More Award Photos

Publish Post

Here's a better shot of all of us (the product, the award, and me).

Receiving the Award

This is what I meant when I said in an earlier post that I was in pure shock to hear them call our name for BEST NEW PRODUCT in the foodservice category. You'll notice I'm still wearing my very azul windbreaker as I reached out to accept the award. That's Vaughan Lazar, President of Pizza Fusion & Co-Founder of Pizza Fusion, handing me the award by the way! On a side note: He loved our product!

Blogged by Chicago Sun-Times

I just found this randomly somehow - Cloud Top was 1 of 4 highlighted companies/products covered in this write up on Chicago Sun-Times' blog section by Janet Fuller (Chicago Sun-Times Food Editor)

She was a sweet person and genuinely took to our frozen yogurt. Check out the story below -

Food finds at the All Things Organic expo

By

Janet Fuller

on June 18, 2009 4:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Four things from the All Things Organic trade show and conference, which wrapped up today at McCormick Place:

* You won't find Cloud Top frozen yogurt in stores, nor will you find a Cloud Top store anywhere yet. And that's a bummer.

* Kathy Kim, an affable young mom from Pasadena, lives in the land of Pinkberrys and Red Mangos. She admits she "very quickly" became a fan of the nouveau yogurt shops, as did her two sons. But there was always a certain creaminess missing from the hyped-up yogurt. With her background in food development and marketing, she figured she could fill in the blanks.

She quit her job in 2007 and starting making what she calls a "fortified dessert." Whereas other fro-yos start with a powdered yogurt base, Cloud Top starts with, well, yogurt. And while others are bright white and watery and leave an aftertaste, Kim's is a creamy, cream-colored treat with a pleasant vanilla tang.

For now, Kim is trying to find distributors to get her product into those same Pinkberrys that inspired her.

Press on Cloud Top

Some press we've received already from the show:

Official press release announcing All Things Organic 2009 New Product Winners here.

How products were judged:

"A distinguished panel of food professionals gathered on site to judge the selected finalists and choose the winners. Products were judged based on a set of criteria specific to each category including taste, appearance, efficacy, convenience and practicality, packaging and merchandising, as well as its originality and marketability."

Who was judging?

"The 2009 Panel of Judges included: Scott P. Silverman, category director (Natural & Organic), Winn-Dixie Stores Inc.; Steve Schoultz, director contract manufacturing, Sara Lee Corporation; and Vaughan Lazar, president/founder, Pizza Fusion."

as winners of the new product competition, we're receiving an official logo that we can use on literature or packaging, etc as well as press release quotables. yay!

need to practice perfecting the swirl thing.

Day 2 - All Things Organic 2009

today was a little less crazy at the booth but still pretty busy. i was so bad about taking more pictures. the professional photographer for the show came by and took some good shots of our booth, award, and product. we're so grateful for the overwhelming support we received. the show fully exceeded our expectations in every way. i finally started recording clips of people as they sampled our frozen yogurt for the first time to capture their first reactions. once i figure it out, i'll post some of those video clips. all in all, i have ALOT of following up to do - we got some really strong leads; if we can materialize just a couple of those, i would be thrilled. a stack of business cards and notes i have to go back to and pore over. thanks all things organic - you were good to us!

Cloud Top wins 2009 Best Overall Organic Foodservice Product!

the day came to a close and i was anxious to head back to the hotel room to crash. i thought at that point that we must not have won the competition in our category because i hadn't received any news; i didn't really think much more about it. as we made our way out of the exhibition hall and through the lobby we noticed there were crowds gathered around the platform they had set up with the panel of judges and show management on stage. they were announcing winners. I stopped and tried to listen to what the announcer was saying and i heard bits and pieces and then finally, "Cloud Top Yogurt..." WHAT?!! I was flabbergasted. I think the photo-op picture will show me in my attractive blue windbreaker receiving our statuette.

what a way to top the day! it's wild that we won. the crazy thing is, we had seriously considered cancelling our registration and not attending the show at all! what a great thing that we didn't do that. day 2 begins soon. hopefully this day will go as nicely and i know my feet will thank me b/c i'm wearing flats this time around.

Day 1 of All Things Organic!

Here's how our booth looked in the morning. I mistakenly wore boots (relatively comfortable in the beginning of the day) and was literally standing all day long (i actually forgot to eat lunch - it was that busy around our booth) so my feet hating me by day's end.

The response we received was just overwhelming - WOW is all I can say. People LIKED our product! I know I say this as if I expected them to dislike it or if I think it's not a great product. I think for all this time, I haven't allowed myself to really stand with absolute confidence about the flavor and taste because it hadn't yet passed the muster of those outside of our inner circle. I was so invested in the product personally and knew that this was be the real measure and forecast of what could lie ahead for us. so as the morning wore on and person after person kept ooh-ing and mmm-ing and repeating how much they liked/loved the product - I was feeling thrilled, surprised, and relieved all at the same time. As the day progressed, many came back for seconds dragging a colleague with them and spreading the word about our little yogurt samples. I knew it spoke volumes when industry (ice cream/frozen dessert) veterans would taste and stop to tell me that our product was really good and that we really "had something here." Well the day ends on an even brigher note...

I was proud to see our product line displayed in the New Product Showcase & Competition area.

My favorite part about our booth: sunny yellow tolix chairs. These are probably the most expensive pieces next to the yogurt machine.

All Things Organic - Move-in Day

Move in was truly a breeze. The best part of the day was finally getting to crank out a cup of our frozen yogurt and taste it for the first time since the trial run we did last August. Wow - it was so yummy. Perfectly smooth and creamy but not in a heavy, yucky way. I had forgotten how unique and delicious our flavor profile was! Seriously, I was pleasantly suprised by how good it tasted. I've been both excited AND pretty anxious leading up to this day because I was't able to be present during the production run to taste the product off the line. HOWEVER, I am so pleased!

The real test will be tomorrow when the show floor opens. Here are some pictures I took of our booth. It looks a bit vacant because our marketing literature and displays aren't out yet.

I'm thrilled to be using a Stoelting freezer - which was graciously loaned to us by the good people at Stoelting. I have to say, that after tasting our product through both a Taylor freezer and a Stoelting freezer - Hands down, the Stoelting was superior. The texture of our product seemed so perfectly smooth. I was told by the sales representative, who is kindly working the booth with me, that Stoeltings freezers have a more advanced technology which yields a frozen product with smaller air bubbles thus creating a more velvety smooth texture and mouthfeel. Thanks to Bob Rada for the heavylifting and good company!

Stay tuned for more updates throughout the show. I really need to figure out how to upload stuff via blackberry.

Gearing up for All Things Organic Expo

We're excited about the upcoming trade show where we will be unveiling for the first time our frozen yogurt. Since our press release a few weeks ago we have literally been getting inquiries from around the world for our unique yogurt and interest from journalists and producers who want to cover our product. We think this is the beginning of some exciting times for our company and are excited about the opportunity to finally let people sample the incredible taste and texture of our yogurt. More to come!

Cloud Top Introduces First USDA Certified Organic Frozen Yogurt Enhanced With Omega-3 DHA & Inulin Prebiotic Fiber

Newcomer Cloud Top launches the first certified organic tart frozen yogurt to not only contain the health benefits of probiotics, which earned them a nod of approval by the National Yogurt Association, but the unique benefits of prebiotics, Omega-3 DHA, Vitamin D, and calcium. With their new organic functional frozen yogurt hitting the market just in time for summer, Cloud Top is prepared to fuel the fro-yo wars to new heights.

Full Press Release here