Here at Eat Marketing, we set ourselves a very important task… to find the best Easter eggs for 2016! With such a wide and varied selection out there, how do you know which to choose? Take a look at our top picks and celebrate Easter 2016 in style. Happy Easter egg munching!
Egg-spensive!
If you have a spare £25,000 lying around, how about placing an order for Choccywoccydoodah’s Easter Egg Trio? Yes, you heard right, this set of eggs has an astonishing £25,000 price tag! It does look amazing, doesn’t it?
Choccywoccydoodah’s Easter Egg Trio
Save Pennies, Keep the Taste
Down at the other end of the Easter egg scale, take a look at a bargain range of Easter eggs and save your pennies! This economical lot is just as tasty as their more expensive cousins, and, as you’re saving money, you can afford to buy a few extra, surely...
Sainsbury's Milk Chocolate Easter Egg with Caramels
Cadbury's Creme Egg Easter Egg
Hold the milk
Love chocolate but not milk? Holland and Barrett has a fantastic range of dairy free Easter Eggs and what’s more, there’s a money saving ‘buy one, get one half price’ offer on the collection too!
Holland & Barrett Dairy Free Easter Eggs
Egg shells
Eggs in real shells? Yes, that’s right. Filled with a delicious combination of milk chocolate, hazelnut and praline, these chocolate hen eggs are an unusual gift for choc lovers who like something a little different.
Off with their egg (shapes)
Easter eggs don’t have to be egg shaped either… Just look at this delectable range of choccy treats that are anything but egg shaped!
Easter Eggs… Literally!
Or, how about a couple of Belgian chocolate treats that are, quite literally, egg shaped!
Betty’s Easter Delights
Ah Betty’s… The famous tearooms have a range of delightful Easter eggs to order online which means that even if you can’t get to Yorkshire, you can still get a taste of Betty’s right in your very own kitchen. Pop the kettle on!
Milk Chocolate Eggs with Handmade Chocolates
Show some Style
Looking for an Easter egg that’s stylish as well as delicious? Take your pick from this show-stopping range:
Harrods Artisan Milk Chocolate Easter Egg
Hotel Chocolat Easter Egglet Sleekster
Godiva Beaded Egg Filled With Mini Chocolate Eggs
Pot Noodle Lovers
Know someone who loves Pot Noodles? We’ve found the perfect gift, a Pot Noodle inspired Easter egg! Although thankfully, this one doesn’t taste of pot noodle…
Pot Noodle Milk Chocolate Egg and Ceramic Mug
We hope you love our Easter Egg picks as much as we do! Have a great Easter and if you're looking to sharpen up your food brand after the Easter holidays, get in touch, we would love to help.
Roll up, roll up, get your marketing plan here... 2015 is finally upon us and we’re back from the Christmas and New Year celebrations, refreshed and ready to kick January off with a big, creative bang and exciting new marketing plans for clients old and new!
Happy New Year to you all. How was your festive break? We're feeling great, although - ahem - we may have put on a bit of weight... (We can't resist mince pies!)
If you're feeling a little lethargic after the obligatory festive excess, have no fear, Eat Marketing is here! The beginning of a year is the perfect time to start thinking of a new marketing plan that will have a prosperous impact on your business, so, how about making this your New Year's resolution for 2015?
If a new marketing plan sounds like a great idea but you're unsure where to start, let us help with a few inspirational fit tips... Take another look at our Fitter Marketing Plan for 2015 blog and discover just how many ways you can create an impact with a focused marketing plan.
And…the bakes are in! As you may be aware, we had a Halloween bake off in the Eat Marketing office on 31 October and the results were spooktacular! All the contestants were given one hour to create their beastly bakes and Maria - The Eat Marketing Guru and our very own ‘Maria Berry’, (she even wore a Mary Berry inspired jacket) judged the finished ‘creepations’, and they were all so good…
Fred presented apples dipped in white chocolate with scary faces, whilst Emily produced spindly iced skeleton biscuits (no soggy bottoms in sight!) There were also vampire biscuit bakes and terrifying skull bites from Lewis, but the winner was Alison, whose colourful creation of spider biscuits with liquorice legs and marshmallow fang biscuits won by a bite.
Phew! We are all baked out, but I’m sure you’ll agree, we’ve had a great Halloween bake off. In fact, it was such great fun, we want to do it all again (we do like our sweet treats…).
Well, here we are, it’s already Spring, and with the lighter nights comes the month of April. As last week we all had a good laugh over the various April fools jokes which were roaming around the internet, we want to give you a giggle this month, so cast your eyes over our pick of food April fools from the past and the present... laugh away! Were you fooled?
ITV’s Daybreak interviewed a farmer who rears chickens that lay square eggs! To make the feature more believable, the presenter held up a square egg and even managed to keep a straight face as he presented it to the audience. Their appeal was explained through a series of interviews, not only with the farmer, but also with café owners and kids having boiled square eggs for breakfast. After all, the feature explained, the shape makes it ‘convenient for eating’ and ‘making egg sarnies is even simpler.’ This really was a perfectly thought out and well presented food April fools!
Back in 1998, the fast-food chain Burger King announced a new left-handed Whopper in a stroke of marketing genius that really caught people’s attention. They approached their food April fools by commissioning a full-page ad in USA Today with ‘the condiments rotated 180 degrees’. The burger, it said, would be easier to hold for the 10 per cent of the population who are left-handed. Good sense and good taste, it seems, did not stop people across the US from heading out to purchase one!
Although we are seeing more April fools jokes around nowadays, they were also popular years back. In 1957, Richard Dimbleby lent his voice to a BBC Panorama program about Swiss farmers who were struggling to cope with ‘an exceptionally heavy spaghetti crop’ and people listened intently. CNN called it ‘the biggest hoax any reputable news establishment ever pulled’ as, after all, no one expected a news item to be a joke. Even the director-general of the BBC, Ian Jacob was taken in by this food April fools!
Pizza Hut lovers were bemused to receive an email announcing the introduction of the first ‘just crust’ pizza. The email explained that this breaking news was in response to the popularity of the crust, so now, hut lovers can enjoy just that…Crust! No sauce, no cheese, no toppings – and no middle! There was something in there about curly hair too… It seemed like a joke, but until we knew it really was, this food April fool was a good one.
We all like to have a giggle, and adding humour to your brand is such a great way to show who you are to your customers as it brings out the fun in food. Making people smile through your branding will also make them feel at ease and more at one with what you have to offer – especially if you have a food business such as a restaurant or café where people come to sit, eat, and take in the ambience. If you want some guidance on how to inject humour into your brand, contact us here at Eat Marketing today; we’ll show you the best ways to sprinkle on the fun and make people smile. Call us today for a no obligation visit and get ready for some figure happy sales.
Keep warm around the bonfire on November 5th with our toasty collection of bonfire night recipes. We’ve chosen our top 5 bonfire night recipe scorchers, so take your pick and enjoy great food under a sparkling sky…
Creamy tomato soup – you can make this in advance and reheat it when you need it. Pour into mugs so you can take a warm sip whilst huddled around the fire.
Ingredients
3 tbsp olive oil
2 onions, chopped
2 celery sticks, chopped
300g carrots, chopped
500g potatoes, diced
4 bay leaves
5 tbsp tomato purée
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp red or white wine vinegar
4 x 400g cans chopped tomatoes
500g passata
3 vegetable stock cubes
400ml whole milk
Method
1. Put the oil, onions, celery, carrots, potatoes and bay leaves in a big casserole dish, or two saucepans. Fry gently until the onions are softened – about 10-15 mins. Fill the kettle and boil it.
2. Stir in the tomato purée, sugar, vinegar, chopped tomatoes and passata, then crumble in the stock cubes. Add 1 litre boiling water and bring to a simmer. Cover and simmer for 15 mins until the potato is tender, then remove the bay leaves. Purée with a stick blender (or ladle into a blender in batches) until very smooth. Season to taste and add a pinch more sugar if it needs it. (You can cool and chill the soup for up to 2 days, or freeze for up to 3 months).
3. To serve, reheat the soup, stirring in the milk – try not to let it boil.
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Sweet chilli bangers - sausages are always a hit, and this special bonfire night recipe will make your evening go with a bang!
Ingredients
12 large meaty pork sausages
4 tbsp tomato ketchup
2 tbsp clear honey
2 tsp mild chilli powder
2 garlic cloves, crushed
½ tsp dried oregano or 2 tsp fresh
Method
1. Heat your oven to 220C/fan 200C/gas 7. Arrange the sausages in a roasting tin in a single layer and bake for 10 mins. Meanwhile, mix all the other ingredients together with seasoning and 1 tbsp water.
2. Pour the ketchup mixture over the sausages and mix well. Bake for 30 mins more until the sausages are golden.
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Cheesy sausage rolls – these moreish morsels are perfect for bonfire night! They are easy to hold, even for little fingers, and everyone will love them. They take a while to put together though, so you might want to make them beforehand…
Ingredients
500g pack bread mix
oil, for greasing
8 good-quality sausages, cooked following pack instructions and cooled
a little flour, for dusting
50g garlic butter, melted
6 spring onions, finely sliced
200g mature cheddar, grated
Method
1. Make up the bread mix following pack instructions. Set aside somewhere warm to rise, in a bowl covered with oiled cling film, while you get everything else ready. Slice the cooked sausages into just under 1cm slices.
2. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to a rectangle roughly 50 x 30cm. Brush with half the garlic butter and scatter over the spring onions, cheese and sausages. Roll up the dough tightly from one of the longest sides, like a Swiss roll. Use a sharp, floured knife to cut the roll into 12 pieces. Wipe the holes of a 12-hole muffin tin with a little more melted butter. Push a roll of bread, cut-side up, into each hole. Dab the remaining butter over the tops, and cover loosely with oiled cling film. Set aside somewhere warm for 30 mins to puff a little.
3. Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Bake the rolls for 20-25 mins until golden and risen. Cool in the tins for 10 minutes, then lift out to eat warm, or cool.
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Chocolate fondue & toasted marshmallow – perfect for toasting over the bonfire, kids and adults alike will have so much fun!
Ingredients
400g dark chocolate
85g unsalted butter
284ml carton double cream
300ml milk
1 bag marshmallows, for dipping
Method
Put the chocolate, butter, cream and milk into a saucepan, then heat gently, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate is melted and the sauce is smooth. Thread marshmallows onto skewers, then carefully toast on the fire, or leave until cold. Dip into the fondue and eat straight away.
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Homemade toffee apples – this has got to be the ultimate bonfire night recipe! What could be better than a homemade, crisp and crunchy toffee apple?
Ingredients
8 Granny Smith apples
400g golden caster sugar
1 tsp vinegar
4 tbsp golden syrup
Method
1. Place the apples in a large bowl, then cover with boiling water (you may have to do this in 2 batches). This will remove the waxy coating and help the caramel to stick. Dry thoroughly and twist off any stalks. Push a wooden skewer or lolly stick into the stalk end of each apple.
2. Lay out a sheet of baking parchment and place the apples on this, close to your stovetop. Tip the sugar into a pan along with 100ml water and set over a medium heat. Cook for 5 mins until the sugar dissolves, then stir in the vinegar and syrup. Set a sugar thermometer in the pan and boil to 140C or 'hard crack' stage. If you don’t have a thermometer you can test the toffee by pouring a little into a bowl of cold water. It should harden instantly and, when removed, be brittle and easy to break. If you can still squish the toffee, continue to boil it.
3. Working quickly and carefully, dip and twist each apple in the hot toffee until covered, let any excess drip away, then place on the baking parchment to harden. You may have to heat the toffee a little if the temperature drops and it starts to feel thick and viscous. Leave the toffee to cool before eating. Can be made up to 2 days in advance; store in a dry place.
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Have our bonfire night recipes tickled your taste buds? Keep a look out for more tasty and seasonal recipes coming your way from Eat Marketing as we countdown to Christmas. In the meantime, if you need any advice on your own food marketing strategies, give us a call; we’d love to discuss how we could help you.
Happy Bonfire Night!
The days are getting warmer…blue skies, heat filled breezes and bright sunshine means summer is finally here! Summer food is also on the menu for many; lighter, healthier, fresh food is perfect for those hotter days and often, people like to lose a little weight in anticipation of summer holidays and lighter clothes.
Do you have summer food on the menu? If the answer is yes, shout about your food this summer with a personally devised summer food campaign from Eat Marketing and get sun happy customers through your door.
We’ll help devise your summer food campaign strategy and ensure you get your message out in the right way for your food business and the customers you want to target; whether you need social media ideas, poster campaigns, email marketing or a series of interesting blogs, we can help.
Just contact us here at Eat Marketing today and we can arrange a no obligation get together to outline all the sizzling ways we can create a scorching summer food campaign that can help your business grow.
Have a great summer!
