Cook Up Year-Round Profits With Gourmet Foods

What could you have in common with Oprah, Rachael Ray, and Paula Deen? The hottest gourmet and specialty food items that people rave about! Since cooking “gourmet” everyday has made a huge comeback in recent years, by catering to your customer’s love for all things culinary, you can draw in new customers year-round with a great selection of gourmet food items. Having gourmet products on hand for individual sales and to include in gift baskets can boost your sales between holidays and build customer loyalty. Any gift shop or florist can sell knick-knacks and flowers. But what will set you apart from the rest is by carrying high-quality, gourmet food items. FGmarket will introduce you to a few of the many gourmet food suppliers available to help you profit from this trend.

Sweeten Sales with Biscotti - A Scrumptious Gourmet Food

Peggy's Biscotti Selections Tasty Gourmet Treat

Gourmet coffee is all the rage these days, attracting everyone from teenagers to baby-boomers looking for a pick-me-up in the middle of their hectic schedules. Instead of just offering an array of gourmet coffees, why not upscale your products to include homemade biscotti? Peggy’s Homemade Biscotti offers 37 distinctive flavors of this crunchy Italian cookie that’s great for dipping in a hot cup of coffee. Buy individual flavors or pre-made gift baskets and treat your customers to a bit of homemade heaven. With flavors like Coconut Chocolate chunk, Apricot Macadamia and Butterscotch Toffee, you’ll be sure to draw a crowd looking for more than just a run-of-the-mill gift basket.

Boost Gourmet Sales With Healthy Organics

Melissa's Organic Foods Gourmet The Healthy Way

Because of the renewed emphasis on eating healthy, organic foods’ popularity is on the upswing. You can position yourself as a specialty store for organics that no other retailer can compete with by offering products that appeal to the health-conscious customer. Carrying products from Melissa’s can help set you apart from the rest. Their organic grilling sauces, salad dressings and marinades add that gourmet touch to a BBQ gift basket for Father’s Day; pasta sauces and herb mixes give an Italian gift basket that extra zing; high-quality organic fruits at their freshest make an ordinary fruit basket exceptional. Melissa’s can add that gourmet touch to satisfy your customers’ needs for healthy alternatives.

Go Green with Global Gourmet Goodies

sweetriot's Gourmet Goodness Chocolate Cocao Beans

There is now a delicious way to go green! With global awareness and an appreciation of cultural diversity on the rise, offering sweetriot’s chocolate covered cacao beans is the perfect way to show your customers that you care. The socially conscious group at sweetriot offers a variety of cacao beans and chocolate covered cacao beans boasting premium ingredients and innovative artwork. To sweeten the pot, these treats are healthy as well as delicious. All of the products at sweetriot are rich in antioxidants, all natural, low in calories, dairy free, gluten-free, and kosher. These sweet treats are packaged in reusable tins decorated with the artwork of independent artists. Showcasing these global goodies would make not only a colorful and appealing display in your store but a beautiful statement as well.

Spice Up Gourmet Sales with Flame-Roasted Chiles

Cannon Sweet Hots' Gourmet Sauce Gift Basket

Fire up your sales throughout the year with products made from New Mexico flame-roasted chile — “the best sweet chile in the world.” Cannon Sweet Hots offers a wide variety of salsas and sauces, from mild to fiery hot, to satisfy every palate. These chiles are so versatile; they can be used in appetizers, entrees, and even as toppings for ice cream! Their gift baskets are customized with items of your choice in chile-shaped baskets. Your customers will love the uniqueness and versatility of these products, but be warned: Sweet Hots chiles are addictive, so stock up!

Spice Up Sales with Upscale Gourmet Products

Paula's Pepper Jelly Quality Gourmet Food

Paula’s Pepper Jelly offers an array of gourmet food items that will perk up your gift basket business. By adding their gourmet wine, pepper jelly, spices, hot sauces and condiments, you can add that gourmet flair to your gift basket sales. They offer exceptional wines from Washington, Australia and Argentine, and their wide variety of homemade pepper jellies, hot sauces, and condiments boast several award winners that your customers will love.

Savor Increased Sales with a Variety Of Gourmet Sauces

For the best offerings in barbecue sauces, you can’t lose with Head Country Barbecue’s award-winning sauces. Jack Miller Food Products offers their best barbecue sauce, Cajun seasoning blend, and cocktail sauce that will kick up gift basket sales. Golden Harvest Pantry features sauces, mustards, chow chow, vinegars, jams, jellies and honeys. Their Roasted Garlic and Vidalia Onion Salad Dressings are top picks, as well as their Amish jams, jellies and fruit butters.

Enhance Sales With Tasty Gourmet Snacks

Southern Things offers their one-of-a-kind cheese straws called Ginny O’s cheese rings, which were featured in Oprah’s O! magazine as one of their top 100 products. They specialize in great snacks like pork rinds, kettle cooked dirty potato chips and gourmet nuts. Peculiar Spice Company has a variety of mix packages for dips and spreads, soups, sweets and side dishes. Their Hawaiian Cheese Ball mix, Orange Dreamcicle Cheesecake mix and Hawaiian Chicken Salad mix make great additions to a tropical gourmet gift basket.

Beef-up Sales With Gourmet Meats And Seafoods

For those meat-lover customers, burgers and steaks from Elk Meat Shop provide a healthy alternative to beef. These make great gifts in and of themselves, or add a distinctive taste to a grilling or barbecue gift basket. For seafood lovers, try The Great Gourmet’s clam chowder, crab soups, lobster bisque, crab cakes, and their huge variety of fresh fish and seafood direct from Chesapeake Bay.

If you’re looking for a delicious way to perk up your gift basket sales throughout the year and attract new customers, go the gourmet food way. FGmarket’s Gourmet Food suppliers can show the way. Your customers will appreciate the extra efforts you make to bring them exceptional products for their gourmet gift baskets.

Contributor: Jill Evans

Personalized Products: Let Your Customers Promote You
Gaining customers through business marketing is a major focus for every business. It is a given that name recognition and customer referrals are tried and true ways to gain customers, but how do business owners make this happen? One way is through personalized products. In this FG Market newsletter, we will show you ideas and vendors to help you market your business using personalized products. Logos on ink pens, labels, or candies are ways to put your name out there as a reminder to your customers. With the vendors shown in this newsletter, you’ll see how easy it can be to market your business using a variety of personalized products.

Personalized Product Merchandising Hang Tags

Let’s start with the fun and enthusiastic Century Marketing Corporation. One idea they offer is custom hang tags; used to showcase your logo or image. When a customer buys an item as a gift, these eye-catching tags can be left on by the gift giver, thereby giving your business added exposure after the sale. Everyone at a bridal shower, birthday party or gift giving event can see that the item selected by the giver was purchased from your business.
Century marketing also has an extensive selection of plastic bags, which can take on a life of their own. As these bags - custom printed with your store name - get carried home, to the office or a restaurant after shopping, they continue to promote your store. Imagine all the places your business name will end up when printed on a reusable bag. When a customer re-uses one of your logo-printed bags or gift boxes, they passively advertise for you. Custom labels, bakery labels, and mailing labels are great marketing tools also offered by Century Marketing.

We turn pictures and thoughts into candy; this is the slogan of Custom Candy Concepts. Hard candy lollipops, just one of many candy options from this Georgia-based company, would be good for special giveaway promotions, and can be printed with just about anything. Custom Candy also has a product called Chocolate Cards. These great-looking and tasty chocolate cards are about the size of a business card and can be used as enclosure cards too. Cards can be custom made to promote your shop; you can use your own logo and custom art.
These unique items would be really great handouts at trade shows or as thank-you promotional gifts. Promo products, such as the lollipops and chocolate cards, offer an opportunity to get and keep your name recognized. Every product with your name on it is a potential marketing tool. The more customers see your name and recognize your logo, the more likely they are to shop at your store and tell others. Take a moment and think of the last logo item you can think of…..makes you want to go there doesn’t it?

Logosilk from Photosilk

How about a product that is unmatched and environmentally-friendly? Photosilk offers all that and more. Their high-quality microfiber cleaning cloths are something everyone needs; they are safe to use for cleaning and protecting products like LCD screens, DVD/CDs, camera lens, binocular lens and eyeglasses. When imprinted with your company logo, Logosilks make great promotional items that can be used to drive sales of existing products, given away at trade shows, used as calling cards or as a way to guide people to your website.
Since the Logosilks are handy and reusable, your company name will always be at hand. (I bet as you’re reading this very newsletter, your screen needs to be cleaned!) Just as your screen or eyeglasses need to be cleaned, so do your customer’s. Give your customer one of these fabulous Logosilks and as your customer uses it, they will be reminded of your store. What a great universally-appealing promotional product!

Personalized Bookmarker from Magnetic Bookmarks

Magnetic Bookmarks gives you several reasons why their product is great for promotion. With colorful designs on the front, their bookmarks have magnets on both sides to hold pages secure and they can even be used to mark a line on a page. Your business name can be printed on the back of the bookmarkers, which can then be used to reactivate old customers or as a thank-you to loyal customers. The bookmarks are lightweight enough to be included in any mail out, and with your name on them, simple reminders for existing or new customers.
Why not use every tool you can to promote your business and generate sales? Any product personalized is going to maximize your exposure. Labels, candy, custom microfiber cloths and even bookmarkers, are easy to obtain through the many wholesale personalized products at FG Market. Keep in mind that every item with your name or logo on it is a marketing tool that adds to your company’s name recognition. When you give away a promotional item, you make your customers happy with a free gift and they, in turn will go on to sing the praises of your company to others; a win-win for all.
While browsing FG Market’s personalized product vendors, you will see many wonderful ideas for personalized products for your business. It has been said, “It’s not your customer’s job to remember you. It’s your obligation and responsibility to make sure they don’t have the chance to forget you.” Promotional marketing via personalized products is the best way to get and keep your company’s name out to your target market.
Author: Leigh Morrisett

There is no TRICK in ringing up Halloween sales when you TREAT your customers to an exciting array of Halloween products. You can coordinate Halloween costumes, decorations, and party ideas that will appeal not only to the young, but to the young at heart.

Pharaoh by Ancient Egyptian Collection

Halloween is the second biggest shopping holiday for retailers, generating more than Six Billion Dollars in Sales! According to a survey by the International Mass Retail Association, approximately 82% of all Americans purchase costumes, masks, games, decorations and candy, along with other items for Halloween. FG Market has highlighted a few vendors that have a variety of Halloween costumes, party, and decorating ideas.
According to Robert J. Verdisco, President of International Mass Retail Association, “Halloween is becoming as much a holiday for adults as it is for children.” The Ancient Egyptian Collection has costumes, jewelry and party favors for Halloween and for other types of parties as well. Why not suggest to the adventuresome shopper the unique Egyptian-inspired treasures from the Ancient Egyptian Collection?
For an unforgettable evening, host a Halloween Party with an Egyptian theme. Make a dramatic entrance wearing an exotic Egyptian costume and the replica jewelry from King Tut’s Tomb. Then, carry out the theme with Egyptian decorations such as genuine Egyptian Papyrus Paintings. And for just one night, slip the surly bonds of earth, when wearing the Ancient Egyptian Collection’s newest creation, the mythological ISIS WINGS. Why? Because Inside Every Woman Is a Goddess Waiting To Fly!

BDay Parties' Reversible Princess Costume

Choosing a line of Halloween costumes for young children is important. The award-winning company, BDay Parties furnishes fun and functional clothes that provide hours of imaginary play. Set the stage for fun BOO, not disappointed, BOO HOO! Young children enjoy emulating their favorite characters. What fun to arrive at a Halloween party dressed as a cowboy or cowgirl, a pirate, a knight or a princess (Our Reversible Princess Costume is a winner of the 2006 Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Gold Seal Award).
Bday Parties LLC is the manufacturer of wholesale Dress up Buddies Wholesale Dress up Costumes and accessories, and Par T Buddies wholesale unstuffed animal kits. These ‘make your own’ teddy bear or animal kits are great for gifts, crafts, parties or any special occasion. The wholesale party favors and dress up accessories are based on popular childhood party themes. You will find the perfect product for your retail store when selling costumes, accessories, party favors and gifts by Bday Parties.
Customers will find whimsical plush toys for the upcoming Halloween season, when they shop from the First & Main product line. Each of their plush pieces is stitched with love. Discover exciting and captivating plush products for every gift occasion. Check out First & Main and its wholesale collection of teddy bears and plush animal lines, along with their unusual, and appealing plush product characters.

Pumpkin Pals at First & Main

Here are just a few of the plush products from First & Main. Pumpkin Pals are festive fall and Halloween decorative gift items. Start a collection of these charming plush toys with quirky attitudes to match. Names such as Candy Monster, Frankie, Batso, Bando and Esmeralda add to the fun of these wholesale plush pals that are all dressed up in festive costumes featuring satin, vinyl, and felt accents.
Petal Pushers are just the right additions to Halloween flowers and gifts. Cute, plush teddy bears are hugging floral vases that make two perfects gifts in one. The All Occasion Characters are excellent just because gifts and these everyday plush gift selections stimulate impulse purchases and produce great add-on sales.
Consumer trends indicate that Halloween is the third largest party occasion, after New Years and The Super Bowl. When customers are looking for the right decorations for their Halloween party, you can recommend PARTY DECO. Whether hosting a small group or a large gathering, PARTY DECO has a full selection of party supplies.

PARTY DECO Metallic Curtains

PARTY DECO provides Table Centerpieces, Hanging Fountains, Balloon Weights, Coin and Star Fountains, Centerpiece Sprays, Wire Garland, Pull Out Garland, Curtains, Fringe & Skirting, Columns & Windsocks, Drop Fringes, Confetti, Streamers, Closeouts, and Hardware. After viewing the outstanding selection of party products from PARTY DECO, even the most “party-challenged” will be inspired by the great Halloween decorations and Halloween party ideas.
As Halloween becomes more popular, consumers begin shopping earlier. Research indicates that 20% of consumers will have started their Halloween shopping by the end of September. Another 20% will begin shopping in early October. By mid-October, 21% of customers will be shopping, and 12% will do last-minute shopping.
Wholesalers and retailers can coordinate Halloween costumes, indoor and outdoor decorations, party themes and party favors for this rapidly growing market. With billions of dollars in sales, Halloween offers a tremendous opportunity for you to Listen to The Cash Register Ring. Browse through the featured product lines from these and many other Halloween and Party Suppliers listed on FGMarket.com to help make your fall season successful.

Christmas is coming!! And we all know what THAT means… Thanksgiving is coming first! Sometimes in our rush between Halloween and Christmas, it seems that Turkey Day gets overlooked as an opportunity to harvest more holiday sales. That needn’t be the case if you designate one or more areas within your store - somewhere between the jack-o-lanterns and the angel tree-toppers - to create an enticing display of specially-selected merchandise that’s geared toward the festive fall celebration. Whether your customer is the host or hostess of the traditional meal, seeking to decorate for the season, or one of the dinner guests looking for an appropriate gift, there’s a bounty of merchandise from which to choose.

The Pumpkin Tree by Creative Displays

Pumpkins, of course are a perennial and versatile symbol of the autumn season. For carving spooky (or friendly) faces, baking into pies, or simply setting them on the front stoop, their selling period extends for several weeks. Some of the best fresh pumpkins anywhere come from Bottomley Evergreens and Farms, Inc., where the pumpkins are given special treatment so they are prettier, cleaner, and last longer. They plant pumpkins through a cover crop, such as rye, giving them a nice soft, clean bed to grow on, as well as yielding a bumper crop that is clean and ready for sale. The variety of pumpkin shapes and sizes is almost endless, from small, round pie pumpkins to jumbos weighing in at 60 pounds or more! Bottomley Evergreens also grows Autumn Wing gourds; a beautiful assortment of shapes, sizes and colors that are perfect for decorating indoors or out.
Now, what’ll you do with all these pumpkins? You could showcase them on The Pumpkin Tree from Creative Displays. These unique pumpkin merchandisers are designed to sell more pumpkins in a minimum of floor space with maximum visual impact. Rings hold pumpkins up to 12lbs. each; and after Halloween or Thanksgiving, you can also use these racks to display mums and poinsettia plants.
While we’re on the subject of gourds (a pumpkin is really just an oversized gourd), check out the fanciful creations at Gourdaments. Your customers will love the menagerie of whimsical animals, like cats, roosters and other barnyard animals that artist, Devon Cameron creates by applying paints, dyes, clay, and varnish to various dried gourds. Sizes range from 3 inches (ornament size) to 12 inches or more, and the finished products are as hard as wood. Cameron turns some of the gourds into birdhouses with many distinctive styles, like the “Beatrice the Bird House Cat” whose open, meowing mouth is the hole through which the birds may enter.
Thanksgiving is the time for home and hearth, for family, and for celebrating the bountiful harvest. Decorating themes center on products that nature offers. For example, see an assortment of gorgeous wreaths, composed of natural, dried materials that are made by Naturals by Webster, Inc. Their Farmer’s Market Harvest Series features a lush “Fall Gathering Wreath” created of yarrow, coxcomb, globe amaranth, sunflowers and more. Spicy wreaths of dried red chili peppers are included, as well. Webster’s also produces a line, “Haystack Harvest,” free-standing bouquets of dried flowers that make great cash-and-carry purchases. If you or your customers like do-it-yourself (D.I.Y), Webster’s has all the natural loose, dried flowers, pods, grasses and berries necessary to create beautiful fall arrangements, wreaths, and door swags.

Creative Touch Wood-carved Home Decor & Gifts for Fall

Need some containers for those custom arrangements? A unique wholesaler, Kraft Klub, Inc. carries a large variety of nostalgic, handmade tin items in rust, galvanized, antique white-wash, black colonial, wire, and a new enamel line, their most popular yet. Even empty, these basins, pitchers, buckets, washtubs, and wire baskets impart a wonderful sense of home and history to a Thanksgiving display.
If you’re not in the business of creating your own floral designs (or even if you are), check out the great collection of pre-made permanent arrangements from Burton & Burton from Flowers, Inc. They’re super time-savers … just take them out of the box and fluff them up. Burton & Burton also carries a unique line of home decor items and tabletop accessories that will surely generate Thanksgiving sales. For even more decorative accents, be sure to visit Creative Touch. Their clever wood-carved pumpkins and turkeys are really charming.
Most people have strong and pleasant memories of Thanksgiving celebrations past, and many of those memories are conjured up by the sense of smell. Especially familiar are the aromas of foods traditionally prepared and eaten during the holidays. You can make the most of this fact by offering scented items, like candles and potpourris that carry with them the smells that evoke nostalgic memories. Unique Aromas produces a line of scented, double-wick, poured candles in glass dishes. The sweet aroma of Pumpkin Pie, Lemon Meringue, Blueberry Muffins and other dessert favorites inspired the delicious candle scents featured in the Bakery collection.

Pumpkin Pie Bundt Cake Candles by Unique Aromas

Their sophisticated square votive candles (packaged in fours) burn up to 18 hours each, and carry such essences as Cranberry, Gingerbread, Spiced Pear and Cinnamon Cider. The same fragrances are available in 7-oz. poured candles in unique triangular glasses, wrapped in cellophane, and tied with a matching ribbon. Unique Aromas’ Bundt Cake candles smell almost good enough to eat and look like little bundt cakes. They make wonderful holiday and hostess gifts that are sure to please!
Another candle company, Applemill Cottage makes double-wicked, palm/soy candles in old-fashioned 16-oz. cottage jars with domed lids. With such yummy “flavors” as Apple Pie, Cinnamon Buns, and Pears and Berries, their candles carry one of the highest scent loads in the industry. They’ll also create private-label candles, which you can brand with your store’s name and logo. A portion of Applemill Cottage’s profit is donated to help establish freshwater wells in rural villages in India; customers feel good about their purchase and humanity benefits.
If all this talk about food is making you hungry for the real thing (and so much of Thanksgiving Day has to do with eating), let’s go straight for dessert. Award-winning Heart’s Desire Chocolates creates extraordinary confections in the Sonoma Valley in California. Taking the cake, so to speak, is their incredible Chocolate Cornucopia- overflowing with chocolate fruits, vegetables and nuts (unfortunately, it’s too delicate to ship, but local delivery is available). Perhaps more realistic for your store is their uniquely-delicious Pumpkin Fudge, English Toffee Assortment and harvest-decorated Gold Ballotin, a gift that’s filled with tempting chocolate truffles or other sweet treats.

Chocolate Cornucopia from Heart's Desire Chocolates

Finally, The Fruit Company creates baskets full of luscious fruits, gourmet nuts, crackers, and such delicacies as smoked salmon and chocolate-covered Bing cherries in all price points. You might also consider trying their irresistible gourmet cheesecakes. They are all out of this world… think Triple Chocolate Raspberry… yum!! Based in Oregon, The Fruit Company has orchards that produce eight varieties of fruit and they also have a drop-ship program, offering online gifting companies the ability to provide orchard fresh gourmet fruit baskets and gifts to their customers.
So, as you’re busy decorating your store for Christmas during the next few weeks, remember that Thanksgiving presents a lot of great sales opportunities long before Santa starts loading his sleigh. From hostess gifts to home decor, FGMarket.com can direct you 24 hours a day to vendors that can satisfy every craving, suit every desire, and fill every sales niche. Don’t be a turkey… go shopping right now!