Butcher Westy visits butchers The Meat Joint in Essex for a demo full of inspiration about fresh ready-meal concepts and traybakes.
Craft Butcher Expo 2024 report
The 2024 Craft Butcher Expo took place on Sunday 28 January at The Curragh Racecourse in County Kildare, Ireland. This trade fair focuses primarily on companies that supply butchers, shops and restaurants with seasonings with which they can enhance the flavour and value of their meat products. A wide selection of Dutch Spices’ inclusive seasonings could be tasted on the very busy stand of the Company’s Irish partner.
Standing out and being outstanding
The professionals visiting this trade fair are very aware that their shops must focus on consumer convenience and offer their customers a total solution. Displaying ready to use ‘convenience’ concepts in their counters and cabinets is essential if they are going to continue responding to the needs and wishes of shoppers.
Making the acquaintance of Dutch Spices
Dutch Spices’ seasonings were definitely in the spotlight on the stand of our Irish distributor and ally, Gastrome Professional Ingredients. Visitors tasted the seasonings, were given recipe leaflets and, as a finishing touch, could take away an inspiration box containing various products to ‘try out’ in their own shop.
Inspiration from recipe videos
It wasn’t only the recipe leaflets that whetted visitors’ appetites – Butcher Westy’s recipe videos were also very well received. The recorded recipe demonstrations gave visitors a very good impression of the various product concepts they could produce using the Dutch Spices sauces and marinades.
Positive reactions to allergen-safe and halal products
The visitors were especially interested in the benefits of gluten-free and lactose-free products. We also noticed that more and more entrepreneurs are focusing on concepts that meet halal guidelines. The fact that all the Dutch Spices’ seasonings comply with these guidelines means entrepreneurs can offer a varied range of concepts suitable for both regular customers and specific customer groups using just one brand of seasonings.
New customers
In the coming period we will be busy following-up the visitors who received one of our inspiration boxes. We will offer them more recopies and will provide them with information about our range that can help when placing orders. The reactions to our products were without exception positive. However, determining which product was the most popular proved impossible because all the sauces and marinades were so delicious choosing a clear favourite impossible.