Dear Customers,
It was nearly a month ago that I sat down at my desk to print the signs for our February Meat Bonanza. Due to ongoing supply shortages and the effects of the pandemic on virtually every facet of the retail business, I was still surprised to see that the last time I had made Bonanza signs prior to February was back in October, some five months earlier.
Meat Bonanza’s are extremely popular with our customers, and we would prefer to sponsor them regularly. Unfortunately, there are often extenuating circumstances, the like of which I mentioned in the first paragraph, which make it sometimes very difficult to secure the necessary product. In addition, sometimes the individual markets (beef, pork, chicken) become so volatile that pricing goes up and down weekly making it nearly impossible to predict what our sale retails should be as we are required to lock down the items sometimes a month in advance due to printing deadlines!
Even though it’s the beginning of March, there’s still a lot of “soup weather” in the offing. As I’ve mentioned before, we are weekly soup makers at our house. I get the weekly billing from our warehouse via e-mail early Sunday mornings. As soon as I’m finished reconciling the weekly invoices, charges, credits, etc., I head for the kitchen and the soup kettle. Within an hour or so, I have all the ingredients “marrying” inside a big stock pot and simmering away.
By the time the first sports event comes on the TV, whether it be football, basketball, Nascar, or baseball, we hunker down with a hearty bowl of warmth and flavor. As the kettle continues to slowly bubble on the burner, we re-visit it, time and again all afternoon!
The nice thing about taking advantage of one of our Meat Bonanzas is the ability it affords you to stock up the freezer for these soup days. I know some people prefer tomato, potato and just plain old vegetable soup, but my soups need a little more substance; spelled ‘m e a t’! It’s so convenient to be able to go to the freezer and pull out a chicken breast, a beef roast, or a boneless pork roast and chunk it up into bite-size pieces for the pot.
Don’t miss out on this Bonanza, because, let’s face it. . . until we return to ‘normal’, whatever that becomes, supply issues will still continue to plague the world’s shoppers.