apples & cereal; camping & concessions

Since we've been back from our funfilled day to Western Marketing and Yellowstone, Tara and I have been hard to work on our projects from the beginning of the summer. We met with a sales rep from Malt O Meal to get some more information regarding what types of cereal we can buy in bulk, what types of despensers we can get, and recieve some final samples of cereal. Once we had all of that squared away, we began meeting with the kitchen managers to taste the presliced apples that Tara has been working on and the Malt O Meal cereals that I have been working on. We did a sampling with Marylin (one of the kitchen managers) yesterday. This was definitely our "rookie" attempt at this. As soon as we got to the kitchen we went and found her and sat her down at the table and then poured out all of the apples and cereal for her to taste. Much to our regret, she ended up waiting a long time for us to set up. Thankfully, she was patient with us and made small talk while we got it together. So then we had the tasting. It is so funny to watch people taste 2 types of the same cereal and then react! Presliced flavored apples are also an interesting thing to watch facial reactions to.

Today, we had a much more efficient tasting with the other 2 managers (Mitch and Mike), Jeff (the bakery and salad manager), Josie (the manager of all of those managers). This time, we set up before we told everyone that we were ready. This went much more smoothly. Thankfully, Marylin and everyone today had similar viewpoints on which apples were their favorite and which cereals should be switched and which should be left alone.

This afternoon, we are going to meet with Dan (manager of the SUB and cash operations) and speak with him about the merchandising advice we got from Ben Palo at Pepsico when he visited. We are also going to take inventory of the rest of these samples that we have been requesting and get some work done for the Rocky Mountain Concessions business at the summer fair. There has been a wrinkle in our plans for the summer fair, so we are going to have to get creative with our advertising (good thing Tara and I are creative!).

In the midst of all of this work, Tara's aunt Jodi is at MSU this week for a conference, so we have been spending some time with her. Last night, we went out to Plonk, an upscale wine bar. We sat outside on the back patio and chatted--it was so nice! Tonight, we are hiking "the M" with Jodi and then going to Wild Joe's (a coffee shop downtown) for some live music. [FYI, Jodi is the mother of the boy that we went to see play football a few weekends ago who won defensive MVP of his team--just some perspective].



Tomorrow, we will be busy working to get ready for the annual meeting with Food Services of America (which is next Tuesday--eek!). We have to get our meeting agenda together to send to Bob (our "FSA guy"), decide who is going to introduce which points, and what is important to say about each point. Tomorrow night begins our big camping trip to Hyalite with Paul and his family! I am looking forward to some relaxation time. Erica has also planned a big hike for us on Saturday!! woohoo!

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