Wine and Food Festival spotlights local vendors’ fare

Last weekend, the Dutchess County Fairgrounds became a paradise for foodies and wine enthusiasts as they gathered for the 10th annual Hudson Valley Wine and Food Festival. The festival celebrates the products of mostly local, small-scale vendors, though some came from as far away as Arizona.

Fine Cooking magazine, one of the event's sponsors, touted the Festival as an opportunity to appreciate the Hudson Valley's "rich tradition of combining its agricultural bounty with culinary excellence."

Those in attendance were abuzz with excitement, but if you looked closely at the vendors in their booths, you might have detected a certain anxiety. They're in competition, after all—not only with each other, but also with larger companies. They can't afford not to market themselves at events like these, because that would mean missing out on potential customers. Additionally, most small-scale producers face the problem of pricing: Why would a consumer spend $8 on a jar of local organic jam when he or she can buy a mass-produced version at Stop & Shop for less than half the price?

While some of the vendors present at the festival have storefront properties where they sell their goods, others primarily do business at farmers' markets and events like these. The Amazing Real Life Food Co., a cheese producer located in Pine Plains, splits its sales between wholesale and retail. The company is Whole Foods-certified, and in addition to selling to specialty food stores in the Hudson Valley, vendor Rory Chase said, "We sell our products at about 15 farmers markets per week."

Winding Drive Jams and Jellies, based in Woodbury, Conn., also does a lot of business in small markets. According to the company's website, husband and wife Ron Pinto and Fran Adams founded the company when Pinto's job in sales and marketing was eliminated. "We're a new business," Pinto said, "we've only been around for three years. We don't have a storefront, but we sell through events like this." Is it worth the time to make such long trips? "Sometimes it is," he said, "sometimes it isn't."

Some companies are even smaller and more specialized. At a booth labeled The Original Bavarian Beer Nuts, a vendor explained that consumers could not order the product online because there is no website. "My friend owns the company and sells the nuts out of his home," the vendor said.

Many of the businesses do operate primarily on the Internet, however. Blue Heron Acres, a Pennsylvania-based company that raises and sells American Wagyu beef, has a storefront, but, according to their vendor, "Online is the largest sector of the business. We attend food and wine events because that's the audience that will be interested in our products, but it's not the majority of our business."

Other booths were essentially extensions of restaurants. Hyde Park Brewing Company sold bottles of its eight ales and lagers, with provocative names like Big Easy Blonde and SOB: Special Old Bitter. They've brewed the beer on premises for 15 years, and selling their products at food and wine festivals is really a side business to the restaurant. Similarly, vendors from Capa di Roma Restaurant, of East Hartford, Conn., sold bottles of their signature pasta sauces, which they've marketed through grocery stores for the last 10 years.

Financially, many of these companies seem to struggle. Cereghino Smith Wine is a relatively young winery in Bloomington, N.Y. that operates out of a barn. When asked whether the majority of sales came from wholesale or retail, the vendor raised an eyebrow and replied, "What sales?" In truth, the company does reasonably well—they sell their wines to many shops and restaurants in New York City and State—but the flippancy of his reply indicates just how difficult it is to make a profit as a small business in the food industry.

Yet in flavor and quality, there's no denying that most of these products surpass those you would find at a supermarket. The pecan beer nuts were sweet, salty and soft with freshness that would fade in a plastic container sitting on a shelf. The raspberry hot sauce sold by Arizona-based Wild Coyote Hot Sauces makes Tabasco seem one-note. And compared to the maple cream sold by Mapleland Farms, packaged frosting would taste like toothpaste.

For many of these small businesses, the challenge is to connect with consumers who are willing to spend a little bit more for quality products. Luckily for them, the rise in popularity of the Slow Food movement may help attract socially conscious customers and foodies alike.

Walbridge Farm Market, in Millbrook, N.Y., would especially appeal to those concerned with the politics of food. In their store, they sell cuts of their all-natural, pasture-raised, hormone-free Angus beef, as well as farm fresh eggs, dairy products and other seasonal products.

As vendor Cheryl Giles explains, the fact that their food is both fresh and local means it's better for the environment as well as the consumer: "When you buy chocolate milk at Walmart and the expiration date is in two years," she shrugged, "you know there's something wrong there."