein

Founder Aunt Erma’s mandel Bread

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The complete online guide…. Coming soon to Team Mandel Blog !

a special thanks to the over 400 hundred unique readers who checked in last month

to read our journey in to the food biz.

Comments are turned off (too much spam) so, if you want to contact me it’s phil@auntermas.com

or on twitter @philweinstein

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Beverly Hills ordered 2 more cases of Aunt Erma’s finest, but flooding in our home has prevented us from doing much more than my day job, and managing the task of fixing the house back up.  Fantasy Cookie received the recipe and ingredients on Monday (with full NDA’s signed).  It’s their move now, testing the mandel bread, see if they can make it the way we do it at home.  We’re hoping to make the switch to co-pack manufacturing. The cookie factory benefits are so great, their inside wrapping process should give Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread a 4-6 month shelf life, and they’re certified kosher dairy. These 2 elusive things (shelf life and kosher certification) have plagued us from the start. We are approaching the 10 month mark from when we received our mandel bread boxes. End of September is when we started at Whole Foods (Beverly Hills), so the goal now is to see if at the one year mark from when we received our packages if we can get Whole Foods to try us out regionally.  Btw – for those people starting any business in California, remember that the state has a minimum annual $800.00 fee for businesses, but if you are a new business, and elect to become an S-Corporation, then the fee is waived the first year.  That means, if you decide to form an LLC or a C-Corp from the start, you get whacked the $800 bucks right away.  Reason why I mention this is because we are approaching the one year mark of incorporating Aunt Erma’s, which also means that we are now on the hook for $800 (due March 15th) to the state.  Ugh…

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Another link, looks like a fascinating documentary.  Check it out.

THE COVE

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Another favorite and inspiring source is the web show “This Week In Start-Ups” with Jason Calacanis.  In this episode, watch LA native Jason Nazar talk about how he maxed out his credit cards to start ‘DocStoc.  Jason’s company has become a big success and now he hosts local meet-ups in Santa Monica.  Waiting this week to get the baking test done from the cookie manufacturer…

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Maybe the single most exciting news we’ve had since we landed our first Whole Foods Market back in September.  The wrap testing at our co-pack cookie factory was a success!  So what does this all mean?  The next step is to see if the cookie factory can bake the mandel bread just like Aunt Erma bakes it.  Not an easy task, they have to partially automate what up until this point has been a 100% ‘by hand’ process.  If the test run goes well then we have a green light to push for regional distribution.  This of course doesn’t mean anybody will buy Aunt Erma’s mandel bread, but based on the bit of success we’ve had at our four stores,  I think if they try they will buy.  Fingers crossed.

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Here it is, a short interview with the real Aunt Erma!  Enjoy!

Recorded January 19th, 2010

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Important happenings this week in the mandel bread business.  But, not ready to share the details yet.  Hopefully we’ll be ready to announce some important changes and news shortly.  In the meantime, I wanted to share some of the web statistics for auntermas.com.  If you’re new to the web, all web sites have what is called a control panel, which is basically like looking under rhe hood of your web site.  Here is where domains are hosted, email is managed, files are stored and tons of other activity is done.  This is the access to your domain, your hard drive ‘in the cloud.’  One of the very cool tools in the control panel is a little software called ‘Awstats.‘  With Awstats I can track all sorts of information about auntermas.com.  For example, I know that last month over three hundred people read this blog, almost five hundred watched ‘The Story of Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread’ and almost six hundred found the homepage of auntermas.com. There were fifteen thousand hits to the web site, and though they were overwhelmingly hits from the US, we did see a little traffic from far away places like Latvia, Syria and Finland.  Thirty seven percent of you hit auntermas.com using microsoft internet explorer, almost thirty percent used Apple’s Safari, and a surprising twenty three percent used Firefox.  This month numbers are strong too.  We’re hoping this steady climb in internet traffic will expand our brand awareness once we hit our stride and get regional distribution…..

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Read it here.

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Yesterday, Mama’s kitchen had an open house for the community. Here’s a newspaper article about the event.  Mama’s was the second commercial kitchen we tried for Aunt Erma’s mandel bread.  Though we really like the place, unfortunately their mixer was too small, and we quickly out grew it.  Nonetheless, Mama’s was nice enough to invite us to participate in the festivities.  Here’s a video walk through of the place.  That guy holding the mandel bread is Bill Bogaard, the mayor of Pasadena, who showed up for the fun.

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Just a quick update tonight.  We’ve been on hold over the holidays.  We continue to fill mail orders and handle friends and family business, but we’re holding off pushing for more sales at our three Whole Foods Stores, getting tray samples sent to fit inside our existing packaging.  With the proper tray we can move to private label manufacture and try to push for big scale distribution.

I also wanted to thank all the readers again and let you know that you can always contact me by e-mail if you have any questions or comments.  Unfortunately, I get too much spam when I open the comments on the blog so I have to leave then off.

phil@auntermas.com

twitter: philweinstein

telephone: 818 301-5775

PS – Stay tuned for an interview with the real Aunt Erma!  Coming Soon to auntermas.com

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Last Friday we hit the road for JamWest foods, a Co-op kitchen in Santa Clarita, Ca. that specializes in Jamaican cuisine.  Why did we switch kitchens again?  Simple – The mixer at Mamma’s kitchen was too small.  We need big, and they got big, 60 and 120 quart mixers.  This means we can put an entire 4 case batch of mandel bread in one run in the mixer.  But first day in a kitchen is always chaotic.  The rack ovens at Mammas cooked the mandel bread much faster than at home, so we lowered the temp and reduced the time; opposite problem at JamWest.  We need a higher temp to bake in their walk in oven.  And it is a beast of an oven.  Plus we hired employee #1 and got help from an unofficial employee #2 who was already there doing his thing at JamWest when we showed up.  Grocery sales were flat this week, though a friend on recon to 3rd Street Whole Foods reported he couldn’t find any Mandel bread on the shelves, so we may be looking at a sell out over there.  Online we’ve shipped to Washington State and Santa Barabara, Ca. this week, Charlottseville, Va. next week and then prep 2 cases for a community event back in Pasadena which will be attended by the Mayor of Pasadena.  So that should be interesting.

And a big fat Heeb hello to Brian Abrams at HEEB Magazine, the coolest most unpc jew rag out there.

Once we get regional distribution look for our ad featuring the Pope sneaking some mandelbread in the Vatican pantry, with the tag  ”Not just for Jews!”

Happy eighth night of Hanukah!

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When we started delivering Aunt Erma’s to Whole Foods Markets, we had a slight dilemma to deal with.  What exactly is the expiration date of mandel bread?  Officially, only something called a moisture analysis could give us a real ‘don’t eat’ date.  We have had mandel bread laying around the house in cookie jars for weeks on end, perfectly fine.  But for our grocers, better a first time customer get a fresh box, then something that’s been sitting on the shelves for months on end.  Initially I put a 2.5 week date of expiration.  In the beginning, the strategy worked.  Aunt Erma’s was selling so fast that usually in one week we would be sold out.  But as the weeks wore on, Aunt Erma’s sat on the shelves longer.  And this is where we have encountered our first set of problems.  Though the mandel bread is still selling well at all three stores, two of the stores have product that is near or past the ‘best by’ date on the box.  Whole Foods Beverly Hills, who called to say that I was personally responsible for them having to ‘join a gym’ because they couldn’t stop eating Aunt Erma’s – knew that product dated with a best by of November will never sell now that we are in to December.  (Though the employee thought it still tasted great.)  The solution temporarily is simple, we swap out the stock, and date the fresh stock with a longer shelf life.  Fantasy Cookie company has machinery to ‘overwrap’ or ‘underwrap’ our product, and I think with that type of extra protection on the package we could achieve shelf life up to 6 months without a problem.

Tomorrow we try out a new Co-op kitchen.  If everything works out, I’ll add an entry with details.  The reason for the relocation is also simple, the place in Pasadena only had a 20qt. mixer.  Ask me 6 weeks ago if 20 qts. was big enough and I would have said it was too big.  But now, our recipe is scaled way up.  We no longer use cups to measure,  we measure in pounds.  It’s more efficient to weigh out 15 lbs. of flour then have to measure 60 cups of flour.  Same for the chips, the sugar, etc…  We’re also bringing on our first staffer, something we should have done long ago.  Hard to believe we lasted this long, just the two of us, three stores and something like 20 cases of mandel bread later.  So the new kitchen, with a giant 60qt. mixer, and something called a ‘sheeter’ for thinning out our dough, and a massive oven.  But because of the staff hire and the replacement stock, this run will be a loss leader.  Luckily we have internet orders to fill, to make up for the freebees we have to do at Whole Foods.

By the way, for anyone getting in to the food biz, Whole Foods is a pleasure to work with.  The grocery leaders, accountants, regional people, all really friendly.  None of them demanded free replacement stock, they actually left it up to me – But to build this brand, we gotta do the right thing, even if it means taking a loss to learn a lesson about inventory.

PS – Looking forward to story online at the LA Weekly coming this week.  Stay tuned!

I’d also like to thank the blog readers.  There are over four hundred readers a month to the blog, 100 subscribers to the feed and closing in on 30,000 hits to the web site.  Thanks for being a part of our journey!

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Don’t know if we can call this an official sell out, but this morning Whole Foods Beverly Hills ordered another two cases of Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread.

This brings our total tally at this one location to 11 cases.  If we make our delivery this week, our average at this location is one case per week(deliveries started on 09-17-09).  Meanwhile, coffee house Tazza Bianca in Pasadena is selling individual sticks of Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread, and selling out.  They ordered another 4 boxes today.

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Last Friday Crystal and I visited the Fantasy Cookie Company in Sylmar, Ca.  I blogged about Joe Sembler’s amazing cookie factory a year ago. 11/24/08 post We’re in 3 stores at Whole Foods and available system wide at Whole Foods Southern California, finally in a place where we earned our stripes enough to go see the place in person.  A short 25 minute drive north of Burbank to Sylmar, Ca. and I feel like we walked right in to an episode of the Food Network’s Unwrapped.  In case you have’t caught this show, each episode goes behind the scenes of America’s favorite foods and show how they’re mass produced.  Joe’s Fantasy Cookie Company is one such place.  My guess is that Joe can’t publicly say all the companies he bakes for, but we saw product coming out of Joe’s ovens for some of the biggest food suppliers in the biz.  We toured the massive facility, including gigantic conveyor belt tunnel ovens, gargantuan mixers and custom bagging and hopper equipment for packaging you product.  The good news is that Joe has extruder dies about the same size as Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread, so with some slight modifying of the baking process, we could mass produce at Joe’s shop.  But calculating the product weight, our orders have to be substantial in size to make it happen.  This is a big shift in the way we have been operating at this point, but a moment we have been waiting for.  I’ve always felt that we are in the branding business, not the baking business.  If we can get the sales in place, this will give us the time to dedicate to selling the brand and developing more products in the Aunt Erma’s Brand.  Right now, we’re doing everything.  And doing everything, gets you nothing.

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This morning I spoke to a private label baker.  This is a large scale production facility that needs a minimum 1000lb. order to produce our mandel bread.  So now, we’re looking at our next phase of Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread production, scaling large.  The questions are:  what does our product weigh after baking?  How many boxes would we have to sell to meet the minimum 1000 lb. order, and, how much would that cost?  This week I’ll bring some samples over to the private label baker so he can cost out the production.  This should be an interesting week.  If we pull it off, we’ll jump from a little mom and pop op, to a large scale manufacturing facility.  But is this a reality for us?  It means we will need distributors, sales! and money!  - Can we pull it off?  Who knows, I think Aunt Erma’s has the potential to be big – But I guess we wouldn’t be swinging for the fences if I didn’t.

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Here’s Aunt Erma’s on the shelves at the Whole Foods Market 3rd Street (right across the street from the Farmer’s Market).

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A pre-thanksgiving baking run at the rental kitchen was chaotic.  Traffic out of Los Angeles was so bad that it took us over an hour to get to the place (in Pasadena).  We arrived at 3:06…and they were closing at 4:45 pm.  We managed to bake 4 cases of mandel bread in about 2 hours, but we were in such a rush that we lost 3/4 of a case on burnt ends and broken pieces.  Meanwhile, Whole Foods at the Grove has asked us to put in a request to regional to be part of the DVO system, which is Whole Foods system that allows Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread to be available in the entire region.  There are 28 stores in Souther California.  The tough part is managing the cost analysis, trying to figure out how to expand and remain profitable.  This week I’ll be looking at private label bakers who can handle large scale production of Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread.  Our friend Chris Clemmons at Food Tools in Santa Barbara gave us our first quote on a piece of equipment that will allow us to automate part of the baking process.  A $50,000 contraption that will slice and flip the mandel bread.  Casa Bianca Coffee Shop in Pasadena did a test run selling individual sticks of Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread at 99¢ a piece and sold out !! – Stay tuned.

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Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread added its third store to the chain today.  Come see us Friday morning at Whole Foods Market on Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood!

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Our 8 year old Eli took this picture of the ceiling of our rental kitchen.

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We spent time baking Aunt Erma’s finest at our rental kitchen in Pasadena today.  As we begin to add more stores, we face newer challenges.  I always had this idea that I wanted a product that was cheap enough to not put people off.  I’ve seen some other boutique types of mandel bread, and I get offended when I see the prices they are asking for this stuff.  My sister sent some of the competition’s product back East for us to try and she paid 20 bucks for this overly sweet, dry, crap mandel bread.  So how do we scale up and remain profitable?  Big cookie manufactures have a small staff drop raw ingredients in to a mixer, and the rest of the process runs automatically through extruders, cutters and tunnel ovens and straight in to automatic packaging equipment.  We don’t have that stuff yet.   Our profit margin is only maintained if we can produce approximately 2 cases of mandel bread in 1 hour.  So, on a day like today, a couple of slip ups and next thing you know we spent 2.5 hours in the kitchen and produced only 2 cases of mandel bread.  Ok for now, as we are still growing, and giving out samples, but when things really roll this is a big issue.  So this next week I’m concentrating on costs analysis and efficiency.  The holidays could be interesting…And if you are at the Farmer’s Market in Los Angeles tomorrow, hop across the street to the Whole Foods Market and pick up a box of Aunt Erma’s!

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11-13-09 BREAKING 

Aunt Erma’s Mandel bread just added its second Whole Foods Market.  Beginning Tuesday 11/17/09 Aunt Erma’s finest will be on the shelves at  Whole Foods Market Fairfax.  This is a premium Whole Foods location located directly across the street from the Los Angeles Farmer’s Market and The Grove shopping center.  Come see us in the cookie isle!

Thank you Solomon at Whole Foods!

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Today we did a test run at our new rental kitchen in Pasadena, Ca. This is a great place, an actual incubator kitchen – designed for the purpose of renting to food biz start-ups.  So here’s a few pix at Mamma’s kitchen! The kitchen has connections to Le Cordon Bleu, as we staff up our employees will likely be students of that prestigious school.  We’re looking at hiring patisserie students to bake the mandel bread…crazy.  We even had a group of recent grads and some students working along side us today and they sampled Aunt Erma’s finest and gave us their feedback.  Two batches cooked, one convection, and one conventional oven.  The group was split between the toastier convection, and the classic.  Tomorrow Crystal spends the day in a Food Manager Safety Program (a requirement that at least one person in the business have a food safety certificate.) – and I’m off to Whole Foods stores three and four on our mandel quest

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Here we are in our new spot on the shelves in the cookie isle at Whole Foods Beverly Hills.  Sold about 5 boxes the last four days (Mon. – Thurs.) and we’ll see what the weekend brings.

I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned this place on the blog yet.  But if you are a budding food entrepreneur in Los Angeles, then you should know about Star Restaurant Supply in Van Nuys.  They’ve got everything you need there, from pots and pans, sticks and stirs, trays and full blown professional cooking appliances.  And here’s a tip.  Tell them you’re starting a food business and they’ll give you a nice discount.

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This week Whole Foods Market Beverly Hills was restocked with Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread.  Sales are brisk at our one lone store.  We’ve delivered 9 cases of mandel bread in about 5 weeks, averaging just under 2 cases a week in sales.  The other news is that we finally found a rental kitchen that will work for us.  Once we lock in I’ll post a link.

I also wanted to share links to some of the entrepreneurs that inspire me.

Leo Laporte, an old school radio and tv guy, parlayed his Tech TV celebrity in to the most successful tech based news network on the web.  Check out his live broadcasts daily at live.twit.tv or tune in to one of his fourteen different technology based netcast shows he does weekly at Twit.tv.

Jason Calacanis, a true web 1.0 and 2.0 celebrity sold his start-up Webblogs, Inc. to AOL for an estimated 25 million back in 2005.  He now hosts a totally interesting weekly web cast called TWIST (This week in start-ups).

Evan Kleinman is the owner of Angeli cafe in Hollywood, but most notably is the long time host of “Good Food” on KCRW.  I’m sure she must get paid practically nothing to do this, but constantly books interesting guests from the world of food.  Here it is: Good Food on KCRW

I don’t know a whole lot about this guy.  But his tiny auto-biography about the birth of his cookie company is the branding model we are following at Aunt Erma’s.  You might never have heard of Wally Amos had the one time talent agent not started bringing homemade cookies as a calling card to client meetings.  But that’s what made him famous.

more to come in following posts.

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BREAKING

Friday, October 23 2009 

The Whole Foods Market Beverly Hills has once again sold of Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread.  Check back Monday October 26th for restock.

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Michel Algazi’s awesome group The LA Fine Food Group is a bunch of Los Angeles based food entrepreneurs, from the total new guys like me, to huge successful operations. They’re an invaluable resource for all sorts of information.  All free, and totally cool.  Next meet up is on the October 29th in Encino.  Check their site for details.

Cousin Scott Spiro helps little companies weather the financial crisis with a way to freelance your companies IT support.  Scott’s streamlined company, CSG is local here in LA and he’s a total tech geek.  For a flat monthly fee you get unlimited support, without snarky in-house guys, or over priced ‘bill-by-the-hour’ guys.  Outsourcing overseas is ok, but when it comes to computer support, it’s nice to know there’s somebody close by to have look.

But if you really don’t want to deal with all that IT stuff, get a Mac.

Finally – So what are those ads on the right side of my blog?  It’s Google Adsense.  Google is awesome at so many things,  not so hot at instructions.  You’re better off Googling ‘How do I put adsense in to my blog’ then relying on Googles very own explanation.  For you WordPress people just go to your admin, click on Appearence, then Widgets, then Text – and paste the Google Adsense code in to the box.  And if you want to help out Team Mandel Blog, click on one of those ads right now.

I’m on Twitter @philweinstein, but hardly ever post a tweet, and on SKYPE philtogo

Hey, check out our competition! -

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Last week while driving around Burbank we saw a couple of interesting leads on kitchens in the city to move Aunt Erma’s operations too.  One afternoon, while surfing Google for more information on one of those places I stumbled on a bakery called Aunt Joys.  The location was 5 minutes from my office, and even though I’ve driven that route dozens of times, I never noticed Aunt Joy’s place.  So, I grabbed an empty box of Aunt Erma’s mandel bread and headed down to meet Aunt Joy.  Aunt Joy has the perfect commercial kitchen.  Their business primarily caters to craft service in the entertainment industry, high end cakes and other delicious desserts.  Joy herself is somewhat of a celebrity, check out her scene from Cool Hand Luke.  They have a large revolving oven that can handle volumes of baked goods.  Just an eyeball estimation, we could bake at least 2 cases of mandel bread in that oven at a time, maybe more.  Crystal and I were excited about the possibility of working in their space after hours.  Sadly, I found out today that the landlord of the property is not keen on the idea, so we’re still on the hunt for a local operation.  But it gave us a good visual of what our ideal kitchen should look like.  The $50.00 per hour kitchen in North Hollywood isn’t going to cut it for us anymore.  

Meanwhile, I was contacted by Rabbi Allen Silver at Kosher Technical Konsultants, he read my post titled Kosher Certification Rip-Off  and called to defend his company and their practices.  Rabbi Allen says lots of people complain about the same thing, and I have been left scratching my head over this whole kosher issue.  I’m still uncertain of the value of kosher certification, it seems like the large majority of cookie consumers could care less.  The kosher audience of course would insist on kosher, but my goal is to reduce costs as much as possible.  If I want to compete with large corporate brands I’ve got to supply a quality product at a competitive price.  The certification fees only force my wholesale price up, and the last thing I want to do in this economy is raise the price of my product.  Still trying to figure this issue out.

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This morning I received a final sales tally from Whole Foods Beverly Hills on Aunt Erma’s inital run.  Of the 6 cases we sent over, 10 boxes had met the expiration date, meaning we sold over 5 cases of Aunt Erma’s finest.  Now we have to replace the expired stock with good stock, or issue the store a credit.  13.8% of the stock didn’t sell in time for the expiration, pretty good for an initial run with zero promotion.  I’m going to offer to replace the stock to get some fresh stuff back on the shelves in lieu of credit, which brings me to the next update.

This afternoon I toured what I think will be the perfect commercial kitchen for Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread.  Located right here in Burbank, we’re hoping the owners will like us enough to consider letting us rent their space during off hours.  And this is a great space!  The perfect oven, prep area, mixers, etc.  I’ll post a link when we hear a definite yes or no on the space.  The plan is to get the new place to agree to a test run, at which time we’ll fill the Whole Foods replacement stock and bake an extra case for samples as we begin to approach other Whole Foods markets.

I also went back to see Silviano at 3D Stainless to have another custom tool created for our budding mandel bread business.  This time he created a custom device for extracting the sliced mandel bread from the cutting tool.  Pretty cool stuff.

Finally, a mention that my brother-in-law Rick, a great attorney located in the DC Metro area has launched his first blog.  You can ask Rick just about any legal question, Rick specializes in criminal law, but the law firm he belongs to is full service.  So feel free to post any question.  It’s your chance to get free legal advice.  Click here to ask Rick.

Is Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread coming to the Big Apple?……

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Stopped by the City of Burbank today to check out their zoning maps.  Was warned to be careful where we rent because if the kitchen is not zoned, and the owner gets busted – we’ll take a fall too.  The Los Angeles business license is a pretty good deal for start-ups, with no city tax for the first two years of operation.  Next up is Burbank, which only charges a fee per employee but I have to check the license code to see if there are any other fees attached to operating a commercial kitchen – worst is our neighbors southeast of us.  The city of Glendale has no business license fee, however, you will pay a tax on equipment depreciation and gross receipts.  So we’re trying to stick with Burbank for the easy operation.  Meanwhile, Snookies Cookies is relocating down the block and looking to sell their old equipment.  This leaves Crystal and I wondering if we should consider renting our own space and buying Snookies ovens and tables.  Would be a bigger start-up cost but if sales get moving then our kitchen costs would average way down.  So many decisions to make on a limited budget.  Next week we’ll finally get access to Temple Emmanuel in Burbank, another possible lead for a commercial kitchen rental.

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Today I took a drive over to Whole Foods Beverly Hills to check on Aunt Erma’s stock.  The shelves are pretty well loaded.  I counted at least 2.5 cases of mandel bread on the shelves.  As expected, sales slowed during the week, and I expect things to pick up again as we roll in to Yom Kippur on Sunday.  Meanwhile Crystal and I have been scrambling to find another rental kitchen to meet demand.  We’ve talked to Yummy Cupcakes, Martino’s Bakery, Cupcake and Company, Temple Sinai, and Essential Desserts.  There’s also an incubator kitchen in Pasadena that looks interesting though we’d have to do a bigger volume to make it cost effective.  Our food distributor Robin at GS Foods says he may have some leads for us too.  Halfway through our mandel bread fulfillment I had the ‘duh’ moment, realizing we should be using a hot glue gun to seal the bottoms of the boxes, instead of blowing through the loads of avery labels we’ve been using, which cost a fortune.  We’d been popping in on Beverly Hills to make sure the stickers are keeping the lids closed (my newbie error in ordering the boxes, I didn’t create a re-closeable flap), and I was surprised to find that two of the hot glue gun bottoms had popped open.  Unfortunately I didn’t have any stickers with me (Crystal went on a recon mission last week with stickers, to make sure all the flaps are closed) but I wasn’t as prepared.  Tomorrow is Thursday, this time a week ago we sold out 2 cases.  So I’m not sure what to expect.  I’ve also been thinking about some type of mandel bread slicer flipper do hickey.  Maybe some sketches tonight.

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We are proud to add our Fourth! retail outlet.

Whole Foods Market Brentwood, California

 Whole Foods Market Beverly Hills

 Whole Foods Market  Fairfax (across from ‘The Grove’)

 Whole Foods Market West Hollywood

back to AuntErmas.com

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I remember one year watching the Super Bowl ads and I saw this commercial for UPS.  A bunch of people sitting around a computer, they had just launched their web site.

They waited anxiously, staring at a computer monitor,  on the screen the words “ORDERS”, with a flashing cursor next to it.  Suddenly the cursor changes to a 1, then 5, then 10 – The people all cheer!  Success!  Then the counter starts to go faster, 100, 1000, 10,000!  The look on the faces of the entrepreneurs turns to panic.  This is how I felt this morning when we woke up.  Crystal wandered down stairs about 6:45 am and glanced over at our computer.  An email sent at 5:11 am from Eddie at Whole Foods Beverly Hills. “Only 5 boxes left, send 5 more cases.”  Crystal ran up stairs to share the exciting news.  Our very first grocery store shipment of Aunt Erma’s mandel bread almost completely sold out in one day! Celebration!  Then the panic set in.  It had taken us long in to Wednesday evening just to get 2 cases of mandel bread baked .  We’re almost out of flour, sugar, butter, case boxes, labels.  Completely unprepared for the sudden success of our product.  The day was a blur.  It’s 2:00 am now, and we’ve managed to fill 3 of the 5 cases in the order.  We realize we need to dip in to our capital and scale very very quickly.  Off to bed….

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At the end of July I took a sample of Aunt Erma’s to Eddie, the Grocery Team Leader at the Whole Foods Store in Beverly Hills, Ca.  After 3 attempts, the first time meeting the assistant buyer, the second time meeting Eddie, and the third time hustling over there to give Eddie product info. (insurance policy, nutritional and legal stuff) to input to the regional office.  On August 13th Whole Foods regional contacted me about getting bank account information so that I could be “in their system.”  Figuring I was “in” if they were asking for bank account info. I went ahead and posted “an official announcement coming soon!” (Aug 13th post)   A week later Eddie went on an extended vacation, with instructions to check with his assistant buyer to see if I was “in the system.”  Each time I called, the response was “nothing in the system.”  After 5 long weeks, I dug up an old email for Eddie’s email address, and in the threads I saw the Whole Foods Regional correspondence with the subject line ” VENDOR – IRMA ” – They spelled Erma wrong!  Unbelievably, I was in the system all that time, but with only the assistant buyer around to check my status, he could only check what I asked him to check – Erma.  E – R – M – A.  Eddie returned this week and placed an order for 2 cases of Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread.  With the jewish holiday coming Saturday, Crystal and I stayed up late (until 1:30 am) baking the first order.  A few little late night hitches, like the case boxes I purchased could only hold 11 boxes (not 12 like the sticker says), and we ran out of box sealers – but we managed to get everything baked.  At 6:30 am I ran out the door and made it to Beverly Hills a little after 7:00 am.  Took a guess at how to pull up to shipping and receiving (which was a little funny, our little Prius sitting there next to a big bunch of food delivery trucks).  Checking in the product was Joe, who said he couldn’t accept the mandel bread because there was no invoice number.  I said “What is that?”  He said each store I deliver too should have a code.  I said, ” Well, you’re my first so how about ‘one.’  Anyway, Joe was nice enough to show me how the guys in the big leagues do it, I left the two cases.  Crystal went on a recon mission with one of her girlfriends at lunch and snapped these photos from the store.

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