BRAND FOCUS
about. We keep looking, but still nothing. A large wave of disappointment physically knocks the wind out of me.
I wheel Chase in the front seat of a shopping cart towards the customer service desk: “Hi there, would you mind looking up a new product for me?” I’m desperate, my voice is shaking as I say, “They’re called Bantam Bagels.” “Sure, one moment,” the customer service lady types something into her computer. “Says here they just arrived. You can find them in Aisle 1, Bakery.” “I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard
correctly… Bakery?” I stutter. “We shipped frozen bagels on a frozen truck. Can you please check that again?” “That’s what it says here,” she confirms. “Thank you,” I say and bolt towards the first aisle. Chase giggles at me from his seat in the shopping cart. Immediately I see it – my eye catches our beautiful, perfectly packed and cared for frozen bagel boxes, dumped into a stand-up wire mesh round bin, tossed in there like a bunch of Ding Dongs on sale for the holidays. At room temperature! I pick up a box – soggy, melted. Ruined. Nick rushes towards me and stares at the
box. Our sunken hearts deflate. My body shrinks. The effort and hope we clung on to plunge into the dark recognition of failure. I open my inbox and scroll back to our
We only ever used one co-manufacturer and stayed diehard about producing our original recipe with NYC tap water (the
key to an authentic NYC bagel)”
e-mails with the buyer, preparing myself to tell him about the mistake of our placement (that we paid for). That’s when I see it – clear as day. In his e-mail signature:
“Bakery Buyer Safeway NorCal.” “Nico, he’s the bakery buyer. It was there all along right in front of our faces,” I say, annoyed at myself for missing this key fact. “We never thought to ask where our product would be placed!”
The remainder of the week is dedicated to sulking from store to store in the Bay Area, begging managers to move our bagels into a freezer. Without being written into the frozen planogram – the visual instructions that tell stores exactly where to place each item – our efforts are pretty much fruitless. We tell the store workers that any product that has been out more than a few hours has to be thrown away and re-ordered. All that hard work wasted. A colossal win converted to an epic disaster.
10 Kennedy’s Bakery Production April/May 2024
bakeryproduction.co.uk
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