Kitchen Merchandise Options!

August 3, 2022
Intern's picture

The Fair is getting closer and closer and we are gearing up to have everything ready for next Thursday! Our merchandise stands have so many items, it can be a bit overwhelming when trying to decide which items to pick to take home with you! While t-shirts, hats, and postcards may seem like the type of things a merchandise stand is sure to offer (and don’t worry – we do), the merchandise stands at the Iowa State Fair have much more to offer. Today I will highlight some items for your kitchen! Our kitchen merchandise offerings cover a wide variety of kitchen needs, from award winning sauces to mugs and cookbooks.

This year we will be offering two blue ribbon winning foods. A garden salsa created by Tasha Wells of Pleasant Hill, as well as R P’s BBQ Sauce, created by Russell Place in Norwalk. The BBQ Sauce won the 2017 competition “Mine is the Best BBQ Sauce” and the Salsa won the 2019 “Salsa Sensations Vegetable Salsa” competition.  A big thank you to Midwest Foods for bottling these for us, because of their donation all proceeds of these sauces go to the Blue Ribbon Foundation’s mission, not the preparation or bottling of the sauces.

        Alongside the foods, we also have a wide variety of drinkware for your kitchen. From mugs to silicon pint glasses, you can find your perfect cup to take home with you. We will be offering 3 new mugs this year, a camping style red mug, a black mug with a blue interior, and a black mug with a green interior. We will also be offering a new water bottle. The design shows one of the stunning murals that were added to the Fairgrounds last year! Another addition to our drinkware collection is our new Silipint glasses. These tie-dyed cups are made of silicon, and are certainly shatter proof. We have 2 16 oz. designs and one 22 oz. cup with a lid and straw.

        Another kitchen essential you can pick up at the Fair is the new Iowa State Fair Tea Towel. This towel features another one of the murals that were finished last year! This is a can’t miss item.

                Rounding out our kitchen merchandise is our cookbook selections! As many of you have probably heard, the Blue Ribbon Foundation is offering not 1, but 2 new cookbooks for the 2022 Iowa State Fair. It is a cookbook year! We are selling the 21st Edition Iowa State Fair Cookbook, which features recipes that placed 1st or 2nd in their competition in the 2021 Iowa State Fair, as well as a variety of Retro Recipes to fill in for 2020. Our second offering, Baking Blue Ribbons: Stories and Recipes from the Iowa State Fair Food Department, tells the history and story of the Iowa State Fair Food Department, starting all the way back at the first Fair in 1854. Be sure to check these books out!

 

- Laura Noehren, Business Relations Intern