ValenTime Of Year

It's COLD in Vermont tonight.  Coldest night of the winter so far.  As the chill blows in through cracks in our doors, I am feeling warmed by the enthusiasm of our community. Right now, we seem to be at the center of an involuntary attention vortex.  More about that below, but for now, check out these photos:   

(left) Me, in the chocolate shop: a unicorn with a icicle horn  

(below) "Lover's Bars" arranged in a heart formation for our Valentine's display.  These peppermint white chocolate bars are packed with pure raspberries.  Their pungent peppermintness tempts people to buy and eat them, even though white chocolate is (snivel, snivel) passé.

 

Now, more about why we're feeling so hugged and kissed by this central Vermont community these days.  In the past 3 weeks, I have been approached by the following establishments asking to feature Nutty Steph's to their listeners/readers/customers.   This is how we manage to spend very little money on any kind of advertising whatsoever, and spend it all instead on excellent ingredients and people.  Thank you to all of these local establishments for taking the time to check us out and broadcast the good news of Nutty:

- The Stowe Reporter emailed last week to alert me that they will be featuring Nutty Steph's in their "Edibles" photo section for March.

- VPR emailed, asking us to serve our goodies to their pledge-drive volunteers in exchange for a little bit o' Nutty "woot, woot" on the air.     

- The Chittenden Bank in Montpelier called yesterday to ask us to set up our goods and information on a table in their branch as their featured commercial customer for February.

- Plainfield Coop, one of our relatively new wholesale customers, is a heroic, tiny-teeny little community-owned village food store.  They let us know on the phone today that we are featured on their website homepage, (which I could not later find?...) letting their customers know that our granola and candy bars are a new part of their tremendous selection of natural and local products.  Based on the sales they have generated for us so far, I'd say their customers are already well aware!

- Mark Johnson, beloved D.J. on WDEV of Waterbury, VT is spreading the news of our special offers and Valentine's events on his radio show.

- Our new neighbor's "Montpelier Mud" pottery studio, agreed last week to put our chocolate bars in their kitchen, with a can for money.  I checked-up this week on the makeshift candy shop: half the bars were gone and all the money was accounted for in the tin can.  I promptly re-stocked them!

- MIDDLEBURY CO-OP made us their featured product of the month for February.  I'll be down there passing out free samples of granola on February 17 and 23.  They have sales happening on our products all month, an advertisement in the Middlebury newspaper, and a story in their Coop Newsletter.

- On top of it all, we recently started selling our line of over 25 varieties of Nutty, fruity, chunky, delicious chocolate bars at NINE new rockin' locales: Marty's in Danville, Middlebury Co-op, Healthy Living Market, Mountain Greens in Bristol, Rutland Food Co-op, Joe's Pond Store in West Danville, Jamba's Junktiques in Burlington, Plainfield Co-op and Delish candy shop in Montpelier. 

I'm feeling grateful, and connected.   

Many thanks to "all my relations"**,

Jaquelyn "Nutty Steph" Rieke  

**"Mitakuye Oyasin" is a Lakota prayer that translates approximately to "All My Relations," or: we are all related.