Mayhaw Man

Well then we agree. Nevermind

I kind of like the real estate comparison. When price gets too high for one individual to purchase a space, someone else will be willing to step in and purchase. Coke will always buy whatever Pepsi doesn't pay for ( as long as the property is in a valuable neighborhood and the resale value holds up) and I think that would hold true for brands down the line. If the store is handling the rental of shelf space properly by selling the right amount at the right price for the correct amount of time (as is the case most of the time with Coke and Pepsi-which has been pretty well documented) they will maximize the money they can garner off of each inch of space. As far as damage to the renter goes, I believe that there is a consistency there. Stores located in desirable areas that draw well heeled patrons who freely spend money are going to be more valuable in terms of shelf space than stores that draw bargain shoppers on limited budgets. As long as the stores are realistic about prices for shelf space as compared to the shoppers ability to purchase, I don't see that there is much chance for damage.

Yes. He did vend a few of Clyde's franks to passersby. Mostly to vagrants who, according to Ignatius's letter to The Mynx, followed him when he was transferred from the Central Business District to the French Quarter. Local residents of the Quarter, according to Ignatius, were often unavailable to purchase his offerings due to the fact that he worked in the daytime and the denizens of the Quarter were sleeping off the previous evening's assortment of vices. (This letter contains one of the most hilarious descriptions of the life and lifestyle of the average French Quarter resident ever written. As a former full time resident (now part time) I can vouch for his observations). The addition of a plastic cutlass and a scarf (an attempt at looking like a pirate) did garner some attention from the tourists, but no increase in sales. Fortuna did not smile on the working boy often.

I could of course as always, be wrong, but I do not believe that slotting fees are regulated at all. The stores are (as Steven said above) selling real estate and looking for the most money per square inch and to that end try to get as much as they can for each inch of shelf front. I pretty much assume that it varies store by store (even differing with individual stores in the same chain) as chains do not carry all of the items as duplicates in each store. Another thing is that not everybody pays. Some products just have to be there. I do not believe that Ron Zappe of Zapps Potato Chips pays. That product has very strong demand here in South Louisiana and the stores would be hurting themselves if they did not carry them. He may pay now that he has grown, but at the outset they made it very clear they were not playing that game. I will email him and see if he would like to weigh in on this discussion. Who knows? He might be interested.

From my above post Exactly. It serves them to have local stuff (here in South Louisiana they are usually one of the first places to have satsumas and navel oranges from Plaquemine Parish. We were a very small company and only dealt with them on a regional level and it was always a very simple transaction to make deliveries and pick up the dough. (they use a system of giant regional warehouses that facilitate their just in time delivery strategy-ever notice that there is virtually no backstore space in those giant markets? That stuff is delivered on demand. When the army was changing their antiquated supply chain of command they went to Wal Mart for lessons on how to do it right). On the other hand, if you are selling weedeaters or power drills you are going to Arkansas and you are going to sell cheap.

My understanding is exactly the same as yours. I have a couple of friends who live in Fayetteville (including my brother, as well), these two guys sell for Makita Power Tools and Wilson Sporting goods respectively and their ONLY customer is Wal Mart. Period. They call on no other accounts. I believe that if you start hitting the North Arkansas Phone directory and typing in a search for any major brand in North America, you will pretty much find a local listing. They all do business the same way as you described it. How many can you sell us and how much cheaper will it be than last year? Can't blame them for asking , I guess.

Central Market (the main store in Austin anyway) is the greatest grocery store in the history of the Western World. I love that place.

I believe that if you will look carefully at the brands in Sam's (and to a lesser degree Wal Mart) you will see that no matter the name on the label, ultimately the products generally come from major maufacturers. In your mind you may envision a guy with a good product stopping off and knocking on the door of the buyer for his product, but in reality it is one of the most complex sales a salesguy will ever make. There has been a building boom going on in the Fayetteville/Springdale area for the last ten years. The building boom is wholly related to Wal Mart/Sam's and the employees who have been moved to Northwest Arkansas specifically to deal with this giant retailer. Many companies have set up shop complete with little sections of Wal Mart in order to facilitate shelf sets in an environment outside of the Wal Mart Stores themselves. The catalyst for this setup is related to the Wal Mart Culture. Employees (particularly management) are instructed to drop whatever they are doing and help a customer who looks like he needs it. THis causes in store meetings to be long drawn out affairs, as the buyers are constantly stopping and helping out wayward customers. Many manufacturers have found that it is more efficient to just set up a fake store involving thier products and the area where they would be found. Rubbermaid, for example, has a pretty much full scale WalMart due to the fact that they have products in every department. Wal Mart's purchasing practice are to some degree, take it or leave it deals. You give them a price and them they tell you what you are willing to pay. Take it or leave it. Virtually everyone takes it as the volume of a single sale can be so high that even pennies per product (or less) can be worth it. Everyone knows that they are the largest retailer in the the history of the world. So how would you feel if you were Ralston Purina (for a good example). 10 years ago WalMArt was their biggest customer. Now Wal Mart is both their biggest customer and their biggest competitor, as Old Roy Brand Dog food is now the world's largest seller. The same goes for just about any product that Wal Mart has chosen to manufacture (or more accurately-sub contract). Now all that being said, I do not consider this to be a bad thing. People want to save money and Wal Mart generally gives them the opportunity to do that. The fact that I generally choose to shop elsewhere most of the time has more to do with the fact that I don't like to spend a bunch of time in lines and find that with careful shopping I can do about as well at many local retailers. I do shop there, just not that often. There are some things that are so much less (and at the same quality) that one would have to pretty much not care about money to go in there (recently a cell phone car charger fill into this catagory). I do like Sam's, but I have a family and buying in bulk suits my needs very well. Sam's also has things that I buy a lot of (like cheese) in large quantity and a pretty good selection of decent quality product. But don't ever think that one stop will do it to get your product on the shelf. It is much, much more involved than that.

I have found (remember, my experience is in beer and soft drinks-which may not be the norm-but the soft drink business makes the beer business look friendly by comparison) that the store managers actually do have some say-even in Wal Mart. If that were not the case our local Wal Mart would NEVER have stocked any of our products, much less root beer. As a brewery we were self distributed (note to self-never self distribute again ) and had what amounted to zero sophistication when it came to marketing in chain stores. We had a good product and a bunch of willing friends, however, and they were kind enough to fill out request forms, ask managers, and just generally make a nuisance of themselves until the manager mad whatever effort was needed to get us in. In some cases the manager was all it took. In others it was a trip to the home office of Winn Dixie or Delchamps and sitting in a room with a bunch of other goobs waiting your turn (in the case of Delchamps for 4 days for a 4 minute meeting when we were told, " You're in. Here are your codes. You could have called and we would have mailed them to you"). Lying motherfuckers. We called about a million times and could never get anybody on the phone. They went out of business here and good riddance to them. I hope that big shot beer buyer has been reduced to stocking shelves in ghetto zippy mart. The point of this diatribe is that we got on the shelves with expensive, weird beer in a very conservative market by just bothering them enough. We did not bribe (much, the occasional keg-but nothing out of hand) and there was never any cash changing hands. No plane tickets for winning a "contest" that never existed and certainly no free product for the store. Hell, we were losing money hand over fist for the first couple of years, how could we just give the stuff away. I think this will work for some things, but not for others. So it is my opinion that in most chains the manager has some say so about local demand.

I agree and I think that you barely touched on a point that might cheer up some of those that are shocked and dismayed . Consumer demand can get a product on the shelf and the higher up the food scale gourmetwise the product is, the better a chance you have of getting it. For example, lets say there is some difficult to obtain canned tomato brand that store A does not have, but store B does. If just a few people are willing to aske the manager for it, "Excuse me o' powerful manager sir, I really want some El Buono Tomatoes and you don't seem to have them. I know that store B does and I can get them there, but your store is so much more convenient. Could you get them for me?". This may seem like a simple thing, but shoppers rarely talk to these guys (they spend all of their time talking to district product supervisors bringing the bribes) except to ask where the risotto is and they are thrilled to seem like they have some stroke, so they often will go out of their way to get something in, especially if you look like you might go over and buy some paper towels and pharmacy gear while you are at it. Asking the manager works and it helps to circumvent the payola system and if it is a cool small brand you are looking for, you might make somebody really happy back at El Buono Tomatoes,Inc.

Slotting fees are the reason that, if you have reason to notice such things, you will find floor displays in your local grocery store dominated by Coke for half of the year and Pepsi for the other half. When we were trying to get Abita Root Beer on the shelf (we were bumbling amateurs, admittedly) the fees were one of the first stumbling blocks. In the Winn Dixie chain we ended up, oddly enough, by the paper towels (first place I look for weird root beer ). The reason for this is that the only reason we were in the chain in the first place was consumer demand at the store manager level (the real power in many chains). So many people had requested it in New Orleans area stores that the managers had to put in the request. Thankfully it kind of snowballed from there and we ended up in most of the other chain stores, including Wal Mart (they called us, which was apparently a good thing because getting stuff in those stores is very, very difficult) which led both the root beer and the beer lines into the Sam's Wholesale chain and they eventually became our top retailer in the area. You would be stunned to see what a company like a dog food concern is willing to lay out to get good shelfspace. It involves (usually) a straight up payment to the retail chain, an under the table payment to the store manager, and an ongoing support system of small favors that borders on the rediculous. Nice trips for store execs, small gifts regularly for store managers, etc. Beer companies (as opposed to liquor and wine companies) are prohibited by Federal Laws (most of which came into exitstance at the repeal of the Evil and Ill Fated Volstead Act) to pay anything for shelf space. These laws were put into existance to stave off any one brewer buying all of the space and shutting out other brewers. Clearly this has been a total failure, as Anheuser Busch has half the market or better (depending on who is doing the counting). This has been achieved by an insidious system of bribery and strong arm tactics that are now considered to be just "the way the beer business works". (Incidentally, I am not fingering A.B. All companies, large and small, that can afford to engage in these practices do. I am not implying that I have never been involved in this because I have. Participate or look at a bunch of old beer in the warehouse. Period). Lots of coop advertising, tons of incredibly expensive point of sale material (most of you probably don't realize that even a simple neon sign, bought in large numbers, often costs over a hundred bucks and really nice ones often run 2 or 3 times that price. There is a fair amount of "sure we can drop off a keg for the next crawfish boil at your house, we'll just leave it in the cooler at the store" and other small favors involving product. Many times I have been involved in shelf sets where we were working with photographs of sample sets (these sets, of course, neatly paid for by a large brewer who is getting premium space). Each row and inch of space is allotted and must be filled exactly as ordered. I cannot tell you how many times that I have come into a store to face shelving (pull old product to the front and rotate, etc.) and found my space invaded or the beer removed completely. I would have to go find the store manager (who may have been involved in the removal in the first place) and he would, in turn, have to find the shelving diagram and then I would have to reset. Knowing full well that by the time I got out of the parking lot that there was a pretty good chance the shelves would be changed back. Incidentally-by law here in Louisiana and in most other states as well- beer must be paid for at the time of delivery. No charging. Cash (many times it is cash, even in large chains), or a good check (two bad ones and you lose your license in LA) at the time of delivery. No credit. This is a great thing if you are a small struggling brewery, but not so great if you are a big brewery trying to build a gazillion case display that looks like the Titanic or a well built young woman (they would if they could ). This cash sales law keeps most stores from just loading up on whatever some company foists on them cheap and levels the playing field a little bit-at least they are buying what they think will move in quantities that more or less make sense. I know from experience that some types of products pay tons to get on shelves. Breakfast cereal is one of the things that always stuns people when they see the price. Well, those are big boxes and they take up alot of room. When you are looking for the Raisin Bran (ever notice the colors on various types of cereal run similarly from maufacturer to manufacturer?) people will generally grab the first one they see if they are not particularly price concious and the cereal with the most footage on the shelf is going to be that cereal that you grab. Anyway I could go on for weeks but just remember this, groceries do not operate on very large markup. The labor is relatively high in a grocery store and many of the things that get you into the store in the first place are loss leaders (things sold cheap or below cost to attract you). Cheap milk, eggs, beer (there is a minimum markup on beer in most states, it cannot be sold at a loss), etc. are only there in hopes that you will stop off and buy some stuff in the pharmacy and some paper products (they make a ton of money on toilet paper and paper towels-that's why they are so cheap at the wholesale places). Slotting fees are one of the major profit centers for the chains and it is not going to change anytime soon.

Of course, they don't have a lock on "Devil Beer". This delicious barley wine is produced by Young's in the UK.

As many readers know, I am rediculously proud of our little way of life here in SOuth Louisiana, but I have to admit that I get a little jolt of jealousy every time I see the word cellar. What a handy little room that must be. If we tried to put in a cellar here it would quickly be a swimming pool. At 4 feet above sea level we hit water just trying to plant trees. Hell, we can't even bury our dead. We stick em in these cool little concrete houses that (believe it or not) are often used again and again. It is a very economical system (albeit odd and a little spooky). Now back to the subject at hand-I have a second sink on our island. It is a small, shallow prep sink with a very tall gooseneck faucet on it. It has a He Man Model 5000 Food Disposer attached to it (not sure of brand, but it was the biggest one at Home Depot-something like a million horsepower ) and I do most of my chopping on a board right next to it. It is very handy and I do not make a mess traipsing around the kitchen with onion parts and trimmed meat looking for a place to dump it. I highly reccomend the extra sink with disposal.

That is a sad tale well told. Nice work. My favorite section was the part about the rogue animal rights activist spray painting the bathroom walls. That kinda falls into the "whaddya do?" catagory. The one thing that you didn't make clear was the clients reaction to all of this. Were they really pissed or just mildly annoyed and taking advantage of a disaster for you by only paying for the food?

Polygomy Porter is one of my all time favorites. It is produced by Squatter's Brewpub in Salt Lake City, Utah. They usually have a slogan or two poking fun at their non drinking Mormon neighbors (who often react in a way that would indicate that the jokes are not so entertaining to them. This link is from the Salt Lake Paper and has a story related to the beer and the pub.

They have a limit on how many they will sell you, but it doesn't seem to be enforced very well. The Porter House makes some very fine beers that are often overlooked by travelers who comment, " It's right over by St James Gate. They make beer there too, why do we want micro beer when we can have a Guinness?".

I spent 15 years of my life making up beer names and it can be kind of fun. Turbodog probably was my crowning moment (two guys were involved. We were drunk when we made it up-now there's a suprise ). The story of how we came up with it will never be very clear , much like the rest of the history of the beer business. everybody was too busy drinking to write it down ). As far as other people's names go I have always liked Bill Owen's Alimony Ale-The Bitterest Beer in America

I'm with Alex on Penzey's. Great spices at great prices and an incredibly varied selection of oddball mixes that I really like. They also do a very nice job on gift packages for those of you that get tired of sending out fruit baskets and the giant Bucket O' Popcorn.

Man, that looks like it was "la bomba" How as the chaurice?

Saturday evening. Chicken and Dumplings (absolutely sublime, if I do say so myself) Wonderful. Butter Lettuce Salad with grapefruit, walnuts and avacado and not so sweet poppyseed dressing.

You could make those lucky young women a mainstay of potlucks and covered dish suppers all over Texas, King Ranch Casserole. It would lend itself pretty readily to multiplying and would get rid of that Ceam soup all on one shot. I love the stuff.

Actually, while it is pretty easy to scratch and you have to be little careful of it, there are some really cool formica products out there these days. And given the cost as compared to marble or man made stone, it looks even better. All your formica needs

I think he is pretty much out of the restaurant biz and into publishing full time. You still see him in the society pages occasionally and he has published a number of books in the last ten years. I have the Bean Book and the Secret Gardens of the Vieux Carre. (the courtyard of my wife's apt is in it, although we have nothing to do with the garden). The second link will lead you to his many other books, as well.

New York wins, New Orleans is #2. What happened to the rest of ya'll? We're # 2! We're # 2! Cypress is located on beautiful Transcontinental Blvd. in the heart of beautiful Metairie. Cypress is an interesting new place in a not very interesting place New Orleans has a pretty good aisian food scene, although it tends to get overlooked by all of those people downing Gumbo and Hurricanes. Thai me up and beat me with a wet noodle People here sometimes don't eat meat, although it doesn't happen very often and you can never fully trust that sort of person. And you thought that all we had was meat

Just for the food. The game is has become merely the reason to gather. During the game, grillmasters, boilermen, and cooks of all sorts stay out to prepare the after game feast (many of them also take a long nap to recover from the pre game revelry). I tried to find some decent pictures, but don't seem to be able to fid what I am looking for. The beauty of it is that everybody shares (really). You will end up with more food than you really wanted and if you have a cooking set up-the trading back and forth among chefs is pretty unlimited. It is also considerably warmer here most of the time on fall afternoons (Oct. can often be in the high 70's low 80's), so that probably contributes to the length that people are willing to go to impress thier friends and fellow tailgaters with a good meal.