Upper Midwest Gourmet

Upper Midwest Gourmet

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Deep River Snacks

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Upper Midwest Gourmet is a one-stop, wholesale distributor of specialty food service ingredients, Flamenco fair trade organic coffee, Italian gelato ingredients and equipment, hundreds of other gourmet beverages and foods, café equipment and machines, and environmentally-conscious supplies like cups, napkins, and eco-sleeves.

Upper Midwest Gourmet

1901 Traffic St. NE Minneapolis, MN 55413

Office: (612)728-7208 / Fax: (612)728-7227 / E-mail: info@uppermidwestgourmet.com

Hours: Monday-Thursday 7am-5pm / Friday 9am-1pm / Saturday & Sunday Closed (Central Time)

See About Us for more. Our UMG Blog starts below. Thank you.

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May 9th, 2013

Mountain Cider in the Spring and Summer?

Whether you are trying to think up summer drink ideas, or you are just wondering what to do with your extra Mountain Spiced Cider concentrate, fear not, we’ve got a list for that:

Summer Cider Drinks

Sparkling Cider
1 oz. Cider concentrate
7 oz. Sparkling water

Cider Float
1 oz. Cider concentrate
7 oz. Ginger ale
Scoop of vanilla ice cream

Apple Raspberry Cooler
1 oz. Cider concentrate
1 oz. Raspberry syrup
6 oz. Sparkling water

Apple Pie A la Mode Milkshake
1 oz. Cider concentrate
1 oz. Caramel syrup
4 oz. milk
1 scoop vanilla ice cream
1 piece of graham cracker
Blend until smooth

Read the rest of this entry »

April 11th, 2013

UP Cafe Grand Opening Party and Flamenco Organic Coffee Release – Presented by Upper Midwest Gourmet

UP Cafe Grand Opening Party Invite

UP Cafe Grand Opening Party and Flamenco Organic Coffee Release

Presented by Upper Midwest Gourmet

We will have live music (Zorongo Flamenco Music & Dance and our very own Eric and Pat’s band, Woodshop), free food, drinks, and gelato (café drinks from UP Café and hopefully, HammerHeart beer, if they have it brewed in time), and a bunch of our vendors (Crazy Boy Farm, Autumnwood Farm, Fabbri, Cherrico Pottery, Extraction Coffee Co., Umpqua Oats, and more) with booths selling and giving stuff away to celebrate the Grand Opening of UP Café. The event will also be a release party for one of Flamenco Organic Coffee Company’s newest offerings.

When – Friday, May 3rd, 2013

Time – 10am-4pm

Where – UP Cafe – 1901 Traffic St. NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413

Open to the public, we hope you can make it!

Please RSVP on our Facebook Event Page or by emailing Party@UPcafe.us.

April 9th, 2013

A bunch of great, new products we now carry!

We are an ever-evolving company and are always willing to bring in new products at the request of our customers.

Here are four new product lines that we are very happy to now stock and offer:

Monin Smoothies

Monin Fruit Smoothies

Jet Tea

Jet Fruit Smoothies

Davinci bottles

DaVinci Gourmet Syrups

Torani

Torani Syrups

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

March 28th, 2013

Brewsletter – Volume 49 – Spring 2013

Here comes warmer temperatures and hopefully a lot of snow melting!

We are really proud of our new training cafe, UP, along with many other improvements we have made to Upper Midwest Gourmet and Flamenco Organic Coffee Company in the past few months!

Please check out our newest Brewsletter – Volume 49 – Spring 2013

Brewsletter - Volume 49 - Spring 2013

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!

March 7th, 2013

Blendtec Smoother 13 Blender – Demo Unit Sale!

We have a few Blendtec Smoother 13 demo unit blenders for sale at an amazing price!

Blendtec Q-Series

We are upgrading to this year’s models for our sales staff and have some great deals on our current demo units!

They have been slightly used, all under 1000 blends.

Please Contact Us for more information or to get the special pricing.

February 6th, 2013

Upper Midwest Does Italy 2013

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Ciao Ciao everyone!  2013 is off to a great start at Upper Midwest Gourmet.  Bethany and I traveled to Italy last month.  Our first stop was Riccione where we met up with everyone from Fabbri in order to attend the SIGEP show.  SIGEP is the largest gelato and pastry show in the world!  While it’s a bit chilly in this NE coastal region in the winter, it was really warm compared to what was going on in Minneapolis, so the timing couldn’t have been better.  We spent three days touring the show and eating (and drinking) our way around the town.  SIGEP is always a great time and we were impressed with all the presentations put on by some of the best pastry chefs in Italy.  Fabbri presented a number of new items that we’ll be able to start importing sometime this Spring that we’re really excited to show everyone.  The pistachio and amarena cherry gelato pops in particular are going to be a great addition to many cafes in the USA.  Fabbri hosted a large banquet with top notch entertainment and the Italians really know how to put on a party!  Fabbri took that opportunity to present awards to some of their staff and distributors from around the world.  To my surprise, Upper Midwest Gourmet was presented with the award for Best Distributor in North America in 2012!  It was a complete shock, but we were honored to receive the award.  No distributor has ever won the award more than once so now I have a new mission for the future.

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There are a bunch more pictures from the show at the end of the blog post.

Read the rest of this entry »

February 5th, 2013

Now is the time for training and learning more for you and your staff.

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It is very, very, very important to have a well-trained staff running your cafe. The staff of your cafe are the people that your customers interact with most and are also responsible for the production of everything you offer. The quality and consistency of your drinks and food rely on having a group of individuals that know exactly what they are doing and more importantly why and how they are doing it. Another huge factor is that they are all making your products the same way to ensure that every customer has the same great experience every time they come back.

We feel that employee training is a necessary for any cafe or business for that matter. For example, we take part in the Specialty Coffee Association America classes all the time to learn about new industry standards in the area’s of Barista education, coffee brewing, coffee roasting, and a whole lot more.

There is always something that can be learned and implemented to improve your business and we want to help you gain that knowledge!

Our training cafe, UP Cafe, is now open and ready to schedule training sessions with your staff. If you use our Flamenco Organic Coffee we are more than happy to offer free training and recipe support. We can train in areas of espresso extracting, milk frothing, pour-over coffee brewing, Gold Cup drip coffee brewing, blender drink creation, gelato and sorbetto production, baking and pastry, and a whole lot more. The goal is to improve your business and have you producing the best available drinks in your area. We want to help you reach that goal!

Please Contact Us about setting up a time for training and would love to have you visit!

 

December 26th, 2012

A few new products…

We now carry these new products:

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Slim Jim Garbage Cans, Garbage Bags, Wet Floor Signs, & Foam Soap and Towel Dispensers

Popcorn

Kernel Pops Perfect Yellow Popcorn & Coconut Oil Combo – 3 dozen 8 oz packets per case

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

December 3rd, 2012

UP Cafe in NE Minneapolis, MN

We are getting totally pumped for our new onsite training cafe that will be open to the public soon!

It will hopefully be finished after the new year and will be named “UP Cafe.”

We will only serve Flamenco Organic Coffee and Espresso, along with homemade sandwiches, gelato, baked goods, soups and more!

Please come visit us at UP Cafe in Minneapolis, Minnesota to enjoy something special!

October 31st, 2012

Brewsletter – Volume 48 – Fall/Winter 2012

Here comes cooler temperatures and increased hot drink sales!

We have been really busy making some serious improvements around here with a focus to better serve you, and want to let you all know again how much we appreciate your business!

Please check out our newest Brewsletter – Volume 48 – Fall/Winter 2012

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!

August 21st, 2012

Fabbri Gelato & Pastry Training/Demo @ UMG

Fabbri North America‘s own Tom Trieschmann will be in the Twin Cites on Wednesday, August 29th for a fun and relaxed gelato/pastry training and demo at UMG.

Upper Midwest Gourmet

1901 Traffic St. NE Minneapolis, MN 55413

Office: (612)728-7208

The demo/training will begin at 10am.

Please RSVP to FabbriDemo@umgcoffee.com with what business you are with and how many people will be attending for lunch ordering purposes.

We would also like to focus the event on what you guys would like to learn about, so please let us know any ideas you have in your RSVP.

Looking forward to seeing you on August 29th, 2012!

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

July 3rd, 2012

Star Spangled Sweets

I get a little carried away when it comes to holidays, so in honor of the approaching 4th of July, I present to you — red, white and blue gelato.

Here we have Fabbri amarena cherry, blueberry and yoghito gelato as well as a lemon hops sorbet. I used citra hops that I got from our pals over at Northern Brewer. Give me a call if you want to talk recipes.

For now, feast your eyes on these photos, or drop by and pick up some real, live gelato (we have plenty to share).

And because being festive is so enjoyable, we busted out the sparklers.

Have a safe and happy 4th of July!

May 3rd, 2012

Soft Serve Ice Cream/Gelato using the Quickream & Fabbri Simple

We pride ourselves on being ahead of the curve when it comes to industry innovations and the new Elmeco Quickream soft serve ice machine is no exception!

This 110 volt, counter-top machine has a small footprint and an awesome price point. This is a great way to offer soft serve ice cream or even soft gelato using the Fabbri ingredients from Italy. We believe this will be great for smaller-sized cafes and restaurants that want to offer homemade ice cream/gelato on site without needing the space or money for a traditional gelato set-up (batch freezer, display case, etc…).

We will have this machine in our new training cafe, UP, and really think it will be a easy addition for any business looking to add ice cream to their offerings!

It works great with our new Dairy or Non-Dairy soft serve ice cream base from Pacific Natural Foods flavored with Fabbri delipastes from Italy and will be an exceptional machine for using the Fabbri Simple products (fully balanced mix of base powder, sugars, and all-natural flavors).

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

May 2nd, 2012

Synesso Espresso Machines

We are very pleased to announce that we now offer the awesome Synesso Espresso Machines! That’s right, the The Cyncra™, The Hydra™ and The Hybrid™ are all available from Upper Midwest Gourmet.

We met a bunch of the great people from the Synesso company at SCAA, Portland and are really excited to be working with them. This opportunity to have what we consider to be the “best of the best” available to us is very cool and we even plan on showcasing one of these sweet machines in the new cafe, UP.

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

April 25th, 2012

The Many Advantages of Blended Beverage and Soft Serve Bases from Pacific Natural Foods

We are really excited that the Blended Beverage & Soft Serve Bases from Pacific Natural Foods are going to be part of our offerings soon!

Here are few of the reasons why we like it so much:

  • Simply blend with ice and espresso, or fresh fruits and juices to create indulgent frappés and smoothies.
  • USDA Organic and Certified to the Source® ingredients, No Powders!
  • Convenient, 32 oz. aseptic packaging – No refrigeration required (until opened).
  • Available in Dairy (Gluten Free) and Non-Dairy (Gluten Free & Vegan) versions.
  • Also performs perfectly in your soft-serve machine!

Here are some information sheets about this awesome product that we will have in stock very soon:

Blended Beverage Base – Dairy & Non-Dairy – Pacific Natural Foods

Soft Serve Base – Dairy & Non-Dairy – Pacific Natural Foods

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