Background on our operation.
Small
Business Meetings - In China, you can't
do business from the desk --you must get out into the field! TJP gets to the grass
roots of business in China. Our staff in ten cities nationwide are in the streets
and the markets to meet one on one with the new business entrepreneurs of China. On
behalf of the Almond board of California, our staff have held hundreds of meetings each
year, present samples, supplier lists and assist with product development and ingredient
sourcing.
- Helping bridge the gap! In Beijing our local representative helped one of the larger bakeries in the city with a sticky almond problem. The owner had overpurchased last year's crop and the new one was on the way. TJP quickly worked with the company and linked them to other bakeries in the region who were short on almonds at the time. The bakery owner was pretty happy and new has gone from ten cases to more than 100 cases per month. TJP reps help small business owners locate almonds, find new formulas and even hell;p with the decoration of the shop with point of sales material! Face to face interaction works in China!
Spring Festival
Promotions - 
Marketing and merchandising have been unknown
words in much of China for the past decades. TJP Works with small shop owners to
help prove that promotional activities can indeed help boost sales with quality
ingredients. for the past two years, we have worked with our client the Almond board
of California to conduct almond promotions during the Spring Festival period. Our
reps work with the shop owners to delineate and plan promotional campaigns. We help
decorate the shop and develop sampling campaigns. We also work on product
development to show the very best of new products. To top this off, we conduct local
media campaigns in the areas to showcase the individual stores and to help increase
sales. Last year, we conducted more than 30 store promotions in six cities.
This year 25 in five cities. Sales increases of up to 30 percent were recorded
across the board. We also garnered extensive publicity in the newspaper and
television. Now, the owners of the shows are excited to promote California almonds.,
and many have continued their promotions long after the promotion has completed.
Training Schools - The future almond customers of China are attending training schools now and are now knowledgeable of California almonds. Lectures have been held in eight cities across China utilizing local bakers and TJP representatives, many which possess advanced food science degrees. At the seminars, the students view a presentation on California almonds in Chinese and have a special brochure to take with them to the workplace. Demonstrations are made by experienced bakers in the region. The seminars have received high marks from attendees. But the best proof of results is the fact that we meet "almond friends" in the field at companies where they are developing products with California almonds.
Technical
Seminars. The Chinese food industry is looking for new ideas and
concepts to make money. And, for the fourth year, the Almond Board of California has
held seminars for the industry to provide new ways how California almonds can help achieve
this goal! This year we held seminars in Suchou, Wuxi and Xiamen, thee cities where
there are major food industries. We brought a Taiwanese baker who demonstrated value
added baking and how to make, market and merchandise products containing California
almonds. The demonstration was a big success and the evaluation surveys gave the
demonstrator high marks. In fact one company has already decided to market a product
which will have a value of more than 70 Million RMB in the new year! Bakers throughout
China see the California almond industry as a partner in the research and development
process. And, they are very thankful that the industry has helped them develop their
businesses with California almonds.
Roaster Seminar.
The Chinese love to snack and they love almonds. So we gave them ten
new reasons to snack on almonds. We developed ten new snack flavors at the Wuxi
University and resented the concepts in a two o=hour seminar. We also beamed in a
live video teleconference from California with Almond Experts attending. A professor
from Wuxi discussed the techniques used in the formulations and presented a video tape.
As you see from the photo below, this was serious business from the attendees and
they liked what they saw. According to the evaluation survey administered to the
attendees, they thought the seminar was well orchestrated, and they agreed that many of
the new concepts would be in the market in the next year.