Fro-yo girl here. I've returned from the Frozen Yogurt Conference hosted by YoCream in Portland, Oregon. The host, YoCream, did an amazing job of organizing the conference and taking care of attendees, from the limo service to the free meals. They were incredibly welcoming and kind. Thank you YoCream!
The turnout was impressive...I think around 400 attendees or so from 18 countries. I was excited to see people from fro-yo shops I'd been to or read about. Most of the attendees seemed to already have fro-yo shops but the show was also attended by distributors, aspiring fro-yo shop owners, and others in the fro-yo business. Upon registering, I received a free YoCream logo drawstring bag, program and coupon for YoCream products.
The purpose of the conference was educational and one repeated message was how everyone in fro-yo should be focused on not just their own businesses but on growing the fro-yo industry.
The conference started on Tuesday, Jan. 25, with tours of the YoCream manufacturing plant and company showroom store (the tours were repeated on Wednesday morning). The afternoon was filled with fascinating topics like the History of Frozen Yogurt, marketing tips, what you should know about frozen yogurt machines and more. We were introduced to the YoCream executives including the founder. The keynote speaker was Peter Vidmar, the gymnast and he impressed us with his pommel horse skills and humor.
Wednesday was focused on store operations, including menu planning, a hands on mixology lesson, and more. In addition to having expert speakers discuss topics like pressure vs. gravity fro-yo machines, there were ample Q&A sessions.
In between sessions we wandered around the exhibit area where vendors included the major fro-yo machine manufacturers, printing, fro-yo photography, payment systems, custom signs, store design and more. If you needed anything for your fro-yo business, you probably could have found a vendor at the conference. Since I don't own a store, I tended to hang out at the YoCream new products booth. It was there that you could eat fro-yo (as much as you wanted) and try brand new flavors like Greek Yogurt, Thin Mint, Angel Food Cake and Strawberry Lemonade sorbet before the general public.
I learned and kept learning about fro-yo...will share more about what I learned and saw all this week.
You know you love me. X0 X0, fro-yo girl.
2 comments:
Yes, we were at the conference too. Did you get a chance to visit Lucky Spoon Frozen Yogurt in downtown Portland?
www.myluckyspoon.com
www.facebook.com/luckyspoonfrozenyogurt
Unfortunately, I didn't know about your shop till after I left the area and I didn't go to that part of town :(. I went to your FB page and admired your Frozen Yogurt Conference pictures.
- FYG
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