AHFP - repost from Raging bull Nov/26/2007 by Dan - CEO
I haven't forgotten you. All eyes have been focused on the ball since acquiring Artisanal. In August we raised $3.9 million of new capital to acquire Artisanal and have since raised another $1.1m. and already paid-off a $700,000 sellers note. We expect to raise another $200,000 and close the offering at $5.2 million.
We also went live recently with 1-800-Flowers. Look at the header at www.1800flowers.com on Gift Baskets -- and click on Wine and Cheese and Gourmet Foods and you will see Artisanal samples. We also mailed our new 2007-08 catalog this month -- 39,000+ -- to "existing" customers all over the country. Last week we revamped our website -- www.artisanalcheese.com -- to emphasize more use of our wonderful line of over 200 highest quality hand-crafted cheeses in in-home settings versus holiday or special occasion gifts.
Tomorrow we start a new promotion with our Cheese of the Month Club where we plan to introduce our 3-month club membership to select wine retailers and online providers of wine and spirits in a unique promotion. Entrance into the 3-month club is $165 and we are promoting the offering to at least 40,000 targeted customers this week with a goal to hit 100,000 by the holidays. What the conversion percentage will be is too early to predict, but we are expecting a decent turnout as our target audience is wine lovers and our cheeses are considered best-in-class.
Today, we took our first orders from a new distributor. Our plan is to partner with gourmet food distributors where we get qualified leads, a better logistics systems and concentrated customers versus hundreds of small, but steady foodservice outlets. Artisanal needs to move out from under direct salesman working territories one prospect at a time, to a plan where major distributors pre-qualify accounts. We have five distributors we have lined up to cover the Tri-State New York area and today was either beginners luck, or a validation that our new go-to-market plan for Artisanal will bear real fruit, and fast. We think it will.
Last year, Artisanal generated $1.2 million in December alone, but we are hoping for more this year. Starting very soon we will ship thousands of orders to cheese buyers purchasing from catalogues that offer our products. If you see Artisanal cheeses in major catalogues it is usually being fulfilled by us here in New York City.
With the completion of our equity financing, we plan to close a senior facility to give us another $1.0 million of working capital cushion and a new $2.5 million asset-based line of credit to fund projected sales growth.
Next month, we have our first board meeting with our new team. Carl Wolf, founder of the Alpine Lace cheese brand which is available in all major markets will join our board. Thomas Thornton, Jr. formerly CEO of premium retailer, Dean & Deluca, will also join our board.
I hope to be more consistent with news coming out of the company, but building the business is the priority. Soon you will see a full quarter of acitivty and we will publish Artisanal's annual financial statements for two years as required by SEC guidelines.
Dan
