Upper Midwest Gourmet

What an amazing Fall it has been so far! Warmer than usual temps have really made for some great weekends and good business for all. 

The weather is turning cold though which means hot drinks likes coffee, espresso, steamers, chai tea, apple cider, hot cocoa, and hot tea are all going to really start picking up. 

Also, those Umpqua Oats Oatmeal bowls are going to be the perfect option for your customer looking for a warm, hearty breakfast or lunch on these chilly Autumn days.

Please check out our newest Brewsletter – Volume 45 - Fall 2011

Also, please go to the Brewsletters Page on our website to download and read previous Brewsletters. They contain lots of useful information!

Enjoy and thanks again from all of us at UMG!

Winter is upon us! Warm up with a blanket next to a fire and enjoy our newest brewsletter.

Please check out our newest Brewsletter – Volume 42 – Winter 2010

Also, please go to the Brewsletters Page on our website to download and read previous Brewsletters. They contain lots of useful information!

Enjoy and thanks again from all of us at UMG!

Summer is almost over with Fall on the way!

Please check out our newest Brewsletter – Volume 41 – End of Summer 2010

Also, please go to the Brewsletters Page on our website to download and read previous Brewsletters. They contain lots of useful information!

Enjoy and thanks again from all of us at UMG!

We hope to see you there, please visit us in our booths 326 & 328!

Coffee Fest Minneapolis
Minneapolis Convention Center – June 04 – 06, 2010

In this challenging time of economic uncertainty, with trusted advice more valuable than ever, Coffee Fest brings you the nation’s best retail operators and industry professionals and consultants to ensure your business survives and even thrives with today’s profitability threats and tomorrow’s challenges.

Event Location
Minneapolis Convention Center
1301 Second Ave S
Minneapolis, MN 55403-2781
612-335-6000

(For additional information, please Contact Us. Thank you.)

Wisconsin Food Expo Milwaukee, WI; March 8th through the 10th, 2010 - Booth 748

Ah yes, the show season is soon to be upon us. For starters, Upper Midwest Gourmet will be showing off our duds again this year in Milwaukee Wisconsin at the Wisconsin Restaurant Associations annual Expo to be held at the Airline Center in downtown Milwaukee on March 8th trough the 10th (Mon-Wed). Go to www.wirestaurant.org/expo/ for more details on this show and to register. As in the past years, UMG has a boat load of FREE PASSES for Wednesday the 10th, the last day of the show. Please contact us direct at 612-728-7208 or contact Kevin direct at 612-250-8277 or Kevin@umgcoffee.com and we will mail you the tickets. You will need to register them once you have the ticket code. This can be done the day of the show at the door. This year we will be highlighting our new line of Ce Organic and Fair Trade, all natural flavoring syrups, our new International Paper Insulated Hold & Go Hot cups, Angela Marie’s Mega Marshmallow Munchies crisp rice bars, Pacific Foods Organic Simply coffee & tea ready to drink products, Deep River all natural chips and snacks, and our new Flamenco Organic Coffee Direct coffees. We will also have a new espresso machine on hand for your review, use and sampling of our espressos.

This is one of those shows that our staff ALWAYS looks forward to because of the amount of you that take the time to visit with us there and the many new customers we are lucky enough to meet each year. Of the many food & coffee shows that we show at, this has always been the best run and most fun to attend so I encourage you to try to make it if you can, you will not be disappointed!

Coffee Fest Minneapolis, MN, June 04 – 06, 2010

We are very excited to announce that the folks at Coffee Fest have scheduled one of their 2010 show right here in Minneapolis this year in June. Coffee Fest is still one of the better coffee focused shows in the industry so we expect nothing less at this show. We among many other local, regional and international companies will be showing. This Upper Midwest region of the country is finally getting the recognition we have so rightfully earned in the coffee world so this show should be full of useful information for any café owner in this market. As more details come in, we will continue to pass them on to you so please stay tuned or go directly to www.coffeefest.com for more details and to register for this show.

We always love to see our customers at every show we attend so please do come and say hello at one or both of these shows. Upper Midwest Gourmet will also be announcing our annual picnic/open house very soon so please stay tuned for that date to be made.

We thank you all for your continued support and patronage. We are nothing without our great customers and we are driven by your support to continue to improve our services and offerings to you!

See you at the shows!

All of us at Upper Midwest Gourmet would like to wish you, your family, your friends, and your staff a very Happy and Healthy New Year in 2010! We truly believe that your success creates our success and we promise to continue to support and serve you as much as possible!

Please always know that we are just a phone call or email away. UMG has been on the cutting edge of the coffee shop and cafe industry for almost 20 years! We have seen the latest and greatest fads come and go, but there are a few constants that will always remain the same. Coffee drinks and blended beverages are your bread and butter because  of their great profit margins. I agree with my previous statement, but I’ve learned that to be truly successful offering retail sales and food is a must.

One constant that makes any businesss successful is a self-motivated staff with ambitious goals along with a desire to always work hard no matter if it is within their job description or not. This is something amazing that I witness everyday working at UMG, but also something that is very obvious in many of the most succesful cafes that we work with. Striving to always be better is something that rarely breeds anything, but success.

Our guarantee to you, our customers, in this new year and decade is that we will continue to strive to always be better. In fact, we will be taking a coffee origin trip to Dominican Republic to meet our Flamenco Direct Relationship coffee friends and their families in February. This will give us a better understanding of all aspects of coffee production, but will more importantly build a stronger relationship with people we care about, just like our customers. We want you to know that there may be other companies that sell similar type products, but you will never find a company with more personal dedication to their customers than us.

We aren’t just a Midwest distributor of coffee shop products or just a Fair Trade Organic coffee roastery in Minnesota or just a gelato equipment and ingredient company. We are so much more than all of those titles and all we want is a chance to prove that to you this year!

Please Contact Us if you have any questions about what we can do for you.

Thanks for your support!

Check out UMG and Flamenco Organic’s own, Charles Roberson, hanging out with some of the Vikings O-Line, Pat and Kevin Williams, over the Holidays!

Who else thinks Charles should be trying out for the Vikes next year?

Welcome to Fall!

Please check out our newest Brewsletter – Volume 39 - Fall 2009

Also, please go to the Brewsletters Page on our website to download and read previous Brewsletters. They contain lots of useful information!

Enjoy and thanks again from all of us at UMG!

Hello Summer, please stay for awhile.

Please check out our newest Brewsletter – Volume 38 – Summer 2009

Also, please go to the Brewsletters Page on our website to download and read previous Brewsletters. They contain lots of useful information!

Enjoy and thanks again from all of us at UMG!

Goodbye Winter, Hello Spring!

Please check out our newest Brewsletter – Volume  37 – Spring 2009

Also, please go to the Brewsletters Page on our website to download and read previous Brewsletters. They contain lots of useful information!

Enjoy the new format and thanks from all of us!

Happy 2009!

FREE S/H on 1st order made by new customer! No Minimums! Must be 1st order ever made with UMG.

UMG would like to extend a special New Year’s offer of FREE SpeeDee shipping/handling on the FIRST order made by any NEW customer in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Illinois.

Offer only good on 1st orders made between January 1st-31st, 2009.

 Please Contact Us to set-up a new account and make your first order with FREE shipping and handling today!

Hello Beanheads!

I posted a link to an article in the Minneapolis Star & Tribune a few months back about Upper Midwest Gourmet switching to a 4 day work week.  For those of you who didn’t see it, here it is again:

http://www.startribune.com/local/28333109.html

You can also scroll down the blog to the original post.  Along with the article we did a poll on what you all would think about UMG adopting such a policy.  There has been overwhelming support for the idea.  I was very surprised how many people called us to tell us stories of a place they used to work, or where a spouse, friend or relative works that have these plans and how well it has worked out.  In my original post I listed all the reasons I had for looking at this plan but I am still worried about making such a switch permanent.  As a result, we’ve decided to give it a go on a trial basis and adopting the 4 day work week for our Winter hours.  Beginning December 1st, our office hours will change to longer days: 8 am – 5:00 pm and a 4 day work week: Monday – Thursday.  Depending on how it goes, it may stay as just a Winter hour plan, it may become a permanent plan, or I may scrap it all together and go back to our original office hours.  Your feedback will determine how it all goes.   For those of you who place your orders with Spee Dee delivery, if you ordered on Friday in the past and received your orders on Monday, they will now come on Tuesday.  For those of you who are on our local Friday route delivery day, you new delivery day will be Tuesday, so please place your orders by Mondays.

As always, if you have anything I can help with, feel free to call and ask for me personally.  I’m always happy to hear from you all.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Cheers,

David

Brrr… Hello Fall, here comes Winter!

Please check out our newest Brewsletter – Volume 36 - Fall/Winter 2008!

Also, please go to the Brewsletters Page on our website to download and read previous Brewsletters. They contain lots of useful information!

Enjoy the new format and thanks from all of us!

Hi Everyone.

It is part of my daily mission at Upper Midwest Gourmet to find ways to:

a: Be a greener company (improve our environmental impact on the earth)

b: Lower operating costs to help offset price increases

c: Improve quality of life for staff

I came across an article in this weekends Minneapolis Star and Tribune that addresses all of these issues through the conversion to a 4 day work week.  If you paste the following link into your browser you can read about how this change can work to benefit a company like ours and in turn help us to benefit your company as well.  The link:

http://www.startribune.com/local/28333109.html

I’m looking for feedback from all our customers as to what you would think of this change?  We would adjust our hours to be open Monday – Thursday from 7:30 am to 5 pm (currently M-F 9am-4pm).  We would be consolidating the Tuesday and Friday Van routes to both take place on Tuesday.  This should save us money on: fuel, labor and utilities while giving our staff the ability to enjoy more time with their families on the weekend.  While price increases are still unavoidable, this may be able to help offset the significance of some of the increases we’re seeing on the horizon.

If there is no uproar from our customers I’d consider implementing this change, on a trial basis, some time in October?  If it turned out that it was causing customers problems and we did not see any benefits to the change we could always change back to our traditional 5 day work week.

I’d really appreciate any feedback you may have so I have set up an online poll.  Please take a moment to check whether you’d be for or against this change.

Thanks in advance for your business, all of us here at Upper Midwest Gourmet appreciate it very much.

Cheers,

David Chall

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Hello Summer!

Please check out our newest Brewsletter – Volume 35 – Summer 2008!

Also, please go to the Brewsletters Page on our website to download and read previous Brewsletters. They contain lots of useful information!

Enjoy and thanks from all of us!