HOW OUR KIDS INVENTED YUMPEEZ
Yumpeez are made by Best Cooking Pulses, a company founded by our grandfather during the 30s. Our company focuses almost exclusively on commercial quantities of dried field peas. Now, imagine our booth at a trade show and the interesting handouts we might have. It goes without saying that a bag of split peas doesn't really attract. Pea-shooter-kits were the only idea that even started to get interesting. But using a food product as ammunition was not allowed. Then we remembered our father had tried roasting peas for snack food during the 60s which, incidentally, was the wrong idea for the wrong decade. But could we make a pea snack hand out?
Our friend Janice Meseyton at the Manitoba Food Development Center in Portage la Prairie agreed to experiment. The first batch of roasted peas was handed out at Natural Products Expo East 2007 in Baltimore. There's nothing quite like asking someone, "Have you had your pea today?" to pique interest in your products. These early batches of roasted peas were carefully stored away and designated for trade show use only.
Getting ready for the next trade show, the Manitoba half of our sales team suspected that her kids were dipping into the stash of roasted peas. Suspicions were confirmed when her small son asked if he could take some extra for his friend because, "The snack police at school were okay with them." At this point MD-husband confessed to carrying roasted peas with him while on call at the hospital, "because I usually can't stop to eat." Food for thought.
Meanwhile, South of Regina at Milestone, the Saskatchewan half of our sales team who happens to coach hockey to 11 and 12-year-old-boys, was trying to impress upon them the importance of diet versus performance. He told them about the work of Dr Phil Chilibeck and Dr Gordon Zello at the University of Saskatchewan. Their research found that soccer players who ate pulses pre-game had energy that not only helped them to sprint faster and feel better, but took them into overtime as their opponents ran out of steam. The next week the grandson of Mark Andrews, a local pulse grower, came to practice with a bag of eston lentils from his granddad and all the players were munching on raw lentils. Even more food for thought.
If we were going to try and market a roasted pea snack it was going to need a great name. Plying the streets of Winnipeg, the Manitoba half of sales team asked her boys in the backseat to stow the electronics and help name the roasted pea snack. Her example idea, "They're roasted, and they're peas. They could be called Ropeas." Oldest son responded, "That sucks Mum. They're yummy and they're peas. They're Yumpeez."
Have you had your pea today?
