Minor Adjustments At The Soup Peddler

"A lot of strands in the old duder's head." -Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski

Dear Soupies,

You may have noticed some changes in the menu newsletter I sent out this past Sunday. I wanted to give you a few days to digest things before I described these changes more fully. For the most part, this is nothing too major, just some subtle tweaks that will hopefully change your Soup Peddler experience for the better. We are definitely excited by them.

1. We are going to change our weekly menu offerings ever so slightly. It's been a while since we've really had a strong culinary push here at product development, and the time has come. We are going to shift slightly away from meaty, cheesy, saucy, casseroley things and towards lighter, fresher, and frankly more helpful items to have in your fridge. Remember, "shift slightly" is the operative phrase... I'm not out to exclude any of our audience, just to be a little more inclusive. Think more grain salads, bean salads, noodle salads, antipasti... things that are flexible as side dishes or entrees, hot or cold, all with maximum flavor in mind. Most of these items will be easier to portion and eat right out of the fridge, thus making them a little more lunchbox-friendly and snackably convenient. We will also be offering more component type things that can fit into households that prefer to do cooking themselves, like freezable stocks and sauces each week.

2. We are going to change our packaging a bit. To go along with some of the menu changes, we feel like it's a great opportunity to minimize our packaging. Short of just leaving little piles of food on your porch, we think this is the lowest impact way to go: most of these new items are going to be packaged like the soups, in sealed bags. Like I said, it will seriously minimize packaging waste, but most importantly it will allow us to put more money into our food instead of the packaging. You'll see that our quiches and big fat pies and such are going to disappear completely. Our meaty, saucy, casseroley entree option will shrink down to just one option each week. Our salads are going to shrink down to little kits to which you'll add your own greens. The only downside is you'll have to use your own containers at home for storage once you open the food.

3. We are going to change our portion sizes and pricing a bit. Thanks to the reduced packaging cost, we can afford to actually sell smaller quantities of things. In other words, we don't have to fill up those big ole tins in order to make it worth using them. We are going to sell most of our food by weight or volume instead of saying "feeds 2-4" or similar. It's just more standard, maybe less misleading, and it will be easier for you to price compare with other options at food stores or prepared food emporia (even though our food is technically priceless). You'll notice that the prices are smaller too, so it should provide you an opportunity to sample a wider variety each week.

4. We are going to change our labeling a bit. I know by now you're suspecting me of employing every means for positive, PR-friendly spin for this message. Aren't you ready for a little old-fashioned bitching and moaning? Okay, here goes: We are totally sick of unjamming our laser printer, totally sick of trying to peel those labels off of those sheets, totally sick of buying $80 toner cartridges every week, totally sick of our labels not adhering to the product or falling off when they get wet. So we are getting all professional and using a really nice thermal label printer on a nicely-designed (by moi, yours truly) template. We will have more accurate (and legal) serving and storage instructions. Upside: all of the above. Downside: no more cute pictures or stories on the actual food label itself. Graphical cuteness and prosaic salesy ramblings will be restricted solely to our website.

5. We are retiring the cleverly-named "Soup-o-meter". I hope you're not too attached to it. I think it's kind of misleading and it's hopelessly out-of-date (my fault). Essentially, thanks to your comments and our own sensibilities, we are always trying to improve our recipes, so the ratings are kind of meaningless. We are also planning to completely overhaul our website hopefully sometime late summer or in the fall, and that new technology should allow us to integrate reviews and our own responses right into the products on the site. So, so long for now old friend.

6. I reserve the right to change my mind about any or all of this at any time. Just a little legalese to indicate that, hey, these changes are done with the best interests of both the Soupies and the Soup Peddler staff in mind. There's no Board of Directors here, there are no Investors, there is no Controller, it's just us and we're trying to make the best decisions we can, and if we're wrong about any of them, we hope to hear from you so we can adjust things appropriately.

I wish I could find new words to express our gratitude for your support all these years. In the meanwhile, please accept a simple heartfelt thank you.