Gourmet Business Celebrates the Housewares Industry!
Gourmet Business welcomed hundreds of buyers to its booth during
the International Home + Housewares Show, showcasing specially
designed theme displays from
products both at the show and
from vendor advertisers. Guests
were treated to lunch and treats
from Tunisian Olive Oil Consortium,
Koppers Chocolates, J&M Foods
and culinary students from Careers
through Culinary Arts Program
(C-CAP).
Reisenthel wrapped up beautiful
bags and storage containers with
the help of award-winning gift
basket designers Tom and Pam
Newell, who demonstrated gift
basket designing throughout the
show. We’ll be featuring gift basket
trends and advice from the Newells
in the next issue of GB.
We want to thank all of our vendors
for submitting products to build
our displays. Additionally, retailers
were called on to select the best-performing products over the past
two years, and we created a display
showcasing these products. Retailers selected companies that
continue to provide great support,
innovative products and merchandising materials that make them
stand out. This year’s winners were
Jura-Capresso, Soda Stream,
Swiss Diamond, Garlic Twist
from Nextrend, Vinturi, Wellness
Mats, Harold Import Co., OXO,
Nespresso, Wüsthof 7-piece
Classic Block Set, Le Creuset,
All-Clad, Bodum, and Chef’n.
Laura Havlek, from Sonoma, Calif.-
based Sign of the Bear, explained
what makes a company or product
stand out: “There are single-item
standouts like Chef’n, Wellness
Mats and Soda Stream, great new
ideas that fill a previously unmet
need, great display, packaging,
and attitude; but equally as
contributors to our bottom line,
certain vendors have really stepped
up what they offer independents,
and structured it to help us stay
in stock. A large part of what
makes Le Creuset, Wüsthof, All-
Clad, Chef’n, Conair and Harold
the business: Conair/Cuisinart,
Wüsthof, Harold Import and All-
Clad. Le Creuset’s ever-evolving
color story brings a sense of fresh
and fun to any cookware store.
Their solid new intros, their fixtures
and their great representatives are
an asset as well.”
Import such solid contributors to
our bottom line is their assortment and pleasure-to-work-with,
can-do attitude. Of course, the
new items help, but so does their
in-stock core, solid representation
and making our assortment game
easy. When we look back at what
has paid rent, here’s how we think
about some of the best names in
