Andrew has an encyclopedic knowledge of Seinfeld episodes. He tells me that George in Seinfeld once hatched a plan to do the opposite of whatever he’d usually do: his life was going so badly, why not do the opposite and see what happened? Things went really well for George for awhile under this brilliant approach.
I thought of George and his do-opposite idea yesterday. We have a booth at the Grocery Innovation Congress on October 22nd and 23rd and contrary to our usual style, we likely have more than a month’s worth of work to get ready.
A few important things are nailed. As above, we have a booth for which we have paid. It comes with carpet and, I think, a table. We know we will be sampling our new gluten free, vegan and nut free Good Earth Snackin’ Cake (named yesterday). I know who will be attending – me…so far.
Some other things are not quite there yet. Such as the Good Earth Snackin’ Cake. There are two flavours and we are close but not quite there on one of the cake bases. There is no packaging and I am not sure about price. Well, no, I have no idea about the price because we can’t do the costing until we complete the recipe development. I have no posters, flyers or special business cards.
Yes indeed, this is a plan hatched in the summer that I am – today, September 18th- not yet prepared for.
This is very much not my or PGB’s style. Our style is to start early and to plan every detail and be ready far in advance. When we fumble, like we did when we opened Woodbine without a fully formed baking team, the resulting chaos rocks us all. But when I heard about the GIC in the summer, I had a feeling we needed to be there and the person impacted if we aren’t quite ready will be me. So George- like, I decided to ignore my thought that we couldn’t be ready in time and just sign up.
Fortunately, yesterday Carly and I met a consultant familiar with the GIC so there is a glimmer of hope that on October 22nd it won’t be me, a chair and 2500 samples of Good Earth Snackin’ Cake…but who knows, maybe that would be okay.
