Team Mandel Blog

For an announcement coming soon from Team Mandel Bread!

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I took a piece of advice from one of my connections at Whole Foods Northern California region.  After Whole Foods Regional turned us down on a technicality (vanillin, not vanilla in the chips….really Whole Foods?  From a place that sells water in plastic leaching bottles?)

Anyway, I was encouraged not to give up on Whole Foods, and try the grass roots approach.  I made a small batch of Aunt Erma’s with some chocolate chips from Wilbur Chocolate (the place we get our cinnamon chips), patched over the ingredients with a new ingredients label that lists the chips with ‘vanilla’, and drove to the Whole Foods Beverly Hills store.  The assistant grocery team buyer (that’s what they call them – not ‘manager’s') was very cool, I said I had a local product that I thought would be a good fit for a store with Jewish customers.  I’m heading back tomorrow to talk to Eddy, the grocery team buyer and give him some samples.  My up north connection says if I can get a few stores to carry our product, we may yet get the attention of regional.

Bottom line is Aunt Erma’s tastes better with the Nestle’s Mini Chips, but if Whole Foods only accepts ‘vanilla’ then that’s what it’ll be..

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We’ve been away – visiting the real Aunt Erma in Maryland.  I sent samples of Aunt Erma’s finest to online judaica store Modern Tribe – and waiting for some feedback on whether they think Aunt Erma’s might be a fit.

For little start-ups like us, kosher certification is so freaking expensive!!! (see April 23rd post).  Kosher certifiers want something like $600.00/mo. for the right to put their kosher mark on your product.

I personally don’t care if Aunt Erma’s is kosher or not,, and I don’t think anyone else does either.  But from a marketing stand point, I think mandel bread is so associated with jewish culture that it needs some kind of nod to the kosher thing.  So we’re experimenting with sealing labels that say “100% Kosher Ingredients.“ All of Aunt Erma’s ingredients are kosher – the flour, chips, sugar etc. , we’re just not ready for the expense of going to a kosher kitchen yet.  Anyway, I got the idea thinking about all these great jewish deli’s in Los Angeles like Jerry’s, Art’s and Brent’s – They aren’t kosher either, they are ‘kosher style’ I think that’s kindof thing Aunt Erma’s is going for.

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Whole Foods market turned us down on our mini chips, which contain – vanillin. That ingredient I guess is not approved for Whole Foods, problem is, we’ve tested other chips, fancier chips, and the chips taste the best.  So now looking to other markets for our mandel bread.  Other thing is we have over a 100 lbs. of mini-chips in storage waiting for mandel bread baking.  Picked up another small web order last week.

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