For the second year, CAE took Vermont Food Venture Center clients to the Summer Fancy Food Show in New York City! The Show is the event for specialty food producers, with 2,500 food and beverage manufacturers displaying their products over a three day show. This year, more than 14,000 manufacturers, buyers, and industry professionals attended the show, which spanned 345,000 square feet of space in the Javits Center. 

In 2025, CAE’s Food Production Advisor, Colleen Crist, and Communications Manager, Lylee Rauch-Kacenski, went to the show with Green Mountain Peanut Butter (GMPB). (Read more about last year’s experience here!) “Learning from last year, we came in with a goal this year and knew exactly what we were looking for, and what the expectation is,” said Theresa, Event and Production Team Member for Green Mountain Peanut Butter. Business Partner and Director of Operations, Chris, noted that, “We came in with a good idea knowing what to expect, and felt more confident knowing what to say to all the contacts we met. It’s been refreshing to get new contacts.” In preparation for the show, CAE organized several learning sessions focused on different aspects of the event, to help the producers get a sense of how to prepare. 

As our returning business, Green Mountain Peanut Butter shared their experience and insights from attending last year during our preparation sessions. They kindly mentored the other businesses, sharing their successes and misses from last year, as well as tips and advice. Chris enjoyed the role of mentor, adding, “It's been great working with the VFVC and having all these people that produce there [come to the show] and being around them and seeing all the excitement and the growth that they're getting from being here. So it's been really nice to see.” 

A show like this is a very costly undertaking for a small food business. By attending with CAE  producers are able to get a taste of the show, without the capital it takes to have a larger booth independent from an incubator kitchen. To make the event even more accessible, CAE supports the cost of Specialty Food Association membership and registration for our producers. Andrew Wild, of Mighty Muditia, reflected “Part of what was fun at the Fancy Food show is there were other incubators, so other similar spaces that operate in different parts of the country. I got a sense of what they were doing, and just what makes CAE special.” 

Dozens of start-up businesses were located with their incubator kitchens in the River Pavilion exhibit hall on the third floor. The Vermont Food Venture Center was among these incubator kitchens, with the VFVC clients stationed alongside at their own booths. As attendees approached, CAE staff gave an overview of the VFVC kitchens and encouraged visitors to stop by the next four booths to try great Vermont products produced at the Venture Center. Theresa of Green Mountain Peanut Butter, said that the layout “was nice, because once [a person] would start at the beginning [of the row] they're like, ‘oh, you guys are all Vermont’ and everyone would be so interested.” An important part of the show is drawing people into your booth. Green Mountain Peanut Butter is an expert at this, with a peanut butter fountain as the centerpiece of the booth. This year the team leveled up by having Theresa dressed as a peanut to add to the excitement. 

We encouraged VFVC clients to have a goal for what they were hoping to achieve by attending the Show. Andrew Wild, owner of Mighty Mudita, said “My hope was to connect with distributors and other businesses, including food service operations, with the goal of increasing sales.” The highlight of the show for Andrew was connecting with other businesses “There’s a spirit of supporting each other and lifting each other up amongst the other vendors here and similar brands, and I think it’s been worth the trip.” We learned from Andrew that the word ‘mudita’ is Sanskrit for delighting in other people’s joy or well-being, and these connections feel like mudita and an important part of belonging to a community of producers. 

According to Kira Hachtel of Barred Woods, the show was “exciting, and very eye-opening.”  Kira continued, “The size of this show is absolutely mind-boggling compared to the  kinds of trade shows we've been doing, and I am learning a lot about what taking our business to the next level might look like, as we look into scaling and building our own facility.” She also added that, “It's been very informative to see what types of businesses are trying to engage with us and what types of businesses are not interested. I have also learned a lot from people pitching to us. The types of services folks are trying to sell us gave me a lot of ideas for projects we might want to tackle next. Being here I have learned a lot about the larger fancy food industry. It has been very, very educational.” Barred Woods also benefited from putting faces to names when meeting people who already buy their products through Faire Marketplace, while simultaneously introducing these buyers to their full line of products.

Erin Shea of Vermont Cheeseless took a different approach when planning for the show: “We came with no goals because we didn’t want to get our hopes up for something that might not pan out. It’s been great, and I can say it’s exceeded my expectations.” For Erin, one highlight of the show was reconnecting with a food consultant she originally met at a trade show in Montpelier. “I've had a couple of phone calls with him since then, but he's based in New York City, and he came to meet us with his colleague, introduced her to our food, and he seems like the real deal and is super excited to get us into New York City grocery store frozen bakery sections.” Erin is finalizing the details of that account, and has secured two other New York City accounts that she met at the Fancy Food Show. 

We continue to support these four businesses and all of the producers at the Vermont Food Venture Center. Kira notes: “A lot of the foundation of Barred Wood’s value-added products happened because of the Venture Center. We learned everything at the VFVC that has been critical to our development and everything we do will be enabled because of the time we were able to spend there.” Even the capital and resources they continue to have are due to the relationships they have built through their time at CAE and the VFVC. We feel fortunate to have staff that care about each of the businesses, and the people that run them. As Kira puts it, “Colleen is a nice person who helps you weather the storm when something goes wrong, because something always goes wrong. It’s been a real pleasure working with her.” We are already thinking about how to improve our presence at the Show next year, and bring even more clients to New York City in 2027. 

All photos by Lylee Rauch-Kacenski