Over the last couple years Farmer Brothers has participated in the National Restaurant Association Trade Show (best known as the NRA Show) - the biggest foodservice trade show in the country. Now that we have our blog, we would like to share this year's experience with you.
Farmer Brothers Company Booth
Planning for the show starts as soon as the previous year's is over. The site of our booth is chosen on the third day of the show so we knew last year that were going to be in Booth #1424. The NRA Show is held every year in May in Chicago at McCormick Place spanning over the South and North Hall - our booth was in the South Hall. The show lasts four long days and the hours are from 9:30 am to 5 pm.

It takes a lot of planning to put together a booth for a trade show. Our booth size was 20 feet by 50 feet and it needs to get filled with equipment, signage, product, lighting, furniture/cabinets and most important people. This year our booth was staffed with 30 people including members of our executive leadership team, green coffee, training & support and most important several of our sales team members from around the country.
David Pohl giving a cupping class to culinary school students.
We had great products to serve to the show attendees including hot and cold tea, smoothies, juices, cappuccinos, espressos and of course great coffee. We decided to show case some of our best single origin coffees - El Salvador (comes from area where we did the school project), Ethiopian Yirgachafee and Sumatra. We also unveiled the Centennial Blend to begin our 100 year celebration. The blend was developed using ideas from an original blend book from the late 20's and early 30's using coffees from Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Kenya and Kona. The coffee was a hit!

The ultimate goal of company at the trade show is to develop relationships which can transpire to a sale. The other goal for us was to educate everyone how well versed we are in coffee and how this can help their business. To accomplish this, we hosted cupping classes every day throughout the entire day. Our set up for the cupping classes looked great - take a look at the pictures. People were very excited to learn about coffee and also how our expertise can help their coffee culture and business overall. We had executive chefs, restaurant owners and buyers participate but our favorites were culinary school students that wanted to learn about coffee. We took the time to teach them because at some point in the future these students will get involved in the industry and they may one day remember what Farmer Brothers taught them at the NRA Show and become a loyal customer.
Jose Ramirez giving a bilingual class to attendees from Colombia and England.
It's hard to tell how successful you actually were at a trade show because business decisions are made over time as the relationship is developed not a trade show, but when there is a buzz at the show on how great you look and how good was the products, you know we've made an impact.

Take a look at more pictures from the NRA Show:

Farmer Brothers Co Picasa Albums