French Prairie Conserves

2003 Winter Fancy Food Show

Every year we pack the car with our pop-up booth, samples, literature, a few clothes and head south to San Francisco and the Winter Fancy food show. This year the roads were clear and the trip was relatively easy. We had a good show and saw many of our regular customers from California. There seemed to be a more positive attitude this year. Most companies seemed to be concentrating on established products. Although there are always new products, this year's show was focused on recovering from the post-9/11 shock. We introduced our new spiced peaches, and they were a great success. We are looking forward to the summer show in New York.

Off to London and the IFE

Since we started the company in 1995, we have believed that our great Northwest Fruit products could find a place in the international market. Many of our brandied fruits, preserves and conserves were inspired by traditional English and European products. It was time to see if we could introduce the Pacific Northwest's great fruit to the EU. IFE is a large food show held at the renovated Chelsey Docks. We plan to attend the show and meet with the staff of our embassy in London to explore what opportunities might exist.We are also looking forward to visiting with some old friends from previous stays in England.

New Machinery at the Plant

Since all of our whole fruit products are made from fresh fruit in season, this is a pretty quiet time at the plant. We expect to have our biggest ever production season, so we are currently hard at work improving the plant and its machinery to meet the challenge. June 1, and ripe fruit, always come faster than we expect. Although it has been a mild winter in the Northwest, we expect this will be a good year for fruit.