We recently exhibited at the Making it in Michigan specialty food show, put on each year by the MSU Product Center. The event was held in Lansing at the Lansing Center with roughly 100 specialty food vendors and Michigan small businesses exhibiting.
Matt Birbeck, our Product Center counselor, has been working with us for about 5 years. His group helps new upstart Michigan business get connected with other vendors or government agencies for whatever they need. Over the years, he has helped us with grant writing, job descriptions, the interview process, marketing and packaging. He has also given us many names of fruit growers whenever we’ve been looking for organic fruits.
We were fortunate to have also received a great honor by winning the “Best Barrier Buster” award for entrepreneurial success. We’re glad to provide a great example of how a small business can really make it in Michigan!
We teach a class called “3 Steps to Great Service” to all of our front line people. Our associates understand that “it’s the pie” that people are coming in to experience not a root canal!
They’re coming in for the greatest pie in the country! All natural, old fashioned, hand-crimped pie with local fruit, sugar, unbleached Michigan-grown pastry flour, no transfats — just the good stuff!
Many times we’ve heard our guests say, “I haven’t had pie this good since my grandmother passed away. She made the best pie.” Our pies are nostalgic. Once people get their first taste, the experience is long remembered.
I am happy to be assisting one of our long time employees and manager trainer, Christina, teach the service class this week. It usually takes about 2 and a half hours depending on how many students we have. These classes are very interactive, and we all have time to share stories of what we think “good service” is and what “bad service” looks and feels like.
We are not perfect, but we’re working on it!
Our Achatz Blue Ribbon Berry Patch is the newest addition to our pie family. We were making this pie for a private label client in the Mid-Atlantic region and stuck a name on it, “mixed berry.” Certainly, a boring name for such a spectacular tasting, fresh, pop-in-your-mouth flavorful pie!
We loved this pie so much we entered it in to the National Pie Championships held April in Celebration, Florida, where it won the blue ribbon in the berry category! We knew we now needed to give it a respectable name.
Continue “Welcoming the Blue Ribbon Berry Patch Pie”…
I love the R and D end of the business at Achatz Handmade Pie Co. I had just come back from a bike ride and had the urge to put together the Boston cream pies that I’d been thinking about for a long time. Of course a Boston cream pie is a cake not a pie, but we still have a lot of customers coming in asking for them. So now instead of saying, “No, we don’t make that,” we’ll say, “Yes, how many do you want?”
The Boston cream pie starts with our tender flaky pie crust, followed by a couple pounds of our homemade pastry cream made with pure butter and real vanilla, and topped with this really awesome delicious yellow cake! Then, my favorite part… a ton of super high fat chocolate ganache poured over top! Ohhh… must ride 10 more miles to burn just one slice of this heavenly pie!
Our clientele gets anxious for strawberry pies come May, so we’ll ship in some fresh berries from Florida… and sometimes we get lucky and get a really nice batch. Michigan strawberries are the best, though you have to be patient! Michigan berries — especially buying them from local farms close to home — just seem to taste better.
But watch my recent segment on Fox 2 News where I made a Strawberry and Cream Pie with beautiful strawberries delivered from Florida. They were deep red, as big as apples, and looked like they were pumped on steroids!
Continue “Our Delicious Strawberry and Cream Pie on Fox 2 Detroit”…
We celebrated the opening of our seventh pie shop on May 2nd with cards to the first 50 customers in line. People started lining up at 4:15 a.m.! One family even brought their folding chairs and snuggies (it was pretty cold and rainy).
We appreciate everyone who came out to celebrate and welcome us to the neighborhood! Our entire staff pitched in to help open the store along with volunteer friends and family members each trying to keep up with the samples and coffee.
Continue “Our Grand Opening Day in Beverly Hills”…
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