The awesome folks over at the Whole Grains Council are hosting a photo contest on their site for the month of September. The contest starts today and goes through Sept. 30th. Enter your photo showing how much you love whole grains and be entered to win fabulous prizes.
More details can be found at their website: http://photocontest.wholegrainscouncil.org
Donate your bike and make it a vehicle for change!
Join us at Bob’s Red Mill Whole Grain Store on Saturday, August 29th from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm at 5000 SE International Way, Milwaukie, OR 97222. Bring a bike in good condition and help the Community Cycling Center broaden access to bicycling and its benefits. Bob’s Red Mill will be giving away free breakfast or lunch coupons* to everyone who brings a bike.
When you donate a bike, the Community Cycling Center’s professional mechanics refurbish it and direct it to bike safety programs for financially restricted adults and youth. Some bicycles are also sold in the bike shop to fund their community programs. They are particularly in need of adult road bikes and kids bikes.
The Community Cycling Center believes that the bicycle is a tool for empowerment and a vehicle for change. When people ride bicycles they become healthier, as does the entire community. Visit their website for more information: www.CommunityCyclingCenter.org
All donations are tax-deductible to the extent of the law.
*Good for a free meal on your next visit.
Bob’s Red Mill offers a wide assortment of mixes, to make home baking easier than ever. Sometimes, however, you look at a mix and wish it could make something a little different. I have been working to create muffin recipes from our various pancake mixes, so if you are feeling like a muffin and all you’ve got is pancake mix, you are in luck!
A customer called recently who had our 10 Grain Pancake and Waffle Mix and some aging bananas. I came up with a formula for her that works really well. The combination of grains and bananas creates a soft texture that the taste testers here in the office gobbled up.
10 Grain Banana Nut Muffins
by Chelsea Lincoln from the Bob’s Red Mill kitchen
½ cup Evaporated Cane Sugar
3 medium Bananas, mashed
1 Egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp Vanilla
2 Tb Oil
1 cup Milk
2 cups 10 Grain Pancake Mix
½ cup Walnut Pieces
Mix together the sugar, banana, egg, vanilla and oil. Slowly stir in milk to combine. Add pancake mix and walnuts; stir in until just combined. Be careful not to over mix. Fill greased muffin cups ¾ cup full and bake at 350°F for 20-25 minutes. Makes 15 muffins.
Check out all our varieties of muffins using our pancake mixes!
Buttermilk Blueberry Muffins
High Fiber Apple Cinnamon Muffins
7 Grain Cranberry Spice Muffins
What happens when you call a customer service line? An automated voice asks you to push 1 for English or 2 for Spanish, then 5 for one thing and 7 for another. Once you’ve pushed all the numbers you can possibly push and you’ve been on the phone long enough to have baked 6 dozen chocolate chip cookies, you are relieved and then disappointed to finally hear a computer-like voice tell you, “All representatives are busy at this time. Please wait on the line for 31 minutes for the next available assistance.”
You’d probably have better luck hitching a ride to their corporate office in Siberia for all that’s worth.
When I get to work in the morning, I feel like I’ve gone back in time, back to a place of honor and simplicity, back when small business meant something and people actually cared about other people. I walk into the customer service room to see just a handful of desks, one each for my 5 customer service coworkers and me. Towering file cabinets cluster in one corner of the room, the lifeblood of information we use to answer your many questions (do you know what the ash content of a flour measures?). The room usually smells like freshly baked bread made by our test kitchen staff.
I sit at my desk, the phone starts ringing, and before I know it I’ve spoken with a women from Spokane whose child suffers from celiac disease and obsesses over our Gluten Free Pizza Crust Mix, and a man in Providence who would eat our Corn Grits/Polenta for breakfast, lunch and dinner if his wife didn’t have any say in the matter. Countless others: people who suffer from obscure food allergies and people who love our Gluten Free Brownie Mix as much as I do, people who are in the middle of baking bread and have a question about what to do next. People who call in just to say hello.
And that’s our bottom line here at Bob’s Red Mill. We’re here to talk, listen, and laugh. We’re here to solve problems and find answers to those tough, ambiguous questions (and even the silly ones!). We’re here to reply to your letters and emails and take your orders and work hard to serve you, our customers. We’re real people here. We prefer it that way.
Please feel free to email us anytime at customerservice@bobsredmill.com and let us know what you think, what you fear, what you love, how the barbecue with the in-laws went last weekend. Anything. And we guarantee you won’t have to wait to talk to a live person.
After all, we do this for you.
Jan Chernus, Jessica Olson, Bob and Fans at the Grand Re-opening of Hawthorne Fred Meyer
On Friday, July 31st, Hawthorne Fred Meyer celebrated the Grand Re-opening of their newly remodeled store. The new “Green Living” store is the first of its kind in the Fred Meyer family (owned by Kroger) and is designed to be an Earth-friendly grocery experience. The store is certified under the US Green Building Council’s LEED program. New store features include an expanded Nutrition Center (where our products are found), a fresh sushi bar, gourmet cheeses and desserts, an expanded deli and even an electric car charging station!
Bob was asked to come out and celebrate the Grand Opening. With Jan Chernus and Jessica Olson (both from our Western sales team) in tow, Bob made a grand spectacle by handing out samples of our Gluten Free Brownie Mix (which was a big hit) and taking photos with customers. The event had a great turnout and Bob was the star of the show. People were continually amazed that he is indeed a real person and right in their own back yard.
For those of you in the Portland area, there are still Grand Opening events going on through the end of next week. Visit FredMeyer.com for a schedule of events.
how much you love his products?
Here’s your chance.
Bob's no stranger to being behind the camera- now it's your turn.
I will be giving a presentation to Bob and other members of our company about what it is we do online and how we meet people like you. Beyond showing them just how many friends we’ve made and how many tweeps we have, I would like to show our company how incredibly inspiring our customers are and continually prove to be.
So get silly, get serious, get wild and send me a 30 second (maximum) clip showing me why you love Bob’s Red Mill. I will award the winning clip (and the creative genius behind it) a $50 gift card to be used on our website and there will be sweet prizes for two runners-up. So tell your friends and get out your cameras- videos must be entered by 8/17/09 to win.
Here are the rules (because we have to):
1. Everyone is eligible to enter (except those lovely employees who work for Bob’s Red Mill).
2. Keep it clean! Videos with foul language or other inappropriate material will not be eligible for this contest.
3. We will be sharing this content online and by entering you give us permission to use your video as we see fit. If you have any qualms about that, please feel free to email me directly and we can work out a compromise.
How to enter:
Post your video one of two ways:
Include your details:
Name
Address
Phone Number
Email
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