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Food Brands
Food Brands Wednesday
17Oct
Merrilily Gardens - Blooming Brand
Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 09:11PM Foodpreneur:
Merrily Mclaughlin
About the Foodpreneur:
I have always lived on property where we would have large vegetable gardens and fruit orchards. It was a part of farming life to process, pickle ,can and freeze everything we grew. My Great Great Aunt and Grandmother gave me their favorite recipes to work with on my own. I would take the recipe and change it to fit more modern palates and add more flavors to them. The original Plum Sauce was always used as a replacement for the standard cranberry sauce at Holiday meals.
About the Merrilily Gardens Biz:
For many decades I have been giving out my jams and jellies and sauces to friends as gifts and the comment was always the same. You should be selling this stuff! So two years age I decided to give it a try with the Plum Perfect Plum Sauce, changing it to a pourable sauce with more spices in it so that it could be used as a meat grilling and finishing sauce as well as a dessert sauce. My business took off from there with my adding jams, jellies, salsa and pickled items. Each Product has a history coming from cooking in the South.
Founded:
2005
Current Clients:
High end Gift Stores, The Chandlery in Roswell, Harry's Farmers Market and Whole foods, Colonel Mustards in the Highlands
Marketing Strategies:
My Marketing strategy is to serve as many people possible in large festival venues to get the name and flavors of the products out to the public. Tasting new products before purchasing them means everything to customers.
Merrily new her sauces were a hit when:
I know my products have made an impression when people buy a jar of my product from a store on their vacation and call be to order a case from me when they get home.
Why is Merrily in the food business?
I wanted to give my Plum Perfect Plum Sauce a chance to get on the gourmet food market to see if it would make an impression. Once I did this then following up with other products became a fum challenge.
Why was getting started difficult for Merrily?
Knowing up front that I knew nothing about developing a product and taking it to market! It made this a huge challenge. Learning about logos , printing labels, getting food approval from the state and the manufacturing end was very time consuming.
Foodpreneur Says:
A product will be successful when the owner understands the simple key elements of marketing a food brand. 
Merrily's commitment to product demonstrations in stores and at local markets is key! Selling direct to consumer at local markets will really boost your margins while doing in-store demos will keep you on the shelves. A food product can easily stay on a store shelf when supported by product demos. A real attention getter during demonstrations is the Frog Jam (figs + raspberries + oranges + ginger). The unique name consistently gets people to ask Merrily about the Frog Jam where she can tell them about the jam as well as the other products. Brilliant!
Contacting Merrilily Gardens:
Merrilily Gardens
2145 Jep Wheeler Rd.
Woodstock, Georgia 30188 US
(770) 777-7044
Website: Merrilily Gardens
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