Fancy Food Show – A Marx Foods Perk

A post by Ryan, our fabulously creative and versatile design director

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Before joining Marx Foods I worked for one of Washington State’s largest privately owned companies. One of those places that is run by a strict set of rules and guidelines, where your job is set in stone, and there are no variations allowed. With that background in mind I’ve come to fully appreciate the perks of working at Marx Foods. One of those perks is that everyone, no matter their specialty, gets to learn a fair amount of knowledge of how every bit of the business works which is how I managed to get into the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco a couple weekends back.

I’m an artist, first and foremost. I’m part of the team who takes the photos, who designs and codes the webstore and blogs. Color options, check, I can help with that. But thanks to some handy unofficial office policies I’ve also gotten a decent taste, so to say, of what makes a good product for our store. For the most part, everyone here has good taste when it comes to our products because it’s important to believe in the products we carry. So, when a few months back, Justin asked if I’d be up for joining him at the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco I jumped at a “work” weekend. It’s a pretty good office perk I have to admit. As a dad of a 4yr old any vacation/trip that didn’t include the words “kid friendly” is welcome. But as things got closer Justin got called to a weeklong trip to New Zealand for our great new grass-fed beef line during the same week of the show, and of course who was he to turn down New Zealand in their summer when our weather report was calling for record amounts of snow. I got a quick crash course on the business end of things by daily pop quizzes and sent on my way.

The first day of the trip was for me to get down there early and to explore what the town had to offer to the food scene, as part of our research as we develop our retail store. Seattle is pretty respectable on the food front but it never hurts to check out new locations, see what’s going on in other places. After 10+ miles on foot across town from small food retailers to the Ferry Terminal, I retired to dinner at the Chef’s table at SPQR and took notes for plating techniques for our next photo shoot followed by early to bed. Not a bad first day. Oh, and what a first day as my fair skinned Norwegian heritage came out as a minor sunburn, in January…

The next day the show began. I knew that this was one of the biggest places for likeminded food industry people but I was overwhelmed. “80,000 specialty foods and beverages from 1,300 exhibitors spanning 35+ countries” spread out over both the north and south halls of the Moscone Center.

Now again, I’m a designer/photographer, all day behind three computer monitors or out in the field with a camera, which made the first day that much more overwhelming. Olive oils, vinegars, crackers, chocolates, cheese, teas, and just about any other specialty food item you can name. Major food producing countries had their own mini cities. Rows and rows built up with towering displays, and sectioned off rooms for business dealings. Just about every food brand you find in your local big box grocer had a presence as well. My job was to find that rare quality product, among the 80,000, that was both as exceptional in quality and a good fit for our very curated store. I had a small mental list of categories that we needed to expand, as well as an open mind for the occasional product that just looked too delicious to pass up. It took almost the entire day to take it all in, take notes and find my way to The Slanted Door where I sat and had a lively discussion with a chef over something more substantial. Almost forgetting I was half way through the show and had yet to actually find a specific product or three to take home. Oh my, a little bit of butterflies that night. I had to produce if I hoped to be offered the job again.

But the second day was a lot less stressful. I had seen it all, I had a plan. I knew what I wanted to bring back to the office. And it was a lot more fun. The pressure was definitely off once it became known I wasn’t in charge of buying the product, only recommending them. I could really just pursue and enjoy the many fine foods without needing to deal with sales pitches. My attention could be on what I was tasting, not what I was hearing. Cheeses after cheeses, oils and vinegars, chocolate, sauces, occasionally the bite of something that was just needed to cleanse the palate between cups of straight olive oil. Occasionally there was a product that just tasted horrible, and once in a while there was a product I’d be happy to serve my guests. Then a quick BART ride back to the airport for a late night flight home, trading the sunburns of California to the freezing snow/rain of Seattle in January.

So, thanks to Marx Foods’s great policies, this designer got to travel to a sunny climate in the middle of winter and eat better than I will again for quite a while, and got paid to do it. Now I just have to figure out how to convince Justin that its essential that I get to New Zealand.