Darista Dips is on a mission to delight eaters with unbelievably tasty food inspired by cuisines from around the world, made with the finest and freshest ingredients possible. The products have a story to tell, one of local pride and world appreciation. But most importantly, the company wants to provide great, nutrient-dense food for its customers to share their own stories with friends and family.
Darista Dips had a strong product with great traction following and huge growth opportunity. They knew it needed the High Pressure Processing (HPP) Technology in order to survive and grow, but as a small business, they did not have the funds or resources to test their products using the HPP technology. Costs for testing were more than $65,000, which would need to be output to know whether the technology even worked on their products. The company realized that it might have to shut down all together, if it did not go forward with the testing.
Darista Dips attended CIFT’s annual Ohio Food Industry Summit, and learned about the work that CIFT does with food companies across the state. The timing was perfect, given the testing issue that the company was facing. CIFT was able to work with the company to provide the resources to get the testing done; the tests proved positive, which meant the company could utilize the HPP technology for processing. Darista Dips immediately landed 50 accounts with this innovation, and on-boarded 4 new distributors.
“I can’t emphasize how critical CIFT was to the life of our business. We would not be here today if we didn’t have this incredible opportunity. Everyone (at CIFT) was tremendous, and we are so grateful.” — Dara Schwartz, Owner/President
As an industry, the last year has shown how essential and strong we are. We have overcome never before seen challenges in the market and even within our organizations caused by a once in a century pandemic. And throughout it all we have kept our fellow citizens fed and our colleagues safe.
Now, it’s time to look at what comes next and that is the focus of our 2021 Ohio Food Industry Summit. We will be joined by leaders and speakers on trends in food processing, the state of innovation, research and much more. Please join us as we virtually gather with others in our industry on April 15, 2021. Learn more and register here. Registration is free.