sweetriot blog - cacao | culture | cool!

New York International Gift Fair

After the beauty of San Francisco and the mountains of Park City, sweetriot landed at the New York International Gift Fair.  It was our first year at the show, and we were excited to be there!

We saw our old friends at 3R living -- a great eco-store in Brooklyn, and we also started working with Body Factory in LA -- a cool store on Sunset Boulevard.

We also had some GREAT friends helping us including Theo, Edna (who flew in from Mexico), Marquina, Jennifer, Ethan, Dwayne, Munbing, and Anne.  Huge thanks to them!

Sundance one year later.

I'm now here at the Salt Lake City airport one year later.  Sundance was different this year as our amazing riot team with Napoleon Dynamite was not there in full force.  Instead, I was meeting people and sharing sweetriot on my own.  We were also profiled at some of the eco-green lounges at the festival.  sweetriot is a bit more recognized but we are still small and unique.  Where will we fit in next year? 

You'll have to wait and see.  :)

Sundance screening at Alpine Cafe

Live from Main Street -- it's the 'sweetriot goes to Sundance' film.  Here we are screening the film at the indie Alpine Cafe on Main Street.  In a twist of fate, the Cafe owners even sold out and had a 'gifting booth' in their cafe for the first 5 days of Sundance.  Luckily, by the time sweetriot arrived they were back to normal but due to the LARGE AOL corporate internet lounge down the street their traffic was lower than usual.

Anyway, this takes us back to the theme -- small and indie companies at Sundance?  Where do they belong?  It's a tough question.  Even Alpine Cafe a local company was impacted by the big corporation.

(Here are a few other photos from Park City including The Egyptian Theater and the Mountains!)  HUGE thanks to Eric and Brian at Alpine and Linda for hosting.

Grace is Gone at Sundance.

I met one of the neatest directors today at Sundance -- James C. Strouse.  He is a great guy from a small town in Indiana and this shows through his film, Grace is Gone, starring John Cusack. 

It is a touching movie about the loss of a loved one in Iraq and the father's relationship with his two young daughters.  Audience members were crying through out and the director even said he cried during filming!  I'm hoping this one will finally give Cusack the Oscar he so deserves.

(Here James is with his daughter too who was playing with sweetriot while he spoke!  James was even excited to hear my sister was an extra while they filmed at Cypress Gardens in Florida.)

Sundance & celebrities

It's late Tuesday and I just arrived in Park City.  Sundance is about independent film not celebrities.  However, as Sundance has grown, so has the celebrity scene. More and more celebrities are seeking scripts from independent film makers as they are edgier than the major studio work.

This year the film festival created buttons called 'Focus on Film' to encourage folks to stray from the glitzy, celeb, gifting suites and to instead focus on the soul of Sundance -- socially progressive, unaltered, raw, independent film and the filmmakers who create them.

Nevertheless, the celebrities were there in force and luckily happily eating sweetriot.  Here are a few photos of Timothy Hutton, Cuba Gooding Jr, and Tara Reid.

Fancy Food Show San Francisco

The rioters just flew out West to attend the delicious Fancy Food Show in San Francisco.  We were lucky to have guest rioters including Geneve, Heather, Margaret, Laura, Mary, Leslie, and Oliver and many friends stopping by including Julius from Greyston Bakery. (Save the date for the NYC one in July!)

sweetriot saw many of its old friends at the show from some of the best stores in the country including The Pasta Shop, Zingerman's, Wild Oats, and Whole Foods.

Don't you want some cacao today?

Net Impact at Michigan

The University of Michigan Net Impact just hosted their annual conference in Ann Arbor.  Chris and Molly organized a great conference and panel on social entrepreneurship of which I was proud to be a part.  If you'd like to learn even more about Net Impact, visit their national website for all sorts of great info. on their social mission work.  It's good to know there are a bunch of rioters at my alma mater! Go Blue!

Sundance Film Festival

Last year sweetriot visited the Sundance Film Festival to spread the joys of cacao.  This year, we are excited to launch our short film from our experience there.  It was in fact challenging as there was no clear place for an indie cacao company at the festival.  Check it out!

We hope you enjoy the film!

Creative Good & GEL

Our friends at Creative Good and GEL celebrated their 10th birthday with a great party at the Exit Art Gallery in Chelsea this past week.  sweetriot cacao was there of course too for the party revellers.

Phil Terry and Mark Hurst are a great team committed to creating outstanding customer experiences.  You should check out their work and their wonderful conference, GEL.  sweetriot will be there again this year speaking about cacao. 

Fast Company Social Capitalist Awards.

Fast Company gave out their Social Capitalist awards again this year.  We were honored to again give sweetriot to the winners like last year. 

Our friends at Appreciate were there and the CityYear kids were jumping - seriously.  Paul Rice from TransFair (Fast Company's cover boy!) was also there rioting.

Check out the winners...worth a read!