I thought I would share a little of the behind the scenes process of creating the catalog.

Creating our yearly catalog helps us define and grow our business. We are always on the look out for new and different products – from down the street, to the other side of the world. Creating the catalog forces us to make many decisions about our assortment-what new items to buy and what items to discontinue.

We look to evolve our gifts over time, slight modifications to selected baskets are made each year. This allows us to share our most recent findings with our current customers as well as new customers.   We also have fun developing a new crop of gift each year, this year we have many gifts that feature foods from different geographic regions- such as Brooklyn, New England and California.

Once we decide on the assortment and components in the gifts, we photograph the items. Taking a photo of a gift that includes many components is not always easy – it takes both art and science to get a shot that best represent the item.

The same team has worked together for many years now adding their piece of the puzzle: David the owner traveling to different parts of the world to find food, Mickey Mathis the photographer, and Amy Ashford our graphic designer and myself as the “stage director” making sure all the pieces come together.

Once the photographs are taken, the images are carefully cleaned-up and we go to work on the layout of the catalog, once all the proofs and edits are made the final product is sent to the printing house.

In the below picture, David (owner) and I are setting up the Chelsea Market Bounty basket during one of our photo-shoots.

Some new items we are excited about this are year:

NYC Hot Chocolate- All the best NYC hot chocolate mixes and drinks in one basket.

Brooklyn Boys- Handmade foods all made in the trendy borough of Brooklyn.

Edible New England- Sweet and Savory products all made in New England and boxed in our “new” New England boxes.

California Dreamin- A gift that highlights California and their diverse food culture.

British Tea and Biscuits- From across the Atlantic we have selected the best biscuits, aka cookies for this gift, all boxed up in our modern British box.

Here is a link to our full catalog:
CMB Holiday Catalog 2011 (pdf)

In my new capacity, helping steer Peters Imports with what is brought back from England and at the same time finding new and wonderful stuff for Chelsea Market Baskets,  I am keen to find product that we can sell that has never been the USA before and with the exchange rate  now working in our favor, providing good value as well to our customers. After the show in London, I will be visiting Scotland for about 5 days, which should be good to dig in a little and see what is new and not discovered yet there.  These trips are good because I can find myself in many shops check out how they look as well as what they are selling and trying to capture the spirit of an older work food shop.   If there is anything that you especially interested in please email me and I will be looking.