Using food brokers to tap into new markets

[Rita Wilhelm]

I had a relatively large gift basket business for 10 years, in which we included specialty food items in most of our gift baskets. I worked mainly with food brokers, because it really saved alot of time on our end. These food brokers would come and visit me, and offer taste tests of all the new products they were carrying. This allowed me to maximize my time and select my desired products for the season.

For specialty food entrepreneurs who are trying to tap into the gift basket industry, or even for those who want to wholesale their products to stores, I highly recommend using specialty food brokers.

Rita Wilhelm

[Hugh Sabel]

Hi Rita,

What part of the country are you located? Do you have one or more brokers or distributors you would recommend? We are in AZ, our sales are concentrated in the west CA, AZ,TX, NV , CO and NM.

[Rita Wilhelm]

I sold my gift basket business in 2002, so some of the brokers have changed. You can usually go to a city's merchandise mart, and hook up with the brokers that rent space in there.

A popular specialty food broker in Colorado is The Colorado Food Showroom.

I hope that helps.

Rita Wilhelm
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[outside_the_box]

Hi Hugh,
I actually live in Denver and Rita is right. Some brokers I know of are Salesmarkinc.com, Hinskey & Kimball. If you log onto the Denver Merchandise Mart Website (and go to the Gift, Resort, & Jewlery section) you can see who the brokers are buy category. I think there is a drop-down menu for "Food Gifts".

JK