The Doctor was really in!
The weekend of April 8th and 9th was very busy for the doctor. First was the diabetes show in Dallas. This was my first diabetes show, although we have sent other members of Dr. Kracker to these show. Because of its whole grain content and relatively low carbohydrate profile, Dr. Kracker is good food for diabetics. My impression is that this type of event is generally a showcase for companies offering medicine, treatments and information. It is not a food show. This usually means lots of traffic at the Dr. K booth since folks get hungry walking around the show, and Dr. Kracker stands out.
In talking to other exhibitors, I heard that the show was not nearly as busy as the previous year. I think that part of the problem was a misunderstanding about the ticket prices. In some cases, I heard that it cost $10 per person to enter, but in others that the ticket price was only a suggested donation. At $10 per head, the show would have been hard on the family budget, since the diabetes show is often a family event. Other exhibitors thought that it might have been the auto show that was going on, but that doesn’t make much sense, since most diabetics are hungrier for information about their disease than they are eager to check out cars. In any case, the show was not very busy.
The good news, however, was that the people who did come were very eager to find food like Dr. Kracker. In a world of hype and long ingredients labels, our food was simple and easy to understand. As one person said, these were “meaningful calories” and it makes sense to include them in the diet.
I often joke that Dr. Kracker isn’t a cracker at all, that in truth it is the “anti-cracker,” since the only thing that it shares in common with crackers is the shape. No other cracker can bring the whole flavorful package of grains and seeds, and other crackers rely on fats, oils and sugar to create flavor. And then there is the crunch, which means that all the senses are involved in enjoying Krackers. I sold most all the packages that I brought, gave others away and hope that I helped introduce one new and delicious food into diets that mostly lack good-for-you food that tastes great.
While I was in Dallas that day, my sales guy Ron Erickson was in Houston at the Texas Dieticians Show. Again, this type of show has a strong orientation to treatment and information. Ron’s booth was especially well visited since he was giving out tastes of all the Dr. Kracker varieties as well as free packages to any of the attendees who wanted them. By the end of the two-day event. Ron had given away some 300 packages.
Some of the only print advertisement that the Doctor does is in Today’s Dietician. We believe that we have great food to offer to the health community and hope to align Dr. Kracker with those professionals who are providing solutions to the problem of inadequate diets and poor nutrition. Dr. Kracker will continue to support dieticians and diet events that help with our outreach to more customers.
The next day, Sunday the 9th, Ron and I met in Georgetown (north of Austin, Texas) for the Texas Food and Wine Tasting held in San Gabriel Park. The day was perfect: cool temperatures and little wind (if you aren’t from Texas you might not be familiar with how hard the wind can gust in the spring, and the day before, driving back from Dallas, it felt like I had a 30 mph tail wind pushing the car). The park with its tents, with its old fashioned chuck wagons, with the music stage and with all the great shade trees couldn’t have been more pleasant and welcoming. We know that there were more than 4,000 people at the show sampling wines and foods because within 2 hours of opening the gates, the entrance booth ran out of tickets to sell and had to turn visitors away.
The crowd came from all over Central Texas and was very willing to pay $45 to sample the best that Austin restaurants and Texas wineries had to offer. Dr. Kracker was very well known among this group of foodies, wine connoisseurs and partygoers. We received many words of praise, earned a few hugs, heard a few worries about addiction to Krackers and left with a general sense that Dr. Kracker is becoming a daily bread and snack in many Central Texas diets. I even met the artist who drew Dr. Kracker’s face, and I hope that he sends me an email so that I can get more information about his sketch, since so many people ask about the history of the face (I tell them it was me in a past life!). And there was one woman who was visiting from West Virginia who absolutely had to have a Dr. Kracker flatbread tin, because her students affectionately (I’m assuming) call her Dr. Cracker.
The tents and the raucous nature of the event—it almost sounded like people speaking in tongues—made me think of an old fashioned revival, but one oriented toward wine and food. And I think that one could argue successfully that for many people food and wine and specialty diets are a new form of religion or tribal allegiance. That line of thought takes me to William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, in which the young child asks his mother why the church can’t be more like the pub and be more warm and friendly. As a Catholic who spent every Sunday in church as a child, I always felt cheated of fun time. This Sunday, I felt like we had it all: peace, love and krackers!
