The New Way To Vacation In Maine: Smell The...Tomatoes?
Rockport, Maine June 9, 2006 -- Blueberry Acres cofounders Sarah and Matthew Vokey of Rockport, Maine are pleased to announce their second season in business helping Maine summer sojourners feel right at home. And to celebrate, they've decked out their already impressive web site with a crisply updated, super smooth and creatively sophisticated look, and even dropped their usual fee minimum from $50 to just $35. Great news, you might say, but what exactly is it that they do?
Well, for one thing, they smell tomatoes.
Cofounders Sarah and Matthew Vokey of Rockport, Maine are not, perhaps, your run-of-the-mill business folks. Matthew, for instance, grew up at the inn where Henry VIII's first wife Catherine Parr stayed during her engagement, and religious studies, not entrepreneurial Epicureanism, captivated Sarah's early interests. But the business of gourmet food eventually caught and held these graduates of the prestigious New England Culinary Institute, and their impressive resumes, listing stints at acclaimed restaurants like Boston's Top of the Hub and Sonsie (on Newbury Street), and four years as the owner-chefs of the four diamond rated Rathbone's in Camden, Maine, reflect their passion. Yet these days you're more likely to find them at the Hannaford supermarket in coastal Rockland - as opposed to a trendy eatery - caressing produce. That's right... caressing. And smelling. And pressing. They even roll the citrus. For how else can one ensure a fresh lemon?
In their newest venture Blueberry Acres, a grocery shopping and delivery service aimed at the thousands of vacationers who yearly escape to Maine to rent vacation abodes, the Vokeys are a new breed of what might be called "food detectives." The Vokeys, however, call it "Personal Provisioning" and they take their job seriously. If you order tomatoes from their online grocery, for instance, on your behalf they'll select only ruby-red, super-ripe specimens, with a firm, smooth, unblemished skin. And the scent? Like fresh earth with a delicate, but palpable, sweet note. But tomatoes aren't their only targets. Pineapples should have a "springy" base, lobsters have to fight back, asparagus must sport plump tips, and fish, unlike tomatoes, better have almost no scent at all and feature firm, fleshy gills and bright, clear eyes or the Vokey's will throw them back.
At their website, BlueberryAcres.com, vacationers planning a visit to the coastal midcoast region of Maine (Camden, Rockport, Lincolnville, Rockland and Thomaston areas), are treated to an online experience as crisp and fresh as the veggies they so skillfully procure. There, customers select from over a thousand different items, ordering their vacation groceries as part of a package or a la carte, along with freshly cut flowers, wine, and even champagne. Carefully cultivated partnerships with local vacation rental agencies ensure that all orders are then "invisibly" delivered to rental and vacation homes within just hours of their customers' arrival.
Reminiscent of the "old days" where customer service was paramount, the Vokeys call their customers "VVCs" (or Very Valued Customers) and champion the "customer is always right" approach, offering an impressive "VVC Guarentee" and delivering free of charge with each order a complimentary Welcome Package to pleasantly ease their VVCs into vacation mode. Among the freebies: area guides and maps, fridge magnets and their housemade chocolate chip cookies, made with two distinct gourmet chocolates and three types of sugars.
But what it all comes down to, perhaps, is convenience. As a recent Down East magazine article on the Vokeys' innovative enterprise proclaimed, "There's nothing worse than arriving at your summer rental after a long journey only to have to turn right around and head to the grocery store to stock up on provisions for your stay." And, at just $35 for their expert shopping and "just in time" delivery service, Maine vacationers can hardly afford not to treat themselves to this innovative new service. Would that everywhere we went, Blueberry Acres would follow.
Can you say franchise, anyone?
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