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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