Chocolates à la Carte

Calendar of Events

March: Request a Catalog Here
- New Spring Catalog – March 1st
- Spring Price List – March 1st our new Price List features 600 products from our most popular categories.
- March/April Promotion – (Click here to download a copy of Plaquette Promo Sell Sheet)
- Restaurant Expo at the Mohegan Sun – March 21st
April:
- Easter - April 16th (Click Here to Download our Easter/Spring Sell Sheet)
July:
- Chocolates a la Carte will be exhibiting at the 52nd Summer Fancy Food Show (New York) July 9th - July 11th

Advertisements

There are no current advertisements in publications at this time. You can view many of our past advertisements at the link below.

Publication Ad's

Current Publicity:

This spring’s Better Homes and Gardens special Wedding Edition featured our white chocolate dove in a beautiful wedding layout. They showcased our dove as a creative idea for a wedding table centerpiece.

Manufacturing Confectioner’s February issue featured a wonderful article about Stanton Ho as Chocolates à la Carte’s new Corporate Chef.

Chocolates à la Carte’s local newspaper, The Valencia Signal visited our factory in January for interviews with Rick, Rena and Stanton as well as a mini photo session with several of our products. The Valencia Signal also wrote up a wonderful article featured in their Sunday paper about Chocolates à la Carte and some of the chocolate creations we have been working on. They also featured one of Stanton’s custom amenities he made for the Golden Globes.

Product Alert Magazine has featured our Signature Chocolate Dinosaur Egg in there recent report. This is always very exciting as our retail line is growing every day.

Promotions

As an added benefit to you our customers, we have monthly and seasonal promotions! Every month we run at least one promotion that will save you money on one of our popular items. Currently we are featuring a "Plaquette Promotion" when you buy 4 cases of any of our plaquettes you get one case free and a “Shapes Promotion” where we are offering 50% off the One-Time "Custom" shape set-up fee "and" 10% off ALL shape orders (Standard Shapes or Custom Shapes)

You can download the flyers to these promotions at: www.chocolates-ala-carte.com, or call our Business Development team to e-mail or send you the information!

Call us in April and check back at our website to find out the details.

Plaquette Promotion

Marketing Facts / Trends

A new trend has recently occurred in hotels, they are now opening their kitchen doors to have guests be able to visit with the chefs. This is a move that lodging experts say can increase occupancy and enrich their guests experience as you can see in the examples below. A number of lodgings across the nation are inviting guests to take classes in cuisines ranging from classic French to barbecue.

Guests may be offered anything from recipes to face-time with a celebrity master chef, and of course the chance to sample those amazing concoctions whipped up daily in your kitchen.
Offering a hotel cooking class "gives the guest the opportunity to combine a vacation with learning something new and fun," says Lynn Swann, manager of public relations at The Greenbrier resort, which offers a popular course called Barbecue University. She adds, "A lot of the guests who attend Barbecue University do return the following year."
"As any innkeeper can tell you, they can pretty much fill on the weekends, but that doesn't pay your mortgage," says Vickie Schneider of Blair House Inn in Wimberley, Texas. "If you are going to be really successful you have to figure out a way to market your rooms for mid-week."
In July, guests at the historic 802-room Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, W. Va., can attend Barbecue University. The tuition is about $3,000 a person for a single, or $4,200 for a couple, with both cooking. Arriving guests will receive a notebook full of recipes and a quick shuttle bus ride to Kate's Mountain Lodge on the Greenbrier property. The instructor, Steve Raichlen, a barbecue cookbook author and the host of PBS's Barbecue University, invites audience participation. His website is www.barbecuebible.com/
"He does an entire meal, (including) dessert side dishes," says Swann, who adds that while the course is going on, a chef is preparing the same menu for lunch.
The Greenbrier recently added two more 2006 sessions of Barbecue University to handle demand for the classes, says Swann.
Among major hotel chains, the Westin Kierland Resort & Spa in Scottsdale, Arizona, a Starwood property, has in the past offered courses with Douglas Rodriguez, a celebrity chef known as the "father" of Nuevo Latino cooking.
Smaller lodgings are also stirring in cooking classes. The 11-room Blair House Inn in the hill country of Wimberley, Texas, is offering 16 cooking classes this year, including Mediterranean and classic French cooking classes this month. Guests who sign up for a barbecue course, for instance, can congregate at a patio off the kitchen, where a smoker and a gas grill are used to demonstrate tasty techniques.
The class includes instruction in marinades, rubs, and various barbecuing techniques. Among the popular barbecuing variations are recipes for wild game. Guests can also arrange a weekend cooking seminar with the chef, limited to two participants. "People come from as far away as Canada, California and even The Netherlands for cooking class," says Schneider.
The classes "drive business" by increasing mid-week occupancy, says Schneider, who co-owns and operates the country inn with her husband Michael, a former executive for Omni and Hyatt.

(Portions taken from: Hotel Interactive Today “Cooking up New Business” by Jim Merritt)