Gelsons
I met with John Fujii and we discussed the upcoming season. Last season was a low volume year and he wished he would have not been so tough on our quality as there was not a lot of volume available and row size was averaging 10.5. They like to have larger fruit. Quality and taste was fine and again he wished he would have been more aggressive in procuring more cherries. He would like to run demos this season. They are back to running demos after a few years ago and it has been going really well. They have a great demo company and he asked me to send over a simple cherry recipes that does not require a lot of prep. They ran an asparagus demo and kept it easy and the sales were phenomenal. They do not run a lot of ads so the demo promotion will really help with sales. They will also be looking at a contest this season, but right now labor is a big issue at the stores. Contests are tough whereas demos will be handled by their demo company. The produce manager will pass on our new cherry pamplets that will be utilized during the demos. He has been talking to a few of his suppliers regarding bins for the upcoming season.