 |
 |
|
||||||
|
The 2007 RFA International Tour was a great success! The 2007 Tour was one of our most well-attended trips, with 21 members and spouses participating. It gave members the chance to learn about the chilled foods business in Northern Italy through visits to manufacturing plants and retail stores in the region. One of this year's attendees, Tony Kunis of Reser’s Fine Foods was kind enough to write up an entertaining review of this year's trip. Please scroll down to read his review. |
||||||
|
2007 RFA International
Tour: One Member’s
Perspective of an
Educational and
by Tony Kunis When the news of the 2007 tour in Italy came up last year it peaked quite a few members’ interests. The opportunity to visit facilities in northern Italy along with the cuisine was too good to pass up for a lot of us.  Twenty-one RFA members and spouses attended this year’s
RFA International Tour. Here the group poses before dinner at Dei Poeti in Sirmione at Lake Garda. The opportunity to interact with some of the special friends and acquaintances we have developed over the past years with the RFA and the terrific organizational skills of Terry Dougherty and Moira Livings of NPD Direct made the trip all the more memorable and enjoyable. Our first stop and accommodations was the Hotel Bologna. It was a beautiful motel with great accommodations and a place to rest up for our first visit to Venice. Those first nights in the European style motels takes a little getting use to. We foreigners spend the first ten minutes trying to figure out where to turn on the lights and figure out how we are going to charge our cell phones. And then the challenge becomes trying to figure out how to operate all the features in the restrooms and attempt to shower without drowning the people below you. Eventually we settle in and are ready to take in some sights. Trish Leavy was our designated pack leader and took us on a very spirited tour of the streets and canals of Venice and if you know the pace she sets we ended up seeing most of the sites on our list. Interesting that most of the guys stayed back at the hotel to catch up on emails and rugby reruns. Arriving a couple of days early helped us adapt to the surroundings, adjust to the time zone and learn which Italian beer was best. Paul Leavy thought the Budweiser was best. Go figure. The rest of the group opted for Grape or diesel fuel as Peter Sirgy called it. On Monday morning, Moira and Aldo, our food expert and interpreter, loaded us up and took us to our first site visit – a pasta facility called Bertagni that distributes fresh filled pastas worldwide. We landed at the beautiful castle/motel at Lake Garda and went on to dine at the Dei Poeti restaurant. The restaurant offered a great view of the lake and the food and wine was aplenty. So there goes another loop in the belt buckle. We had two nights to enjoy the Castle and shops at the Hotel Sirmione at Lake Garda. How ‘bout the jogger who almost missed the bus Tuesday morning?!! Something uttered about Chicago time. Five minutes later we were off to a factory that produces Gnocchi, and at lunch were able to feast on the inexhaustible supply of it. A two-hour lunch of wine and Gnocchi will take down the heartiest of appetites. Another belt loop is left stranded. After an exhausting ride back to Lake Garda on the bus we had to prepare for dinner at the Antica Tratorria La Speranzina. Torrid pace! On Wednesday, we set off to tour a fresh salad facility that also produces fresh soups and fruit salads. We topped it off with a great lunch of hors d’ oeuvres and soups and of course more sparkling wine. The opportunity to visit these sites is educational and always a great experience. Then it was off to the Albergo Dell Agenzia motel, once home to a King. It had beautiful surroundings with some old ruins and was home to the University of Gastronomic Sciences – something about that name and all the food we were consuming… Forgot to mention the beer again. If you needed a beer all you needed to do is look for Joe Janicke. He was a great leader and never strayed off the beaten path. Of course along with Joe was a regular entourage of followers headed to the watering hole. That evening we ended up in the fascinating Wine banks (Wine Cellar) that house the largest collection of Italian wines in the world, and we were able to taste some of the varieties grown in northern Italy. After that it was off to dinner at the restaurant, motel, restaurant…we had a tough time figuring that one out after departing the wine cellar. Thursday, we departed for the Starhotel Rosa in downtown Milan. On the way we stopped at the Ferrari Formaggi, which produces some of the best tasting Parmigiano Reggiano cheeses in the world. The storage facility for the cheese was amazing. Cutting into that 80# block of cheese aged two years and being able to sample it was great. The fact that the cheeses have to age anywhere from 18 months to 2 years is staggering when you think of all the logistics, cleaning, and care that has to take place to preserve the product and then it is off to the slicing table. Later that evening we all settled in on what was to be our last evening together at the hotel restaurant. It was another great meal and time to bid each other farewell. Friday was spent in Milan, where the shopping was trendy and spendy, and the food was great. It was a nice to kick back and wind down. As usual the trip as a whole was very organized and very interesting as well as fun. We were able to see first hand the innovative challenges and successes the Europeans achieve through their marketing and manufacturing processes. In the U.S. and Canada, we are so geared towards adding shelf life that it is always amazing to see how shorter shelf life products are handled, especially given the fact that they turn the products over daily. It was educational as always and memorable to be sure. We had a great group of participants from the UK, Canada, and the US. The camaraderie built during these trips is just as valuable as the information we pick up from the plant tours and the tours of all the great stores. There
were a lot of interesting moments to name a few: The final for me was at the end of our trip. We landed in Philadelphia and were making our way through customs. We had declared we brought back some Sausage and were routed through the Agricultural line at customs. The sausage was in one of our carry on bags. The customs agent reads the declaration that indicates we are carrying meat items and said, "Tell me about the food.” My wife Elaine responded quickly, “The food was wonderful, the restaurants were great we had a great time.” The agent looked at her and said, “The food in the bag, lady.” Needless to say, they took the sausage, but we did manage to get some of the Parmesan Reggino through! Great trip and Great fun. Coming Soon: Click here for photos from this year's RFA Tour Interested in arranging a private International
Tour? |
||||||
