I want to give some background info related to my earlier post about visiting a restaurant with some new products.

With only 7 weeks under my belt as a Pigger, I may be the most excited employee in the company. I’m excited because I’m part of a team (Mark Woytowich, Ray Fedeli and myself) that is promoting the new PIG® Focus on the Food™ products. We’re taking new steps every day to delve into the food service industry.

It should be duly noted that many months of research, development, and testing were completed under the direction of Mark and Ray. Their efforts took place long before I came into the picture.

For over 20 years, New Pig has been dedicated to keeping work facilities clean and safe, because it makes them better for workers and more productive. We’re best known in manufacturing, but the same thought applies to the food service industry. Every commercial or institutional kitchen or restaurant experiences spills, drips, and leaks involving a variety of liquids (cooking oil, soda, water, coffee, etc.).

The Focus on the Food™ products group successfully identified unmet needs in the food service industry that could be fulfilled by New Pig. Mark and Ray found out how restaurants currently clean and absorb spills, drips, and leaks. The answer is paper towels, bar towels, water, mop, bucket, salt, corn starch, cleaning chemicals, and a variety of other things that leave a lot to be desired. To a great extent, the entire food service industry has often, while trying to address leaks and spills, first created a bigger mess—because that’s the only way they know. But that way is not efficient, productive, safe, or cost-effective.

So what’s New Pig going to do about this spill, drip, and leak dilemma? New Pig is changing the way that restaurants absorb liquids! The Focus on the Food™ product group is currently introducing four products: two sizes of PIG® Spill Cleanup Pads, the PIG® Absorbent Flat Mop, and PIG® Spill Control Socks.

Now, here is where I come in … My role in the Focus on the Food™ product group is to begin selling the products to distributors, end users, and anyone else willing to listen to my presentation. The ultimate goal of my field visits is to find answers to three questions:

1. Will restaurants find value in our products?
2. Will they pay our asking price?
3. Will they order them again?

And this is the reason I am excited. After visits to local end users, the answers are:

1. Yes, they find value in our products!
2. Yes, they’ll pay our asking price!
3. Yes, they will re-order our products!

Now, off to the next step in the process! More details to follow. But below is a peek at the products as they look during the launch phase (the packaging is likely to change). Click here to see the products larger.

I’m happy to report results from some local tests of our new cleanup products for kitchens and restaurants. I’m calling on area restaurants to see if customers want the products and how they would want to buy them.

I went into a local restaurant yesterday and talked to the general manager, who I’ll call Joe the Manager. I explained the purpose and applications of our products in detail. Joe proceeded to dump a pot of water on their slippery floor in the kitchen for me to prove the effectiveness of the products. I used the large PIG® Spill Cleanup Pad to absorb the water. (It was quite a bit of water). After the Pad reached maximum absorbency, I went over the area with the PIG® Absorbent Flat Mop. The floor was completely dry in less than 1 minute,

Then Joe opened a 35-pound container of liquid shortening and poured some on the tile floor. I was a little concerned because it was a fairly large amount of oil on the floor. I demonstrated the small yellow PIG® Spill Cleanup Pad for this application. It covered the entire spill and absorbed most of it. I folded the Pad and wiped the floor, removing most of the oil. I then went over the area with the Flat Mop and completely dried the area. This process also was completed in less than 1 minute.

Joe was very impressed and ordered a box of large Pads, small Pads, PIG® Spill Cleanup Socks, and a Flat Mop. He saw value in our products and then asked about our full-line catalog. He is looking to replace his floor mats and has what appears to be something similar to our PIG® Elephant Mat in his restaurant. He is in the market to buy a roll of durable mat that can absorb oil/grease coming from the back of the house to the front of the house that can also offer traction, which they need because the mat is located on a “ramp” that goes from the kitchen to the dining area.

Joe asked me to drop the items off either Monday or Tuesday next week!