I worked my first food show last weekend, and while I was pretty anxious about flying to Toledo, working on a weekend with people I’d never met, and finally meeting my boss and co-workers, it was a fantastic weekend. It was overwhelming, for sure, as most people I met have worked in the food industry forever, and I have so little experience to offer. I kept thinking about my former life as a teacher and how different this all feels, and quickly realized that as long as I can talk to new people and have a sense of personality (and humor) I’d fit in just fine.

It was quite an undertaking—I rep 22 brands of product, and this particular show had a booth for every single brand, offering a variety of their products in whole form and of course, bites to taste. The set was already built when I arrived, under the theme of “Italian Heritage” so each booth was like a little café with a window and fabric-covered awning. We arranged bottles of wine and photos of the Sofo Family in the front, and attempted a fall-themed décor elsewhere, as fall clearly visited Ohio long before the Georgia heat gives up on us for the season.

We set up all day Saturday, Sunday morning, and by 2pm, we were ready to open our doors and push some product. I felt like I had a “I’M NEW!” badge on my shirt, as I tried to talk to customers about the products at my particular booth (Wayne Farms Chicken), and quickly felt confident when the third customer logged in to our portable booth computers and bought 18 cases of chicken fajita. That was followed by case counts more like 80 and even one of 150. I decided to pretend like this was my specialty, and soon found that it worked out quite nicely for everyone involved. After about 4 hours, I started to feel a bit redundant in what I was telling customers about the fried wing versus the ovenable, and then realized it’s no different than teaching the same lesson 7 times in one day.

My favorite moment was when a SOFO salesman from Lima, OH came to my booth with a serious crew of customers to taste the chicken fajita that was on special. They tasted the product, commented to each other that it was too salty and appeared ready to move on. I had flashbacks of making chicken-bacon-cheddar wraps the night before and sent them to a few booths down to try the product in a wrap application.

They walked down, found that the chicken wraps were gone (duh, they were delicious) and continued on down the aisle, dismissing our chicken and looking for the next item to sample. I knew if I could just get them to taste an application with our product, they’d buy it.

I abandoned my station, and went on a hunt for the ingredients I needed to re-create a wrap. I snatched a wrap from the original station, and then just went booth-to-booth, “borrowing” ingredients until I had something similar to what I had made the night before. I hunted down the pack of men, got them to try my creation—and long story short, they not only bought the chicken fajita, (times five stores) but we got all their chicken wing business, too. I know it sounds silly—it’s just chicken– but that was a win for me; as a girl who has only ever taught English, little old me got a chain account to switch two major products to ours.

The weekend was exhausting, and my feet looked like anemic sausages by late Sunday night, but it was an incredible experience, and I found myself feeling so invigorated by the people I met, the food we cooked, and the potential of what may come next with this industry.

In a nut shell, the weekend was one of those moments in life when I felt stretched, out of my comfort zone, and terrified that I was going to screw up, say the wrong thing, or make food that tasted terrible. The reality is, the moments that terrify me most are the ones that provide the most growth, and the hindsight is terribly satisfying.

I only wish Poppi were here to listen, laugh, and give me perspective, but telling Nicholas, Mom, and my sister, Amber, felt pretty good, too.

I wish I had more photos, but it was such a blur of excitement and tasks, I didn’t even think about taking more pics until it was torn down!