Hot on the heels of the success of last year’s Delishops Discovers Live initiative, Delishops, the unique online trade community designed to help food businesses buy and sell speciality food profitably, has once again partnered with Speciality & Fine Food Fair to roll out a further Meet the Maker series of online events scheduled to run Tuesday 19th – Thursday 21st January 2021.
As per the format last September, the live stream will be hosted by Delishops founder, Charlie Turnbull with 12 events running each day every 30 minutes from 09.30 providing buyers with the opportunity to directly connect with the producer, request samples, identify new trends and of course, ask questions specific to their business. The Delishops Meet the Maker initiative will provide an interactive forum to access 45 producers and review 100s of products to help plan new stock introductions for the months ahead. For 2021, the programme includes three key themes: Something New; Sustainability and Gifting Ideas. Producers featuring in the Something New category must have been trading for no longer than two years and be able to showcase a new range of at least three products that are about to launch or have been launched since September 2020. Participants in the Sustainability segment must be capable of demonstrating one or more of the following sustainable practices: low carbon footprint for the product and or its packaging; refill products, responsible or low impact sourcing of ingredients. The Gifting and Non-Food section will focus on products ideally placed to enable retailers to diversify their gifting and non-food offering.
Delishops Discovers events are recorded and posted to the Delishops community for retailers and food service businesses to browse, ask questions in discussions, see full catalogues and prices and buy direct from the platform throughout the year. In the absence of many of the traditional trade shows which would usually take place towards the beginning of the year, for example IFE and Farm Shop & Deli Show, both postponed due to the pandemic, the Online Meet the Maker initiative provides a much needed and time efficient means of identifying relevant new listing / stocking opportunities.
Commenting on the January series of events, Delishops founder Charlie Turnbull says, “The current challenging circumstances have once again provided a chance for independent speciality retailers and farm shops to assert their importance as heroes of the local community, offering a safe and welcoming forum for consumers to access high quality food and drink and satisfying the ongoing demand for the opportunity to seek out exciting new taste experiences supplied by brands with a proven commitment to provenance and sound environmental practices. This is the time for the independent sector to shine and we believe that our online Meet the Maker event can help producers interact and connect with new suppliers to discuss their products and build rewarding and profitable relationships.”
Visit https://delishops.co.uk/delishops-discovers/speciality/live to find out more…
