Cake Makers Extend Yummy Market Area

By Author: Greg Stiles
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Owners Larry and Lisa Oswald have signed with Pacific West Marketing of San Juan Capistrano, which promotes products at trade shows or sells directly to the Microsofts and IBMs of the world through corporate gifts and the like. Yummykake www.yummykake.com/ has embarked on a new venture that could extend the artisan cake maker's reputation from sea to shining sea. The Oregon company has won the palates and minds of discerning Southern Oregon dessert eaters since moving from Iowa in July 2002 and setting up shop first in Ashland then in Medford in February 2004. Owners Larry and Lisa Oswald have signed with Pacific West Marketing of San Juan Capistrano, which promotes products at trade shows or sells directly to the Microsofts and IBMs of the world. "They approached me," says Larry Oswald, 54, who repeatedly said no until local marketing consultant Tina Janke of TJ Consults Inc. www.tjconsults.com suggested it might be worth his while. Because Yummykake's ingredients make a for a decidedly short shelf-life, Oswald hadn't presumed to extend his ...
... marketing reach — until now. "What I've been doing in Medford and Ashland with gourmet cakes takes refrigeration," Oswald says. "That comes down to me shipping with dry ice. It can be done, but I didn't want to get into dry-ice packaging and freezer space." But with a little innovation and thinking outside the cake box, Oswald blended a
truffle and cupcake into a new product line called the Trufflekake(SM), which is
rich, moist cake surrounded by truffle chocolate filling and a decorative shell. "We don't need dry ice to ship these with the weather we have right now," Oswald says. "We can send them by next-day air and they arrive OK. In the heat of the summer, we'll cold-pack them. But it doesn't need dry ice like meats and ice
cream." The Oswalds ran a full-service bakery with annual sales of about $220,000 in Fairfield, Iowa, a town of 10,000, for more than a half-dozen years. About three years ago, they sold the bakery and moved to Ashland. But even though
Ashland had twice the population, the Oswalds found the going tough. First on Hersey Street, where they still make their cakes in an 1,800-square-foot shop, and then on Siskiyou Boulevard, the light, creamy cakes failed to draw a steady clientele. Opening a second location at the Grandview Plaza on Roberts Road in Medford, a couple of doors down from Bruno's Pizza, solved that problem. Oswald says Yummykake had sales of about $200,000 last year and projects revenues to hit
$250,000 this year. Weddings account for 30 percent of sales, the largest individual revenue slice, followed by birthdays and anniversaries. "It seemed like no one ever has birthdays in Ashland and people couldn't find Hersey Street," Oswald says. "In order to survive, we had to move into Medford." Now, Yummykake is in position to do better than survive. Ed Shriber of Pacific West Marketing www.pacificwestmarketing.com has promoted
product-driven companies to corporate gift buyers for more than a quarter-century. Trufflekakes, measuring about 2 inches in diameter and the same in height, retails for $10 in individual gold-foil containers or six in a gift box going for $65. A flower box of six goes for $85. Local customers, Oswald says, will find the same items available at Grandview Plaza below those rates. Shriber, who will earn a commission on his sales, was at a trade show Monday and wasn't available for comment. Janke says corporate gifts are a good entry point into wholesale markets. "There are only so many individuals who can afford most corporate gifts, but those who do, don't care how much they spend," says Medford marketing consultant Tina Janke, who has worked with Shriber for several years. "There are many different reasons a company can give gifts, but food is a big thing for gifts — Food Catalogs like Harry & David have taught us that."