A Frigid Yet Pretty Successful Day at the Market

"I can't imagine trying to hawk frozen desserts when people are bundled up," I wrote on this blog back in early September. Yesterday, I did just that. And it worked out OK. I sold a dozen pints, albeit at a discounted, "winter blowout" price of $5.

It was about 20 degrees yesterday morning when the market opened for business. I was wearing multiple layers and felt OK until I went outside, during a lull, without my gloves on for some stupid reason, to see what Comeback Farm had brought. My hands got very cold, and they didn't ever warm up again.

I say "outside" because most of us vendors were in our usual spot inside the wagon house, where it was slightly warmer.

On one of my signs, I emphasized the balmier weather forecast for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

That's genius marketing, baby!

My friend Heidi came to see me and bought a pint of every flavor I had left. 😀 She had worked on a sister publication of my (now-former) magazine years ago, and she had just reconnected with me via LinkedIn last week.

I was (and still am) down to just Beet-Nutmeg, Vanilla, Blueberry-Lime, and Ginger ice creams. And just before Heidi arrived, I had sold my last container of my only remaining Vegan Frozen Dessert: Pomegranate. I had decided I'd give the roughly half-full sampler pint of Pomegranate to whichever customer was next to inquire about it, and I'm glad it went to Heidi. She and her husband, Billy, own a boxing gym called Old Dog Boxing Club on Routes 202/31 between Flemington and Ringoes. I'll have to check it out sometime. *imagines floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee*

I'll probably be at the market for two or three more times this winter, so I can continue to sell off those last four flavors. Then I'll focus on developing new products for spring.

I definitely want to use an organic dairy base this coming year, and if it performs like I want it to, it'll most likely be the one from Blue Marble in Brooklyn. I'm also planning to experiment with making my own vodka-based extracts. I need to find ways to lower my costs if I'm going to make Huge Hound profitable, and creating intensified flavors from smaller amounts of ingredients would help in that regard.