Gourmet baskets

[lori042499]

I have always made gourmet baskets to order from full size retail priced items bought at the grocery store..Recently, I have changed to the shelf stable gourmet wholesale items, for two reasons....Reason #1-I can deisplay the items so that people know that I do fruit and gourmet baskets....Reason #2(or so I thought)-Was pricing....


I am finding that there are pros and cond to this idea...Some of the pros-You can make up gourmet only baskets for display, the gourmet display make people realize you do fruit baskets, Everything is shelf stable so no worrying that cheese will spoil if left with a neighbor on delivery, packaging is usually nicer...Greta to have around to fill in a fruit basket if needed..Some of the cons-Small size and rather expensive in terms of oz per dollar spent, Gourmet baskets tend to look just like everyone else's and a 75.00 basket looks weak like a hicory farms basket with gourmet size items...

What do you guys do for gourmet????

 

[RWK]

As a general rule of thumb.....in our area.....gourmet baskets don't sell all that well......however, baskets loaded with snacks and junkfood go over well.

As far as having them out on display - I would suggest creating a nice display with all the components and let the customers choose which components they want to have in their baskets.

 

[clay]

Gourmet and Gift Baskets

I have always made gourmet baskets to order from full size retail priced items bought at the grocery store..Recently, I have changed to the shelf stable gourmet wholesale items, for two reasons....Reason #1-I can deisplay the items so that people know that I do fruit and gourmet baskets....Reason #2(or so I thought)-Was pricing....


I am finding that there are pros and cond to this idea...Some of the pros-You can make up gourmet only baskets for display, the gourmet display make people realize you do fruit baskets, Everything is shelf stable so no worrying that cheese will spoil if left with a neighbor on delivery, packaging is usually nicer...Greta to have around to fill in a fruit basket if needed..Some of the cons-Small size and rather expensive in terms of oz per dollar spent, Gourmet baskets tend to look just like everyone else's and a 75.00 basket looks weak like a hicory farms basket with gourmet size items...

What do you guys do for gourmet????

In doing "gourmet" baskets, we order smaller, gourmet items that have a decent shelf life. During Christmas, alot of times I go purchase some of the pre-arranged gourmet baskets as Sams, take them apart, and repackage them the way we design the gourment baskets. Generally the individual prices of the items are the same cost as I would buy them wholesale...and I can get alot of different variety.
That being said, 90% of our Gift basket business is using smaller "snack" items purchased at Sams and other places. We keep our eye out for new products and particularly interesting or theme containers. Just last week I purchased a really neat Coke embossed tin bucket at Walgreens for $5.00, add to it glass bottle Cokes and other Sam's snacks....and they have been walking out the door.
Gift baskets have been a great business for us, they are a product that you can premake during the slow times durring the day and place them out on your sales floor.
Hope this helps answer your question.

 

[lori042499]

As a general rule of thumb.....in our area.....gourmet baskets don't sell all that well......however, baskets loaded with snacks and junkfood go over well.

As far as having them out on display - I would suggest creating a nice display with all the components and let the customers choose which components they want to have in their baskets.

Rick, Thanks...I do that now..I have a nice display of all the gourmet items priced and then either customers or I pick from there. I think that maybe 1 customer ever bought anything from the display, but it has helped people be aware that I do them... There are so many florists that are either not doing fruit and gourmet or don't let anyone know that they do them...I have had at least a dozen browsers say as they are looking at the gourmet display, "Oh, do you do fruit baskets...It is so hard to find someone to do a fruit basket that delivers."


My problem with the gourmet items is that I don't think they look nice enough for the money...Not sure if that is just me out of touch or reality..

 

[lori042499]

In doing "gourmet" baskets, we order smaller, gourmet items that have a decent shelf life. During Christmas, alot of times I go purchase some of the pre-arranged gourmet baskets as Sams, take them apart, and repackage them the way we design the gourment baskets. Generally the individual prices of the items are the same cost as I would buy them wholesale...and I can get alot of different variety.
That being said, 90% of our Gift basket business is using smaller "snack" items purchased at Sams and other places. We keep our eye out for new products and particularly interesting or theme containers. Just last week I purchased a really neat Coke embossed tin bucket at Walgreens for $5.00, add to it glass bottle Cokes and other Sam's snacks....and they have been walking out the door.
Gift baskets have been a great business for us, they are a product that you can premake during the slow times durring the day and place them out on your sales floor.
Hope this helps answer your question.

Clay, Waht in terms of size are people looking for for say $75.00. I made one this morning and I am unhappy with the way it looks for the money. It is in a nice rope basket rectangle about 9", it has a box of truffles 8 oz, a nice choc puff cookie, 2 teas, 2 3oz cheese, a tin of brie spread, a 4oz sausage, a small jam, a small mustard, a butter cookie, a brent and sam cc cookie and a cracker to me it looks small...Is this just because I am used to using bigger packages and less variety?? By the way I am having trouble with this because I usually do fruit and gourmet and they always look impressive...Gourmet baskets always look small to me especially at those gourmet websites and I do not want mine to be associated with those...

 

[twiggy]

I don't think you are out of touch.. i think you are thinking like a customer! the shop i've worked at made up their gourmet baskets from the grocery like you did.. but they also had a few little accents in there to make them different.. so you have a BIG box of crackers or chips and then some unusual drink mixes or candies. imo people get a little annoyed at the very small sizes of the gourmet items.

 

[lori042499]

I don't think you are out of touch.. i think you are thinking like a customer! the shop i've worked at made up their gourmet baskets from the grocery like you did.. but they also had a few little accents in there to make them different.. so you have a BIG box of crackers or chips and then some unusual drink mixes or candies. imo people get a little annoyed at the very small sizes of the gourmet items.

Yeah this is what I am concerned about.. I know that thos gift basket places online do a wonderful business, but the baskets, to me, are dissapointing at best...Not too sure if the few all gourmet I do a year, i want to look like that...

 

[Carrieann]

Lori, Where are you buying your gourmet items from? We currently buy to order from local grocery stores. I have been looking for a wholesale place to buy items that I can keep in store to fill.
The one company I found so far that I like is www.giftbasketsupplies.com so far all I have purchased from them is spa type items. I really like them, alot of them were bigger than I expected and the prices are good. They are not moving as fast as I would of liked. I have them displayed with some baskets filled with different spa items and candles. We do a fair amount of food baskets, but always have to go shopping for them. It is time consuming to say the least.
I am on vacation right now but plain to look into buying some of the gourmet food items from them when I get back. It would be really nice not to have to go shopping all the time for items especially around the holidays.

 

[twiggy]

Lori, if you would like some sources for interesting candies and things for your baskets i just recieved a bundle of gourmet catalogs and will share them with you if you like?

 

[Eric S]

This will be our first year to throw the towel in on gourmet baskets. Besides our health inspecter says its a no no to store those gourmet items that we used stock with out certification.

It dosen't matter because we have failed miserably with it. Competeing with price and quality nothing ever worked.

 

[lori042499]

Lori, Where are you buying your gourmet items from? We currently buy to order from local grocery stores. I have been looking for a wholesale place to buy items that I can keep in store to fill.
The one company I found so far that I like is www.giftbasketsupplies.com so far all I have purchased from them is spa type items. I really like them, alot of them were bigger than I expected and the prices are good. They are not moving as fast as I would of liked. I have them displayed with some baskets filled with different spa items and candles. We do a fair amount of food baskets, but always have to go shopping for them. It is time consuming to say the least.
I am on vacation right now but plain to look into buying some of the gourmet food items from them when I get back. It would be really nice not to have to go shopping all the time for items especially around the holidays.

My local wholesaler has the gourmet items that can be purchased by the each or the case..I also get a great mixed pack from Bloomnet they price it weird and even price per piece but I've checked it against what I would pay at my wholesaler and it came out to be a good deal...I do a fair share of fruit and gourmet baskets on my own and i do quite a few through 800..They are originally why I got the very first gourmet pack, but I found it was nice to be able to send the driver for just fruit and then throw in some of the gourmet...It is kind of hard to get the driver to pick out the proper gourmet items if your not sure what the names are(I hate it when they come back with no name crap or chips ahoys for cookies). I'll have to check out that website...

 

[bloomz]

This will be our first year to throw the towel in on gourmet baskets. Besides our health inspecter says its a no no to store those gourmet items that we used stock with out certification.

It dosen't matter because we have failed miserably with it. Competeing with price and quality nothing ever worked.

We're there too - after stocking and seeing them go out of date hundreds of dollars of gourmet items, and they always looked to small to me too - I just didn't feel right selling a $75 basket stuffed with fake fillers in the bottom to make it look big and about 6-8 items in the top - bad value in my book. I don't care if that canned Salmon is supposed to be $10-15 or whatever - it looks like a $2 can of tuna. No percieved value. I'd rather sell them a nice $75 floral bouquet of substance.

We have some that were on consignment (but we bought) but they are just sitting there too - no more investment in this stuff from us.

We've also bought some Costco ones at holidays and put a different bow and look to them - you can't beat the deals they get and give.

 

[mb0509]

It is kind of hard to get the driver to pick out the proper gourmet items if your not sure what the names are(I hate it when they come back with no name crap or chips ahoys for cookies). ...

LOL, You said it! I'm also working on gourmet gift baskets, I'd like to add this as a catagory to my website for the fall. Scoping out different online wholesalers with low minimums, it gets expensive to run to the grocery store for the gourmet and I'd like to be different from everyone else.

Mary

 

[Eric S]

We've also bought some Costco ones at holidays and put a different bow and look to them - you can't beat the deals they get and give.

We tried that as well. Never sold them. Maybe one or two and we always end up given them away.

It would great to offer those on our website for $20 or $30 bucks. But even just offering them at $5 ubove our price still didn't work (That was a test two years ago with sams club gourmet).

Out here we have JDW.
http://www.jdwdist.com/

 

[Tracy D'Amico]

We make from scratch, with items purchased primarily from Peters Import, and a few specialty food sources - cookie mix, Chocolate Lace, specialty cookies. Yes, all gourmet always seems small-ish to me. We try to work them into baskets/containers that are 15% or less of the order amount.

I have not been a fan of the pre-mades, though I admit it's been about four years since working with them. Most of the time, we would take them apart, and add fruit. To me, their biggest advantage was that everything co-ordinated so nicely - boxes & wraps all in the same color family, which made the basket seem more full. I hate the stuffer they use - cardboard spacers under the packages, to add volume.

I usually try and sell F&G mix, for just the reasons you mentioned. I explain to customers that it's nice to have a mix of fresh healthy produce, with some gourmet items mixed in. It's an easy sell, and it makes us look better all around.

tracy

 

[lori042499]

We make from scratch, with items purchased primarily from Peters Import, and a few specialty food sources - cookie mix, Chocolate Lace, specialty cookies. Yes, all gourmet always seems small-ish to me. We try to work them into baskets/containers that are 15% or less of the order amount.

I have not been a fan of the pre-mades, though I admit it's been about four years since working with them. Most of the time, we would take them apart, and add fruit. To me, their biggest advantage was that everything co-ordinated so nicely - boxes & wraps all in the same color family, which made the basket seem more full. I hate the stuffer they use - cardboard spacers under the packages, to add volume.

I usually try and sell F&G mix, for just the reasons you mentioned. I explain to customers that it's nice to have a mix of fresh healthy produce, with some gourmet items mixed in. It's an easy sell, and it makes us look better all around.

tracy

Yeah, I think from here on in if they want an all gourmet..I may just talk them into more of a junk basket and save the smallish gourmet for fruit and gourmet...

 

[clay]

a few little accents

I don't think you are out of touch.. i think you are thinking like a customer! the shop i've worked at made up their gourmet baskets from the grocery like you did.. but they also had a few little accents in there to make them different.. so you have a BIG box of crackers or chips and then some unusual drink mixes or candies. imo people get a little annoyed at the very small sizes of the gourmet items.

Yes, I should have mentioned that, we will add/subtract from the prepackaged gourment basket that we purchase from whoever...alot of times use one of our better containers (save the prepackage container for a cheaper gourment order) and add our upgrade ribbon with accents in the bow.

 

[clay]

value in gift baskets

Clay, Waht in terms of size are people looking for for say $75.00. I made one this morning and I am unhappy with the way it looks for the money. It is in a nice rope basket rectangle about 9", it has a box of truffles 8 oz, a nice choc puff cookie, 2 teas, 2 3oz cheese, a tin of brie spread, a 4oz sausage, a small jam, a small mustard, a butter cookie, a brent and sam cc cookie and a cracker to me it looks small...Is this just because I am used to using bigger packages and less variety?? By the way I am having trouble with this because I usually do fruit and gourmet and they always look impressive...Gourmet baskets always look small to me especially at those gourmet websites and I do not want mine to be associated with those...

Yes, gourment is hard to give value...especially if you put a labor factor on the gourmet basket which some florists do not. I do not have much words of wisdom on gourmet/value other than suggesting to add some fruit to our gourment baskets.
Since our customers are more "value" types plus us Texans enjoy our snack foods, our everyday order for gift baskets are mainly snacks in a miniture galv. trash can....or now the Coke galv bucket we purchased. The are easly to make, snacks have a pretty decent shelf life, and I very rarely have a "value" complaint on them.

 

[Bigted]

The key to value with a fruit/gourmet basket is how it looks, not how much there is. We have a local gourmet store that sells stuff designed for the baskets. The package looks great, you just don't get very much product. It turns out that's ok. Let's face it, you're sitting in your cubicle at work or in a hotel room, do you really need 75 pounds of fruit and stuff? Not really. Also, the fruit needs to look good. We don't like the supermarket fruit. We go to the local produce market, but if you're in a small town that probably won't help you. We have a produce cooler that keeps the ethylene down so the fruit lasts a fairly long time, but it is still a constant battle to send out the best quality.

As to displays, we used to use plastic fruit with the real gourmet items. We were never very happy with the look, but it tells people you have the baskets.

 

[RWK]

There is one option to gourmet/ fruit/ snack baskets/designs that we as florists and as creative individuals have over the grocery stores and the mass marketers and discount chains like Wal-Mart/ Costco/ etc.

We do have the option to enhance the presentation with our knowledge and our creativity to give them a truly one-of-a-kind gift that not only has value within the selection of product, but also value in how nice a gift it is.

Speaking for myself as a designer.....I think my customer would be happier with a truly unique presentation rather than a huge conglomeration of 'stuff '. However, A co-worker of mine feels the opposite. She likes a basket to be a chock full of product as possible and to not do anything to enhance the overall look value to make it more indidivdual.