Connect With Customers
Give your customers the tools, knowledge, and inspiration to elevate their businesses. Ask us about special programs in the new, state-of-the-art Hestan Teaching Kitchen (above) at our Copia campus in Napa.
Key Accounts
Your customers need a constant supply of fresh ideas, new products, and effective strategies. And in a demanding business, they could probably use a chance to step back and become re-inspired at one of our beautiful campuses. Our chef-guided kitchen programs provide an effective way to launch products, develop new ones, or increase menu placement. Let us create a custom curriculum tailored to your customers’ marketing and operational objectives – from global flavors to plant-forward dishes to beverages and all-day dining. Click the video to watch Potatoes USA develop new menu items with national accounts.
Certified Culinary Sales Professional (CCSP)
CCSP is a professional credentialing program designed to help non-culinarians understand and navigate the world of the operator. Over the course of four months, this guided, immersive program will give your team the culinary knowledge, business context, and interactive experiences to help them partner with new and established clients. This unique program is fully accredited by the International Association for Continuing Education and Training (IACET), and combines distance learning with on-campus sessions and industry shadowing. CCSP is ideal for all customer-facing positions, including sales, marketing, and technical staff. Open doors with the power of CCSP on your business cards, emails, and social media profiles.
Bloggers
Today’s food bloggers have overtaken mainstream media as key consumer influencers. But content is still king. A curated, interactive session at one of our campuses – or yours – will provide them with inspiration, information, data, and recipes. With our international reputation for thought leadership, the CIA is a robust pipeline of information that can use your products to address consumer topics such as emerging flavors and ingredients, easy meal prep, healthy and sustainable meals, entertaining, and kids menus. Click on the blog to the right to see one result from a California Ripe Olives program.
Engage With Students
CIA graduates go on to become industry leaders – so it’s no surprise that suppliers want to begin developing relationships with them while they are still in school. CIA Consulting offers two sponsor opportunities that enhance students’ education.
Pop-Up Classroom
Use the Student Innovation Station at The Egg on our Hyde Park campus to conduct your own private pop-up seminar for students. Located in the heart of the Student Dining Facility, which hosts nearly 3,000 visitors each day, the Innovation Station is a fully functional, open kitchen with display and serving capabilities. The space is ideal for interactive instruction by one of your chefs or ours. Programs include extensive pre- and post-event campus marketing opportunities, as well as scholarship options.
Student Innovation Challenge
Imagine asking the next generation of culinary leaders – who also happen to be your next generation of customers – to create new ideas and recipes using your products. The Student Innovation Challenge (SIC) enables you to do exactly that while also providing a rich learning experience and potential scholarships for CIA students. The SIC offers a real-world research and development process led by a CIA chef mentor – resulting in much more than just recipes for you. Choose one campus or all three for maximum engagement and marketing opportunities..
Lead Your Category
The CIA brand stands for industry leadership. These broad-reach programs are cost-effective options designed to leverage our expertise, amplify your category leadership, and connect with operators you can’t reach directly.
Custom Content
Content marketing has become the go-to strategy for establishing trust, credibility, and concern for your customers – as well as reaching new prospects. When you leverage the CIA’s educational content, you are harnessing our expertise and brand authority, which in turn can generate leads through SEO, web traffic, and social media engagement. Opportunities include e-newletters, magazines, webinars, recipe decks, and white papers. Click on the image to the right to see how Bush’s Beans is leading the plant-forward trend.
Product Innovation
Deploy the CIA’s Research and Development protocol, designed by industry leaders for industry leaders. Our principal of Process Collaboration ensures that a team moves together through ideation, concepting, and protocepting while capturing diverse inputs from all stakeholders. The end result is a Gold Standard suitable for bench testing. This process can be applied to new products, line extensions, menu applications, testing, and sensory evaluation.
The CIA Advantage
Integrated Marketing
Did you know that you can integrate your messaging across our professional divisions – the Strategic Initiatives Group, Advancement, and CIA Consulting? Consider adding a Key Accounts workshop and a Gift In Kind donation to a Menus of Change® sponsorship, and your products and brand leadership will remain active beyond the three days of the conference – reaching current and future buyers who may not have attended.Think of it as an ecosystem of engagement that amplifies your brand and strengthens relationships.
Get in Touch
Contact us to access our 70 years of food intelligence and turn our thought leadership into your reality. Simply fill out our contact form and a CIA consultant will get right back to you.
If you’d rather talk in person, give us a call at 845.905.4423.