|
|||||||||
|
Call it intruging but Stephen and Gina Paul have always been fascinated with chocolate and fruit.
We can truly say that in the mid 1980's when we first started dating, chocolate played a very
important role in our relationship. It was on our very first date where we met Guy and Wendy Debas
at their retail store in Fresno California call Foreign Affairs. Their hand made ice cream and
truffle store became a regular stop for us and also became an inspiration for us.
As mentioned in the history page of Bouquet of Fruits, Gina and I married in 1987. Soon after the opening of our retail business (Bouquet of Fruits) in 1988 Gina and I realized that in order to drive customers into our retail location we must develop unique and exciting new products from our theme of fruit. With the artistic talents of Gina, economic challenges of the produce industry and the continuing relationship with Guy Debas, now known as Debas Chocolates, we developed a brand new line of "Fresh dipped" fruits by Bouquet of Fruits. With the fresh fruit we were growing on our farms we began slicing and dipping tree ripened fruit in the finest European chocolates. These were and still are awesome, but have a very short life span. With the demand of the new "fresh dipped" fruit line we recognized the need to create products with a gift theme and shelf life for all occasions. Our first chocolate fruit gift product was our "Chocolate caramel Fuji apple" developed in 1991. The original apple looked like a beautiful giant truffle. We introduced the apple for Valentines day 1991 and it was a big success. The chocolate caramel Fuji apples became the new identity for Bouquet of Fruits for Valentine's Day, Easter, Secretary's Day, Mother's Day, Halloween and the holidays. The next year Gina and I began to dip fresh long stemmed strawberries and sample them at the Pavilion West store. They also became a success for Bouquet of Fruits. We offered them as an alternative to roses during Valentine's day and the Fresno area could not get enough. From 1990 to 1997 only the Fresno area residents had access to our fresh chocolate fruit products. The development of on line shopping and direct drop shipping soon made chocolate dipped fruit delights available to customers all over the nation. In addition to our customers we also drop shipped our original unique products for some of the most prominent e-tailers. Now that chocolate dipped Fuji apples and strawberries are readily available on the Internet we recognize and embrace the challenge to develop new unique and desirable products. Our latest new developments are the fresh chocolate dipped Clementine wedges, perhaps our best new items yet, fresh raspberry cups and the chocolate caramel bosc pear. All availble here at chocolatefruits.com. We are also working on new dried fruit products. These new items will be showing up at chocolatefruits.com throughout the year. |
|||||||||
