Rumours and things

Will we see any changes at Sun-Rype Products this year? We certainly have a lot of rumours floating around at the moment. I don’t think the changes that we have seen in 2008 are the last. The ownership of this company has changed and their thinking is unlike any we have seen over the years. It is a different time and different world. Read the labels in your grocery stores and see where the products you consume actually come from. Plus all of those that are only packaged in Canada after being manufactured somewhere else in the world. I have some thoughts on the future of the company and we’ll be discussing those in the very near future...

Very soon there will be a new A&W Restaurant in the Mission. I understand the Poppa burgers will be coming out of the spot formerly occupied by the French Bakery on the Lakeshore at KLO...

One landowner told me just before Christmas that he hasn’t sold a lot since last June. They were lined up at this Kelowna location just a year ago...

I received the Elvis CD for Christmas. Quite an idea and it put the singer on the hot country chart for the first time in ten years. His duet with Martina McBride Blue Christmas was our favorite...

Jimmy Pattison makes the top five richest Canadians list for the first time in fifth place. The B.C. billionaire came in $4.93 billion, which is up some nine per cent over last year. The billionaire list in Canada has moved up to fifty-three over the last ten years since the list has been compiled. The Thomson Family again head the list at $18.45 billion...

It was a different promotion for the festive season as the lobster industry in Nova Scotia came west to sell people on the idea of adding lobster to the Christmas dinner. It was a promotion of Sobeys the food merchant from Nova Scotia and Canada’s number two food chain in the country. I do like lobster...

I guess we will find out in February whether Oliver is going to get a new shopping centre anchored by Buy-Low Foods and Canadian Tire. This is on the property formerly the home of the Southwind Inn. We spent many times in the hotel for meetings and conferences. For years Joan Sarell was the general manager and part owner of the hotel. What a fine lady. I spent many hours working on the tourism sector with her on committees to promote the Okanagan...

They serve good food and now Ric’s Grill is getting ready for expansion into the Metro Vancouver area with six locations over the next couple of years with two planned for 2009. The chain now has fifteen steak houses in Alberta and B.C. Brothers Sal and Sunny Gupta got their start in Prince George...

The BIV list of biggest post secondary institutions in B.C. sees Okanagan College listed in twelfth place in the top twenty-five. For some reason they moved down from 11th last year...

Copywriter Susan Gunelius rounds up her list of the top 10 words to avoid in ad copy. Her strategy includes avoiding words that trigger e-mail spam filters, words that lack meaning and the word "that" which Gunelius says, "slows down time-strapped consumers." Shun meaningless words like "a lot" and "guarantee" in your copy. Susan Gunelius has more than 15 years of marketing and copy writing experience working for some of the largest companies in the world. She is also a published author and her latest book is Kick-Ass Copy writing in 10 Easy Steps...

I just received an email offering me Edisione Pennino 2006 Zinfandel made at Francis Coppola’s Rubicon Estate in the Napa Valley for $461.40 for a case delivered (six bottles per case or $74.95 a bottle). They produce 2,500 cases a year. Imagine me getting this offer when I write about Baby Duck and Mateus. Crazy world...

I couldn’t get this item in during the holidays. Pennylane Bargain Outlet in Summerland did a winter coat/jacket promo. This is the store the young people of the area operate very successfully. They gave away winter jackets/coats for a minimum $10 donation to the local Food Bank and the Fire Department's Toy Campaign. Interestingly enough they gave away a total of 349 brand new jackets/coats, of which 105 were for kids. They raised $5262.00 for those two charities in the five hour promo. At regular catalogue pricing that equates to $37,150 worth of jackets/coats that are making the recipients warmer this winter. They do such powerful work in their community...

Penticton has always been proud of identifying with Jim Treliving and his partner George Melville as being the starting place of the food empire, Boston Pizza. Last year Boston Pizza grossed $755 million in annual sales and served more than 38 million people. Boston Pizza International is the number one casual dining restaurant chain in Canada...

I caught a business special on CTV this past week on the old K-Tel International company from Winnipeg and all over the world at one time. It was doing $180 million a year in business when the U.S. division got into financial trouble. We all had something from K-Tel in our homes whether it was a musical album of the twenty greatest hits of somebody or “Hooked on Classics.” Maybe it was the Veg-o-matic, Dial-o-matic or the Feather-Touch Knife. Their biggest selling product was the Miracle Brush, selling 28 million in the late sixties. We still have the patty maker plus a number of albums. I think that Veg-o-matic cost us $5. I remember Phil Kives the founder of the company as a pitchman working a crowd in Eaton’s stores across the country selling the teflon frying pan and when you stepped up and bought one you got a free pancake maker. He was the man who invented the infomercial on TV when he realized he could work in front of a few people in the store or appeal to thousands of buyers through the five-minute TV commercial. Just one final note on K-Tel. Their biggest selling album of all time was “Hooked on Classics” selling over ten million copies...

This month, eMarketer noted e-commerce activity in Canada from US sources soared more than 40% in 2007 in comparison to 2005, according to Statistics Canada.

"A weakening US dollar caused a surge in Canadian spending on US Websites during 2007's holiday season," notes eMarketer.

The spread between the US dollar and Canadian dollar (Loonie) was close to 25% over the holiday shopping period this year, but in 2007, the exchange rate was nearly at par. That most likely affected Canadians spending habits online, at least in measuring that activity against cross-border retailers.