Honey Blog - Let's Talk About Honey

International Association of Culinary Professionals

Posted by Emily on Fri, July 01, 2011 - 2:27 PM

The International Association of Culinary Professionals is a wonderful conference that brings together foodservice professionals, food bloggers and various media for seminars, workshops and more. During this year’s conference, held June 1-4 in Austin, Texas, we exhibited at the Culinary Expo, which showcased the newest in food products, food trends, cookbooks and kitchenware.

I’m sure you’re thinking, Why was the National Honey Board at IACP? The NHB doesn’t sell anything. Well, we “sell” inspiration. Our goal in being present at IACP was to connect with the foodservice industry (or at least a portion of it) on a face-to-face level, inspiring them to use honey on the menu. Many foodservice professionals aren’t aware of honey’s versatility and this expo gave the NHB a chance to discuss and show honey’s various culinary applications.

At our booth, we provided helpful materials like a substitution chart and various recipe brochures, and we sampled two different honey granolas: Honey Pumpkin Spice and Honey Cinnamon Coconut. Attendees flocked to our booth for the sweetened nibbles and for the refreshing citrus water we had on hand, complete with oranges, lemons and limes.

Just like our food and water went hand-in-hand, we couldn’t have a honey booth without some scrumptious honey for our booth-goers to try! Our honey tasting was a hit among this food-centric crowd. We sampled alfalfa, sage, orange blossom, eucalyptus, avocado and buckwheat, with avocado coming in first place for wide-eyed grins. (If you’ve never done a varietal tasting, you should… It’s amazing how different the honeys can taste!)

We always like to provide a “takeaway” at our booth so that attendees can remember honey at home and our various messaging. Since this was a food-focused event, we decided to give away yellow aprons with our Honey ONE logo on them. As usual, attendees were very appreciative and said they couldn’t wait to go home and try them out. (We’re always so pleased to meet so many nice and interesting people at events like this!)

This year’s conference was a blast and we’re already looking forward to next year!

*Stay tuned for more updates on our busy year with honey…

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