If digging into freshly made, gourmet goodies while lounging in the living room sounds too good to be true, prepare for a happy surprise. Thanks to Tastefully Simple, even busy moms and recipe-challenged bachelors can enjoy fine dining without ever leaving the comfort of home.
For 15 years, consultants for Minnesota-based Tastefully Simple, a direct sales company, have been hosting parties and dishing out tempting samples of a dazzling line of products. With plenty of sauces, breads, and beverages to choose from, there’s something to tantalize the tastebuds of every food lover.
“We offer quality, uniqueness, and convenience,” said Rhonda Collins, a Central Coast consultant with Tastefully Simple. “The concept is to offer restaurant quality food that you, or me as a busy mom, can make just by adding one or two extra ingredients.”
Tastefully Simple Meal Kits make it easy to prepare delights such as Bowtie Pasta and Chicken Cacciatore, Oven-Baked Mac and Cheese, and Pasta and Portabella Beef Stroganoff.
Additional products include oils, dressings, spices, salsas, dip mixes, spreads, and desserts, as well as cookbooks showing simple ways to incorporate the company’s many ingredients.
The original, national home-taste-testing company, Tastefully Simple features more than 60 easy-to-prepare foods, and offers its products through thousands of independent consultants located across the United States.
Collins, an Orcutt native and former corrections officer with the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department, has been with Tastefully Simple for three years. She travels from Santa Maria to as far north as Soledad to facilitate the company’s lively sampling parties.
“As a consultant, I bring everything we’re going to be sampling,” she explained. “A party usually consists of at least 20 sampled products, sometimes more. I’m of the opinion that if I can offer a few more samples, it’ll spark your interest to buy something else.
“It’s a free thing,” she continued, “and a joint effort. We give the host the Party Food Kit ahead of time so they can prepare everything. The kit contains nine items, like dip and cheese ball mixes and usually two baked items, one of which is our famous beer bread.”
Collins and her fellow consultants also supply hosts with everything needed to get the word out about the party, including the product catalog, marketing materials, order forms, and invitations. For their efforts, hosts enjoy a good time with friends—food included—and earn discounts on their favorite products.
[image-2] “I was one of those eater consultants,” Collins laughed, describing her early days in the business. “I signed up because I loved the food and I just wanted the discounts.”
As her friends and family learned more about the products, they started asking her to help them host parties. She found that not only did the parties bring in extra money, but also that the company rewards she earned allowed her to stock the cupboards with more of her favorite gourmet foods.
Though the parties tend to attract a lot of women, Collins encourages hosts to invite couples, for she finds that when husbands signal their approval, their wives are more likely to buy.
“Men love the food,” she declared, “and they’ll say, ‘Honey, get this, this, and this!’ I think a lot of ladies are watching the pocketbook and if the husband says, ‘okay,’ then hey, they’re getting all of it!
“We let everyone know at the party,” she added, “that they’re grocery shopping. Everything they buy, their family will be able to eat and it’s going to benefit them all.”
Twice a year, Tastefully Simple consultants rotate their offerings to match the season. With the arrival of spring, they’ve rolled out a batch of new products to carry their clients through the warm weather.
“We’ve brought in new sauces, dips, desserts, and drink buckets,” Collins revealed. “We have a new salad dressing seasoning packet that’s great on potato salad. We’re also promoting pasta salads and a cookbook that features salads you can make using our pesto.
“And we have three new flavors of our drink buckets,” she added, “which are going to be huge, I think. We have Juicy Watermelon Margarita, Lovin’ Lemon Slush, and Mmmm … Mojito.”
The popular drink buckets consist of a bucket with a lid and handle, and a powder pack of flavoring. To make nine servings of an adult slushy, simply add water and the appropriate liquor, and freeze overnight. Then, bake a loaf of beer bread, whip up some dips, and invite a few friends over.
“In this economy,” Collins said, “Tastefully Simple products are not only going to save you money. You don’t have to drive, you don’t have to wait, and you’re making restaurant-quality food in the comfort of your own home.”
K. Reka Badger never drives when drink buckets are involved. E-mail comments or ideas to rekabadger@hotmail.com.
This article appears in Mar 18-25, 2010.
