I don't know if any of you have experience chocolate overload… but I now have! In fact chocolate, cheese, olive oil, crackers and all manner of goodies now haunt my dreams after attending this year's NASFT (The National Association for the Specialty Food Trade) 2009 Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco. Two of Page Design's clients, Chocoholics Divine Desserts (www.gourmetchocolate.com) and California Olive Ranch (www.californiaoliveranch.com), participated with booths in this year's show. The show is a chance for manufacturers, vendors, brokers, distributors, specialty stores and industry specialists to meet face to face and experience first hand each others products or services. As designers and marketers it was chance for Eric and I to get a first hand look at our client's competition as well as study trends in design, packaging techniques, trade-show booths and more… oh, and stuff ourselves with all kinds of goodies.

Overall we noticed a focus on organics and sustainable packaging by most companies. One of my favorite stories was from Brawell Foods (www.braswells.com) which proves that everything comes back in style eventually. Back in 1946 when the company started it was common practice to package your product in something that the customer could re-use (remember your grandma's cupboard which probably had a set of glasses that looked suspiciously like jars?). Today you can purchase both juices and jams from Brawell that double as glasses or bowls, and these really DO look lke glasses you would want in your cupboard… no logos even! Here are two other favorites:

LesserEvil Snacks (www.lesserevil.com): Great grass roots marketing campaign and design.
Figamijigs (www.figamajigs.com): You've got to love the name for these chocolate covered figs.