Food Show

Just returned from a trip to Portland for the NW Food Manufacturing Show at the Convention Center (for those of you on the East coast, that is Portland, Oregon). This was the first trip for the new Hyundai and it performed as advertised. I was a little disappointed in the gas mileage, but on the way back it hit 24 mpg.
Did some visiting and got educated on new machines and software for the plant. We are looking at bringing everything in house and that will entail adding an ERP solution. I have been searching for something online rather than purchasing software. If anyone knows of a good provider that can bring something similar to salesforce.com to the manufacturing world, please send it on.
Our plans this year are pretty aggressive and it will mean adding some significant pieces of machinery. We are going to move beyond cookies (but please look for some new delights that will hit the shelves in the next few months) and that means a complete revamp of the facility. I can't say just yet what the new additions will be, but rest assured they are something most of you will enjoy.

I spent the first night in Portland with my father who was visiting my younger sister, or so he thought. Just before Christmas my sister and partner drove to Walla Walla (yes people actually live in Walla Walla, Washington) and returned with the parents under the guise of spending Christmas and a few weeks away from the cold weather. Turns out my older sister had arranged for a week respite for the girls in Hawaii, leaving my dad under the watchful eye of Dave.
Now my father has been suffering from a degenerative bone disease for a few years (he is approaching 87) and it has progressed to where it is very painful for him to move around much. I think he has been celiac as he has many of the symptoms, but the doctors in Walla Walla say they have tested him and the results were negative. But for those of you "in the know" doesn't someone who has never been over 140 pounds (at 6 foot tall), had chronic diarrhea, is aenemic, and now has osteoporosis, sound like they are celiac? Sure does to me.
Anyway the trip to Hawaii was a big success and mother came back feeling much better and relaxed.
So after an all night flight from Honolulu to Portland, I bundled the folks up and drove them to Walla Walla. While they were away there was a huge windstorm that took down many branches from their trees, but thanks to great neighbors, when we pulled up it looked like the lawn man had just driven away. Everything was in order and no damage was reported. That is the way this world should work, with neighbor looking after neighbor. I was impressed and grateful.
After returning the next day to Portland (a 4 hour drive) I returned to my sister's and had a wonderful salmon dinner.
The next day I was up early and at the Convention Center for what was billed as a Big Show! Well big is was not. I walked the entire show at least 3 times and talked to a number of companies and still was out the door before 3pm.
I did learn a number of things and got some great information on the expansion we are planning.
It also freed me up for the next day to make some sales calls in the Portland area.
We are in all the Whole Foods, New Seasons and most of the Market of Choice stores in the area, in addition to others. I was encourged to see the product on the shelf in the frozen dessert sections of these fine establishments. Our new packaging is starting to arrive with the Chip Chip Hooray in all stores and it should be followed soon by the other three flavors.
I saw around a dozen stores and was gratified to see not only ours, but a growing number of other gluten free products. Our industry is becoming more mainstream. I like to say that our cookies will stand toe-to-toe with a gluten infested product any day of the week. Our flavor is better and nothing beats a Real Cookie fresh from the oven.
I left Portland and had a beautiful drive back to Anacortes, WA where I spend many nights aboard our sailboat. The wind has been constant this year and I've had too many nights where I have been awakened by the howling of rigging, tossing of the boat, and general melee of a storm to deal with. Lat night was none of that, it was calm, cool and delivered a restful night sleep. I hope to enjoy another of those tonight.
Here at the plant we have been making a lot of peanut butter cookies. Our crew has been making and packing thousands of these little gems for a customer.
I have been looking into ways to do more recycling as we go through a lot of plastic pails (the peanut butter comes in 35 pound tubs) and ran across a company in northern California that may be the answer.
We are pretty keen on doing as much as we can to recycle and be as friendly as possible to our mother earth. BTW if any of you are in the area and are in need of a good plastic pail, don't go to Home Depot and buy one, just drop by and I'll give you as many as you can use.
I am looking forward to a weekend off to get a few projects done around the ranch. My finger is pretty well healed and I should be able to do some of the things I have been avoiding the last few weeks.
Hope your new year is starting off in a banner fashion.
TTYL

Happy New Year

Well we're back. After a great trip seeing the children and grandchildren it is now time to get back to the old grindstone.

Went to the doctor yesterday to see how old age is affecting me. So far so good. I am trying to lose a few pounds (working in a cookie factory hasn't been the best for a diet) and I need to cut down on the salt. Oh well, that sounds pretty simple.

What is not quite as easy is finding a restaurant that serves food sans salt. At home we eat gourmet which means more calories, but even that is flexible. The doctor said the South Beach diet would be better than the Atkins diet for my body type. I have done the Atkins a few times with good results, I have never looked at the South Beach Diet.

He also suggested I eat a bran muffin every morning and I said that was not possible as my wife is celiac. His response was but you're not so what's the problem? I told him we had a gluten free household and cross contamination was an issue. He looked at me like I was the crazy one. I don't understand how a medical professional in today's society would not know that a lot of celiacs cannot stomach even a hint of gluten. I was going to give him the short lecture, but instead handed him a business card and said go the to site (http://www.glutenfreeda.com/) and see how well your wheat and gluten free patients can have it.

It is surprising how many people are becoming aware of celiac. Since Yvonne was diagnosed in 1999 things have really changed. I give out a card almost daily to someone who has or knows someone with celiac. It is heartening to see the change and be a part of it.

I'm not sure if any of you are aware of it, but we are now available in over 450 stores throughout the west and mountain states. We just were placed in the Fred Meyer stores in the NW in a new gluten free section. Please go out and support us. It is to your benefit to have as many successful items in these sections as possible. The stores are trying to help us, but we need to support their efforts by purchasing the products. If they don't turn fast enough they will drop them for more conventional foods.

I am going to the Northwest Food Manufacturing and Packaging Exposition in Portland, Oregon this weekend. It should be interesting. I'll try to take a few photos and report on it when I return.

If you have any questions, please post them and I'll do my best to get an answer back to you.

TTYL

Christmas pictures

Christmas 2007

Well after a day's delay due to weather we finally arrived home from Colorado last night. We had a great time with the kids and grandchildren. We went to a wonderful restaurant that is accessed only by cross country skis, snowshoes or horsedrawn sleigh (you can guess which we took).
It was a cold and snowy night when we left the small shack that loads everyone onto the sleigh. Each sleigh holds around 20 people and is drawn by two enormous horses. It was a beautiful mile to mile and half run up to a log building that housed the restaurant (Pinecreek Cookhouse). There were six of us (our daughter, son-in-law and 2 grandchildren aged 10 and 6). We immediately went for hot chocolate, ours laced with Bailey's. The meal came and was delicious. Our son-in-law had called ahead and talked to the Chef about Yvonne's gluten issue and I was somewhat disappointed that they had done nothing to accomodate her. But we did find enough scrumptious items to satisfy everyone.
I was somewhat shocked when the time came to pay and they handed us a bill totally nearly $1,000. The grandchildren had mac and cheese and we were charged $65 per plate. That seemed really outrageous to me, especially when you consider we paid $25 each for the sleigh ride.
My broken finger and Yvonne's bum knee kept us off the ski slopes on Monday at Sunlight, but we made the best of it by having the kids around and playing Monopoly in the lodge. All in all a great day.
Christmas morning came early (around 5:30) as Hunter and Michal we up early looking to see what Santa had left.
Had a superb prime rib dinner with a couple of Jeff and Jessica's friends and topped off the evening with a nice chat with Jeff's friend Bobby who is somewhat of a landmark in Aspen. He used to ride his horse into bars back in the good old days.
I managed to slip into some mittens and ski Snowmass on Wednesday and had an Epic day on the slopes. Michal and Hunter are turning into real pros on the slopes. The last time I was able to ski was with them two years ago and it was their first day ever. Now they are both on the ski team and shooshing double black diamonds. Kind of intimidated me.
The weather moved in and our flights were cancelled on Thursday so I had to conduct a little business via phone and make sure our dogs were fine at the kennel. I had
Barbara send over more food and she actually picked them up for us on Friday and put them in our car so we could make it home last night, rather than stay a night apick them up this morning.
Pretty much a great Christmas. Unfortunately we have to cancel our New Year's plans on White Pass because of the delay and Yvonne is really sick. I beleive she caught something on the plane going down as there were lots of kids and most were coughing and hacking. We were going to friends who own a motel on the pass and have converted it to a private retreat of sorts. Last year they had about 60 people for New Year's and a few of us special ones had a room right on the river. I was really looking forward to repeating the experience. Oh well.
It is very nice to be back in the green northwest. The snow is nice, but as a rule I would rather live here and visit there.
Hope you holidays are going as well as ours.
TTYL

Day without Keta

Thursday came bright and early. I was at the plant at 6:30AM getting paperwork done before the troops showed up. Keta, our floor manager, was not able to come in this morning, so that left me to run the cookie depositor. With a broken digit that becomes a problem. I needed to figure out how to get a glove over my hand so I could work around the food. I finally found a system that worked. I was able to take one of our larger gloves and put it carefully over my finger, then put the splint over that. I do not have to touch the dough so there are no health concerns, however I try to keep everything as far above the standards and humanly possible.
As I have stated before, we are meticulous about our plant. We strive to keep it absolutely clean at all times.
We run at maximum 50,000 cookies per day. That translates into 30 batches. Today we had 18 batches in before lunch, so I look to hit the 30 easy.
Christmas is next Tuesday and we are looking forward to the snow. I'm not nearly as excited about the 2 degree weather though. I kind of like the 40 degree weather offered here in the coastal area.
Yvonne flew from the island to the mainland yesterday and had quite a trip. The winds were picking up and she was in a four seater. She's not much for flying in small planes and was white as a ghost when she arrived. Her hands didn't stop shaking for half an hour.
We're closing in on the private label project and should have it out of here on schedule. That will be a big relief. Now we can concentrate on the new flavors and packaging and Canadian orders and rebuilding some inventory on the current four flavors, and, and, and, it just goes on and on.
I'd better go back out and check the floor. Enjoy the holidays if I don't talk to you before.
TTYL

A new week

It's Monday and the plant is up and running once again. Not much to report on the cookie side. We are mixing and packing like little crazy elves. Last Friday we worked an extra shift and packed just under 3 pallets of cookies. This is the private label project and the pallets carry three times the product as our branded pack. 70 cases per pallet and 24 dozen per case. That translates into on heck of a lot of cookies.

I took the ferry home Friday and thought I would nurse my broken finger back to health, however the wife had different ideas. Spent a few hours bucking hay bales for the horses. Didn't seem to hurt anything so I guess I am on the mend. Today was the day to have the stitches come out. I was going to go back to the hospital, but the schedule would not allow the time, so I pulled out the trusty pocket knife (complete with scissors) and took them out myself. The cut healed just fine, but the finger is not moving at the joint and is still pretty swollen. I hope I do not lose mobility. Two of the finger nails are pretty black, so I suspect I will lose at least one if them.

We went and saw Will Smith in "I am Legend" yesterday. Pretty good movie. Scared the heck out of the wife (she said she had nightmares). I found it pretty predictable, but well acted. If only I hadn't eaten that box of Milk Duds. I felt sick all night.

We were going to have teppanyaki last night (yes we do have a teppanyaki table at our house), but after the movie, neither of us wanted to go to all the prep work, so we pan fried the filets, had some rice and wine and called it a night.

Had to get up at 4:30 this morning to make the ferry, and that still puts me at work a half an hour later than I would like.

We did ship the first pallets to Canada last Friday, so watch for us in the store near you soon. As soon as we get a list of the retail outlets, it will be posted on http://www.glutenfreeda.com

Going home last week I had my video iPod in my coat pocket and it must have gotten crushed by the seatbelt latch, because when I got home and went to fire it up the screen showed lines and what looked like ink spreading down and all over it. I was truly bummed. I have over 7000 songs on there (they are backed up on a hard drive). I was going to order a new iPod but thought I would see if this one could be repaired. I found a site online www.kopellimusic.us and it gives you options to fix the device yourself. I ordered a new screen and it is supposed to come with all the tools and instructions needed for the repair. They also give you the option to send it to them and they will repair it. I thought their prices were reasonable. I will update you when the screen arrives and I take a crack at the repair. I am not mechanically inclined, so if I can fix this anyone can.
The old broken finger is beginning to throb, so I guess I will sign off. BTW we are leaving for Colorado on Saturday to visit the kids and grandkids. Hopefully I will be able to get a few runs in on the slopes. I'll try to take pictures (not much of a camera bug any more).
TTYL

Tuesday

Not much happening today. We built the Canadian pallets and the pallet for the NW region. No mishaps today and things are running smoothly. The parts came in for the Hobart and I have it back up and running.
Weather was cool today, but not cold. Did inventory this morning and made sure we had enough raw materials to keep us going. We have run out of the initial products with the first labeling and are now fully shipping the new labels. Again if you haven't seen them go to our home page and take a gander. I would appreciate your comments as we are about to do some more labeling and I would like to hear some comments from you.
Today was my son's birthday (he's 27) so wish him a happy birthday when you sit down to supper.
I see the Fed's have lowered interest rates by a quarter point. Boy I'll bet that really stimulates the economy :).
Have a great evening.
TTYL