Men Cafe during Home Exhibition
13-2-2014
The ‘Home Exhibition’ in Amsterdam RAI is really a female fair, but each year around 25,000 men visit the event. To do the men a favor, during the event from 15 to 23 Feburary, there will be a Men Café again. Men can drink a beer here, eat some croquettes and there are pool tables. Racing driver Tim Coronel will be present to accompany the men in the café. The visitors can sit in the Dakar buggy of Tim Coronel and take a picture.
Zuidas Amsterdam pop-up store
12-2-2014
The municipality of Amsterdam appointed four locations for pop-up stores at the ‘Zuidas’, near Amsterdam Zuid train station. From 1 May onwards the locations are available to unique concepts that complement the existing offer for six months. All competitors, with both food as well as non-food concepts, can send in their plans before 5 March 2014. The four winners will be announced on 13 March. Perhaps the area will be enriched with a test sleep facility, a tasting area or a collaboration between local entrepreneurs like we’ve seen in the West of Amsterdam.
Inspiration from NYFW 2014
11-2-2014
We all know that Fashion Weeks are concentrated around fashion shows and after party’s but this year Marc Jacobs took the opportunity to do another type of stunt!
After all the talk of alternative payment methods like Bitcoin recently, he decided to open a pop-up tweetshop, a store where you pay with social media posts, a brilliant idea to promote his fragrance Daisy. In essence this store was more about the experience than the shopping, being located in beautiful bright loft in Soho, the brand organized a set of activities. One was a photo-booth style field of daisies, where you could take daisy #selfies. When uploaded with #MJDaisyChain to Instagram or Twitter you could win great prizes with the messages, such as bags, full bottles of daisy, sunglasses and other gadgets. Other than the daisy-field booth there was also a cart with a coffeemachine and baristas making fresh coffee, ladies who were giving free manicures with Marc Jacobs nail polishes and lot’s of daisy art and daisies. A dj made the atmosphere even a bit more exciting and the “fabulous” NYFW visitors were having a ball. One simple tweet with the hashtag #MJDaisyChain earned you a small daisy roller and for the larger prizes your post had to be chosen. All together, a rather briljant concept and you bet that the # was trending during the opening days! ^Leonie van Spronsen
Van Dobben goes to Sochi
5-2-2014
Master croquette maker Piet Brink from ‘Van Dobben’ travels to Sotsji to make croquettes and ‘bitterballs’. He expects to make an average thousand per day that are sold in the ‘Holland Heineken Huis’. It was hard to arrange the paperwork for the import of frozen croquettes, this way the producer bends a problem into an opportunity.
Tea Clutch
3-2-2014
Always take your favorite tea with you with the ‘Tea Clutch’ by Tea Bar in Amserdam. The ‘Tea Clutch’ is a convenient on-the-go packaging with fifteen tea filters and loose tea. The mini clutch is available in the flavors Choco Chanel, Champ Chique (champagne cassis) and Mango Madness. The packaging has a chic look and is sealed with a reseal able sticker.
Cragels, the kickoff of the year of hybrid foods
27-1-2014
Cragels – the adventurous hybrid between a croissant and a bagel, the newest “famous” pastry of New York. Originating from The Bagel Store on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg this is the snack that tries to challenge the cronut in 2014. Saturday January 25, was the first day that the bakery was serving flavored cragels next to the basic cragels and we were there to try them out! They were selling plain, chocolate, bacon-cheddar-egg and parmesan spinach cragels. Personally I was especially impressed by the way both items were actually to be found in the eating sensation. When you take a bite, the first you notice is the flakiness of the croissant but when you are really eating your bite you feel and taste the denseness of the bagel. On top of that the flavor is very full and I have to say the bacon-cheddar-egg cragel was a delight for the taste buds! Hospitality insiders already predicted it.. 2014 will be the year of hybrid foods and I would say, this is a great kickoff!^Leonie van Spronsen
Shepherd Ham
24-1-2014
Shepherd Ham is made from sheep that are taken to graze on moorlands, dikes and other natural grazing and they are accompanied by a shepherd. Shepherd Ham is a local product of Limburg and is soft and full of flavor, available with or without bone. The meat is massaged with fine sea salt and then dry-cured for a length of time. Each Shepherd Ham has its own story: every shepherd has a UBN number that can be traced through the website. So you can see the information about the shepherd and the grazing locations.
Vending machine with salads
24-1-2014
We already have seen a number of vending machines, but mostly with unhealthy products. The vending machine of Farmers’s Fridge sells healthy, fresh packaged salads, fruits and breakfast. The company prepares the salads made of organic, local en fresh produce early in the morning and delivers the packed salads to the vending machines by 10AM. The unsold salads from the previous day will be donated to the local food bank. The vending machine has a touchscreen and is made of wood and recycled materials. Farmer’s Fridge currently has vending machines in the Chicago area.
Design contest for bed Sofitel Luxury Hotels
24-1-2014
Sofitel Luxury Hotels organizes a design contest in collaboration with the Wallpaper magazine. Designers, artists and students worldwide can submit their bed design inspired by MyBed (the Sofitel bed concept). The winning design will be displayed in the lobby of Sofitel München Bayerpost and the winner gets a free night at a Sofitel Hotel.
Brand beer brewing challenge
22-1-2014
Brand beer challenges hobby brewers to create the best Inda Pale Ale beer. Contestants have to prepare twelve bottles for tasting and testing and ten candidates can make it to the finals. Subscibtions must be made before 1 April, the bottles must be ready on 26 April. The winner will produce the beer together with the Brand brewers and will get his or her name and picture on the packaging of the first brew.