Customers Become Food Critics for the Day at Savor the Flavor

Last Friday, March 18, dedicated customers at Savor the Flavor answered an email invitation to “Become a Food Critic for the Day”. Promising to provide all they’d need for this foodie experience, Savor the Flavor’s mother-daughter team, Karen Keegan and Madeleine Romo welcomed customers to check out new gourmet food products on the market.

The Sierra Madre shop, an active longtime member of the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade (NASFT), just received its first shipment of tasting samples from the trade group. The shop then sent the customer’s detailed evaluations back to the trade group to be included in responses from other trade group members.

Customers’ opinions will also weigh in on the shop’s decisions whether to carry some of the products. Keegan or Romo regularly attend this and other trade group’s events in New York City and elsewhere, spending days tasting and evaluating hundreds of gourmet food products.

Over a three hour period, customers came in to try Thai soup, ingredients to add to homemade ice cream, cherry balsamic vinegar, a chocolate cream fudge-like product in a jar, masala Indian spice products, apple granola, java chips, hummus chips and key lime truffles and more. The store’s patrons rated several categories including quality, taste, innovation, ingredient profile and packaging, with room to tell the trade group their personal comments, including evaluating the suggested retail price point on a form and use instructions.

The first group of the afternoon discussed the food amongst themselves like evaluating a fine wine. One patron puzzled, “This is delicious, but how would I use it?” Another commented on the “kick” of the cheddar chips and the lingering “heat” of the Thai soup. Yet another customer smiled, saying, “I want a WHOLE one of these key lime truffles!”

The first group of the afternoon put the hummus chips, the cherry balsamic vinegar, wild mushroom pasta sauce and the Key lime truffles at the top of the list. Romo and Keegan packed off all the information to the trade group Friday afternoon.

As always, the store had some of its top products available for sampling as well.

For information about future taste test events and other foodie events and news, visit www.SavorTheFlavor.net or call 626-355-5153. Savor the Flavor is located at 11 Kersting Court in Sierra Madre.