05/15/2024
I think I will share a bit of Picklin' Parson joy. Right after Easter this year I got a call from a Specialty Grocery Manager at Central Market. He had been through Chandler and visited the Stillwater Farm Market Store where the Picklin' Parson jams, butters, chutneys, and pickles are for sale. He bought a lot of the products for sampling and called me about them in light of the Central Market Tastes of Texas event coming in June, which seemed like tomorrow as we conversed.
His interest was in having 9 of our award-winning, proprietary products featured and for sale at Central Market. He needed enough of the 9 different products to be in all 10 Texas stores. Then he ordered 5 cases of each product for the 10 Central Market stores across Texas. Friends that is 450 cases of jams, butters and chutneys. And he needed them ready for pickup on May 17th. Wow.
I pulled our staff together with Mark Holubec, who is a Board Member of Colinasway that is the non-profit entity behind the Picklin' Parson products and our Food Connection outreach dealing largely with food insecurity. The only way we could respond to this challenge was largely due to our excellent cook and store manager in Destiney Childress, who is a single mom who is an excellent cook for our products.
Destiney is one of the most positive, hardest working people I know and has been completing classes for her Masters Degree in Business Administration as she works for us. Mark Holubec, actually designed the Picklin' Parson brand and has an extensive background in food service and marketing food products. New labels with bar codes, packaging labels which is the industry standard and 100 other details have been handled by Mark. With these two leading the charge and Pam Bever from Athens, whom we often contract to make pickles for us, as well as a few noted chefs who are connected to Lovers Lane UMC helping out, we have done it.
Coming soon to a Central Market near you will be the Picklin' Parson herbed jams--Strawberry Basil, Raspberry Mint and Blueberry Thyme. Our delicious butters-- Honey Apple, Carnival Cherry Apple, and Incredible Pear. And our From the Farm Gourmet chutneys--Honey Sweet Onion, Ginger Tomato, and Brandy Pear. We are proud to be selected, and we are excited about what this means for our ministry that is the beneficiary of all profits made from the sell of Picklin Parson products. We found out that we are pretty good at making these products in mass quantities, and we will be getting better and better at it as the opportunities come our way.
I will be talking more about the Central Market June event and hope to be visiting each of the stores sharing samples. Six stores are in the metroplex, two are in Austin, and Houston and San Antonio each have a location. Come by and pickup some jam, butter and chutney and remember it is all about "Picklin' with Purpose." Who would have ever dreamed that making my Great Grandmother's Lemon Fig preserves with my Mom in 2018 would come to this.
