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Chex Finer Foods show gears up for summer

ATTLEBORO, Mass.-Chex Finer Foods, a regional gourmet food distributor with headquarters here, kicks off the summer buying season with its annual inhouse show April 6 to 7.

The 12th Annual "Festival of Values" trade show presents Chex Finer Foods vendors with the opportunity to showcase new items while enabling retail customers to "start off summer buying," said Diane Isenberg, director of sales and marketing.

Hosting the show at the distributor's 25,000-square-foot warehouse gives Chex the opportunity "to show our customers who we are and how we operate," she said.

The exhibition, showcasing 64 booths of the distributor's vendors sampling new products for the summer, runs noon to 5 p.m. April 6, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 7.

"A lot of our customers do a big summer business," Isenberg noted. Chex distributes 3,000 specialty food items to roughly 600 "better independent" supermarkets, farm stands, gift shops and gift basket retailers throughout New England. The distributor has six trucks.

The emphasis at the show is on special promotions and product deals, Isenberg said. In addition to the new summer items, the trade show will offer a preview of products for the fourth-quarter's holidays. Retailers will also have the opportunity to place orders for fall delivery of holiday items at special early-bird rates.

Promotional allowances and demos will also be a key component of the show. Deals will largely center around the distributor's shipper program, designed to attract impulse buying in the retail store, Isenberg noted.

Chex Finer Foods' 3,000 shelf-stable gourmet products are supplied by roughly 150 vendors, including Carr's crackers, Green Mountain Gringo, Lindt chocolate, Dare crackers and cookies, Twinings and Stash tea, Brianna's salad dressing, Bean Cuisine Soups, El Dante pastas and Rao's Specialty Foods pasta sauce.

Isenberg said notable recent increased demand has been in the natural food segment. "The trend is toward natural items," she said. "People always ask if the product is natural or clean. We let them know that information."