Although I’m very political by nature (after all, I started my career at 16 as an environmental activist), I try not to go too deeply into politics in conversation with folks I don’t know well. It’s too likely to get heated, and personally, I’d rather talk about food and business and the like.

That said, I do spend a lot of time reading up on the candidates, getting informed and the like, and the other day I was pointed to this interesting site called Behind the Candidates, which is a breakdown of all the folks who are working in the campaigns of the two main presidential candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain.

Overall, it’s pretty well designed. Clean, easy to read, and one key thing I like - it has nice big type so voters of all ages can read it without an issue (often a problem with modern websites). The one thing that gets me, though - they created a custom scrollbar in the center of the page, rather than letting the page scroll on the right like it normally would. 

The benefit to this, on one hand, is that it forces you to think for a moment - which, presumably, is part of what the site is meant to do. On the other hand, it also makes an assumption that the person visiting this site has all the time in the world to peruse through the multiple mini-profiles. It’s clunky to use, and since I, like most folks, was checking this site out in my *ahem* copious spare time, I barely got through a couple dozen profiles before I had to move on.

Personally, I’d have left the scrollbar where it was - where people expect it to be. Aside from that, a nice clean design, and well-organized information.

Don’t forget to vote tomorrow!

On Sunday, the Daily Record in New Jersey posted a great article on a new Food-Preneur Boot Camp program at Farleigh Dickinson University, which helps specialty food entrepreneurs learn the ropes of creating, packaging and marketing specialty food products.

A couple of quick highlights from the article:

 ”The Food-Preneur classes are gaining traction because nobody else is offering them,” [Domenick] Celentano [of Celentano Company] said. “Food is a popular business for people to start because they can create the prototype products in their kitchen.”

Also, the specialty-food industry is booming to the tune of $50 billion a year, he told participants. It rose more than 24 percent between 2005 and 2007… 

While the article makes some interesting points about why to go into the specialty food business, it also makes the point that it’s not just about creating something tasty and expecting people to love it. 90% of all specialty food products (and processed food products in general) don’t succeed. So how do you make your product stand out?

One tip is to have good packaging. According to the article:

Good packaging informs customers about a product in addition to preserving and protecting it, she explained. Great packaging also attracts them to the product. Holding a bottle of Demeter’s Pantry Taste of Crete Organic Olive Oil, she said it stands out on shelves because of its gold foil top and its bottle tag, which offers information about the oil and the story of the company.

But going further than this, I feel that the brand and website of a product also makes a huge difference in the success of a new product, especially when the product is intended as a luxury/gourmet item. The more expensive the price point, the better your brand needs to look; customers who are purchasing these products often care as much about how it looks on the shelf as they do how it tastes.

By the way, the same holds true for body care, wine and candles, where customers time and again will actually make purchases based exclusively on packaging and/or scent.

You know, there are some networking events where I go in, have a moderately not sucky time, and leave with maybe a couple of good contacts. There are others where I go in, meet maybe a couple of people, but leave wondering why the heck I signed up for it.

Then there’s Expo East. Where I walk onto a tradeshow floor, throw my hands to the sky in gratitude, and know that I have landed among My People. I had about the same reaction to this summer’s Fancy Food Show, but Expo East has the added benefit of including organic specialty care items, so I got a double whammy of “oh, shiny!”

Some education highlights:

• I’ve learned that while organic clothing and bath products (still thought of as “luxury” items) are feeling a strong hit with the economy, people who choose to buy organic produce are still buying it, despite the push to save money on food. The reason for this is that the impulse to buy organic comes from the “avoidance” factor; the consumer is looking to avoid pesticides, hormones and such in their food, and aren’t going to go back to the pesticide-laden stuff just because it’s more expensive. The bamboo towels, they can live without. The apples, notsomuch.
• Organics in general, while they are seeing a hit from the economy, are still seeing significant growth - it’s just moderating itself from the 20% yearly threshold it had been hitting since the 90’s.
• While more folks are eating in now and preferring to cook at home, they still want the great, gourmet food they would normally get at restaurants; as such, sales of specialty/gourmet foods are actually seeing pretty strong sales right now.
• In order to inspire more stay-at-home chefs and strapped consumers, while still giving them a way to eat natural, organic food, grocers are starting to create programs that help consumers work with organics in a lower-cost way. For example, a couple of chains (including Whole Foods) are instituting meal programs, where you can pay a certain amount of money and get a great organic meal. One chain had a $5 lunch program that they implemented near high schools and colleges that went over like gangbusters; another (think it was Whole Foods) did a $20 dinner package for 4.
• Other grocers are starting to do merchandising gimmicks with recipes - you have a pamphlet with a week’s worth of meal recipes with a shopping list, all using ingredients you can get for about $20. Position that alongside a display of the ingredients, and even portion some of them out so the consumer can pick up just what they need. How cool is that, I ask you?

And now (because I know you want it), the foodie highlights:

• More food - and YUMMY food - than I can possibly imagine. *cue choir of angels*
• Free bars in abundance from Larabar, Kind and Boomi Bar (by the way, Larabar has now come out with a Coconut Cream bar that is To Die, and Kind has a mango nutty thing that is, well, yeah. YUMMMMM.)
• Additional samples from Twinings, Yogi Tea, and Mighty Leaf, as well as a free bottle of iced white green from Teas Tea (my absolute favorite iced tea). Yogi Tea has a new Sweet Mexican Chili tea that is completely amazing, in the most incredibly odd way.
• The best frozen Indian food I have ever tasted in my life from Tandoor Chef. Their frozen chutneys are amazing, and the newest product in their line - it hasn’t even been released yet - is Masala “pizza” and Palak Paneer in a pastry crust. Yes, folks, it’s an Indian Hot Pocket. *Why* has nobody thought of this before? I went back for thirds.

Other highlights:

• Getting into a LONG conversation with someone from Avalon Organics about the Dr. Bronner’s, ahem, situation. According to the rep, the offending ingredient has already been formulated out of the product (it was only in one of the products). I also talked to a rep from Dr. Bronner’s, but forgot to ask him about his take. Interestingly, though, I did find out that their Sal Suds (my all time favorite dish soap) was removed from Whole Foods because it contains Sodium Laurel Sulfate as its primary ingredient.

Overall, I had some great conversations with folks about their products; what I’m loving about these tradeshows in general (aside from the full contact networking aspect of it, which I always enjoy - rather masochistically, I might add) is that it’s a concentrated group of people, and it’s *exactly* the people I want to meet - the people responsible for selling and marketing Tasty Things, and Fancy Things to Put on My Body.

I’m sure there’s more than this, but honestly, I’m wiped. That said, I will say something that I often say: my job *rocks.* Another day of fabulous starts tomorrow.