Local company earns top honors in H-E-B Quest for the Best

To The Moon Family Foods took a very honorable third place award sharing the award with Grain4Grain in the “H-EB’s Primo Picks Quest for Texas Best,” the annual contest held by H-E-B Grocery Stores giving them an opportunity to sell their items on H-E-B shelves, along with check for $10,000.

Lynn York and Joan Reece had an amazing and busy time being a part of the contest along with all the activities that went along with it says York, “We were in Houston for 4 days last week. Monday, we attended a media preview. All of the top 20 finalists displayed and sampled our products to the media. We were also interviewed at this time. Day 2 we attended meetings all day and that evening we were honored with an amazing dinner and program.”

Then came Wednesday, says York, “the day of our scheduled time, Joan, Keith and I went before several judges and a room full of HEB executives and gave a 20 minute presentation and sampled our Nutty-Carrot Spread. This was the most stressful event of the week.”

While even going against so many quality companies, and their products, York says they “felt good after our presentation and knew we couldn’t have done any better. Considering we were already in the top 20 out of over 800 products, we would have been happy for anyone from that group to win the top spots.”

“We had to put together a 20 minute presentation and decide how we would serve the samples to the judges and the 50 - 60 other attendees. We wanted our presentation to be informative as well as entertaining. To do this, we ended our presentation with a customized song which was sung by Joan’s granddaughter, Brooke Wisdom. Along with Brooke were two “dancing carrots”! The carrots were two of my daughters, Meagan Cook and Abbie York. By this time, the whole room was clapping along to the music! At that point we realized we had succeeded our expectations!” says York.

As with all contests, the time was at hand for York, Reece and fans to find out how they did. “The award ceremony was Thursday afternoon. The room was filled with all the H-E-B executives as well as all the finalists and their guests. We were the first winners announced. It honestly felt like winning the lottery! Joan and I walked to the stage with applauds and cheers from the room. It was amazing!” explains York.

“We’re going to use the prize money for the launch of our product. We’ll have to do some traveling during the launching.”

It doesn’t sound like they are going to have much time to catch their breath. York says “from here they will be “working closely with the H-E-B team during the next few months. We already have interested grocery store chains across the nation we’ll be working with as well.”

One thing York wanted the community to know was they highlighted their hometown of Atlanta in their presentation.

First place and $20,000 went to Uncle Ray’s Peanut Brittle from Austin. Evoke took second place and $15,000 for their beverages. Grain4Grain shared a third place finish with the home town based Atlanta To the Moon Family Foods, which makes nut and vegetable spreads.