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Medley Snack Mixes in High Demand
El’s Kitchen demo table all set up at Colin Leslie Walk
El’s delicious Medley Snack mixes were SOLD OUT yesterday at the Colin Leslie Celiac fair and even the samples were all ‘gobbled’ up by happy patrons, so a succesful day was had at the fair and thanks for having us! On other news, the move to Stratford couldn’t come soon enough with big orders being placed for the Medley Snack Mixes from around the country.
Success from the weekend
El and i both had successful weekends at the respected shows and conventions we attended. El who along with Jim (her husband) had many great conversations and exciting meetings with lots of new potential vendors who will sell El’s Kitchen delicious medleys and bagel snaps, so KEEP YOUR EYES AND EARS OPEN FOR THESE NEW VENDORS!!!! I had a lovely afternoon where i met many nice people and especially excited kids at the chance of being able to sample and eat all the yummy samples without having to be restricted by their respective intolerances and allergies!
Updates from stratford will follow later in the week.. Happy Monday everyone!
The week thats been and the weekend ahead…
At the beginning of this week, El and i headed out to Stratford to check on the progress that has been made.. The first thing that you notice when walking into the premises is the newly attached swinging doors into the oven and processing room! They look very professional and as Jo pointed out we will need to make sure we use the road rules of right side drive so that there is no accidents walking in and out of them!!
It is also a busy weekend for El’s Kitchen with El leaving bright and early yesterday morning to Baltimore to attend the Natural Products Expo East which runs for 3 days. I am on Sunday heading to Westchester Celiac Sprue Support Group Meeting where i will be sampling El’s Medleys and bagel chips as well as giving people the opportunity to purchase the products at the same time. So once again another busy week in El’s kitchen and hopefully the weekends Expo’s are successful!
The new swinging double doors
WE ARE IN Stop & Shop and Gristedes!
It was confirmed last week that El’s Zesty, crunchy, delicious snack Medleys will NOW be found in Stop&Shop and Gristedes! This is very exciting news in El’s Kitchen and we are all looking forward to seeing these snacks on the shelves of our everyday supermarkets. As we add more chains and stores we will keep you posted, but remember if there is a local store you would love us to be part of then make sure you let us know!!
Good bye, Chas
Charlie it was a great summer. Thanks for all of your hard work and for the good laughs. Work hard at school but always keep your sense of humor. We’ll miss you here at El’s Kitchen.
Farewells to El’s
This post will be my last entry at El’s for the summer. Oh, you already guessed that by looking at the title? Good for you, maybe you should be the one heading back to Chestnut Hill, MA this fall. It has been a great summer here in Weston, CT and am proud of all the progress we have made in the past 4 months. In the beginning of the summer, El’s facility in Stratford was a mere phantasm in the minds of all the employees. Yes, we had blueprints and other planning devices, but we were still at ground zero.
Today, as shown by previous blog pictures, there are walls, equipment, machinery, AND a forklift (which were are all certified to drive)! Rounding the end of August, and thus the summer, the date for the grand opening of the manufacturing plant is rapidly approaching. I will be back for the grand ribbon cutting, hopefully in October.
Location is not the only thing that El’s is changing. We will be changing the recipe of the gluten-free bagel snaps- which we produce in-house- to a healthier, more tasty recipe. In our new facility, we will be able to slice as many bagels in 30 minutes that would be a whole day’s work in the old kitchen. We are very excited here to ramp up production and spread our delicious, crunchy, zesty, gluten-free snacks all over the world!!
PEACE
Burn Baby, Burn
It seems that all I have been talking about in this blog lately is the new facility in Stratford. Although I will be back at school by the time we are fully operational, it has been a very busy and exciting summer. The transformation that I witness each time I come to the site has left me awestruck. Now, there are four different entities of the space: the office, the warehouse/shipping, the production center (kitchen), and break room. The sheetrock is up and the walls are fibre reinforced, like the image below.
This is what most commercial kitchen walls are made of. You probably recognize it: shiny, bumpy, but also smooth. Although they are not cheaper than any other type of wall, it is worth the sacrifice. They are durable, easy to clean, and moisture resistant.
A very exciting factor of the new facility is the heat it will be pushing out. On a normal oven, the average amount of British Thermal Units or BTU’s required is 25,000. This may seem like a lot, which it is. That large amount has kept El’s running smoothly for years. But, now that we will be expanding, we are cranking up that amount due to the two massive ovens we have in place as well as the water heater. For those three new pieces alone, we will be using a meter that maximizes heat at 1 million BTU’s. That’s right, 1 MILLION. That is almost 50 times the heat capacity of our old machinery. Because the production time for snacks will dramatically decrease, this means the possibilities of production are endless. There will be new flavors rolling out soon of the bagel snaps as well as the medleys!
These ovens pack some major heat
New and Improved
So, I took a trip to El’s new facility in Stratford, CT and am amazed by all the work that is being done. This place is really coming together day by day into exactly what we want. Walls are being erected, we have electricity, along with massive amounts of equipment. However, this is not the only thing about El’s that will be changing. We no longer have to “outsource” our snacks to Illinois because all the production will be right here in CT. We will have more than enough space and machinery to ramp up production. Also, our in-house made bagel chip’s recipe will be changing. We are taking away some old ingredients and adding similar, but healthier ones. This does not suggest, by any means, that the chip will lose any of its old crispiness and flavor. This chip is even lighter, airier, and tastier than before in my opinion. We are witnessing a lot of changes here and are very excited to see the final result and our full potential.
Snack to School Giveaway
It’s almost time for school! Are your kids ready? More importantly, are YOU ready?? Would it help if you had some great gluten-free, nut free, and egg free snacks to put in a special lunchbox? We are now giving away bags of our delicious Medleys for your little (and not-so little anymore) guys to munch on during lunch.
All you have to do to receive one of these cool lunch boxes packed with a bag of each flavor (original, cheddar, sour cream & onion) of El’s Medleys is “like” or comment on our wall on Facebook. In the comment section let us know what type of lunchbox you would like. We will pull out two winners before the school year starts so your child will be ready for school.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Els-Kitchen/262728512407
Now We’re Cookin’ (kinda)
Today has been an exciting day for the staff of El’s. After weeks of meeting with builders, plumbers, and other contractors, we get to see what we have been highly anticipated. As El’s “baby,” this center will be dedicated as a completely gluten-free, nut-free, and egg-free production center for our snacks. As depicted below, the original purchase was for a completely empty “warehouse” with a few offices. We were very excited that we were able to use creativity to mold this facility to the exact specifications that are necessary. Massive pieces of equipment has been moving into this space to turn it into an actual kitchen/warehouse.
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1- a picture taken from the entrance area as of now. A diagonal picture overlooking all the space except the office.
2- A picture of the office(s). We will be knocking down the wall that separates two offices and combining them into a large office like we have in Weston!
The image below (3) is taken from the back wall in the photo above. We put in new walls to separate the preparation/cooking area from the warehouse/shipping area. If you look closely, you can see the back of our forklift and right behind it, a MASSIVE walk-in freezer that sticks out into the warehouse as shown on the right of picture 5
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4- a view from the warehouse looking into the production center. You are looking at 2 ovens (left) as well as two “tumblers.” We will be using the tumblers to season our snacks and get a perfectly distributed coat of flavor on each piece. For those who have lactose as an issue, we will always keep the snacks that contain milk in one tumbler, while the original snacks containing no milk will be in a separate tumbler,
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5- a panoramic view of the entire space from the loading dock.
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