The Sacramento Bee By Gwen Schoen -- Bee Food Writer Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, February 2, 2005 Fancy that: West Sac scone maker a hit of show! Pepper-stuffed olives, polenta chips, wasabi mustard, chocolate cappuccino drizzling sauce. You could literally eat for three days straight and not have sampled all the fare at the annual Fancy Food Show in San Francisco last week. The show attracts nearly 17,000 professional chefs, specialty-food sellers and caterers who come to see and sample the latest and the best food products manufacturers have to offer. More than 50,000 foods and beverages are on display for the three-day trade show. If you have a new food company or product, this is where you come to show it off. If you're lucky, you'll grab the attention of buyers and land a few big sales. With so many buyers and so many sellers hawking samples, it is a carnival of food. From one end of the Moscone Center, we immediately noticed a crowd gathering at the far corner. Obviously, someone was making an impression. As we worked our way closer and finally broke through the crowd, there was Erik Finnerty, one of the two men who own FatCat Scones in West Sacramento. He was passing out samples of scones as fast as they could baked. "In a show this size, with so many people passing out samples, there's only so much stomach space," Finnerty said. "Most people skip the samples, so what was amazing to us is that people were tasting all four flavors and asking for more. We were baking seriously for five hours straight. The response was amazing." For a small company such as FatCat, a three-man operation that includes the two owners and one employee, the Fancy Food Show could mean the difference between making a living and being hugely successful. Taking a breather a few days after the show, Finnerty said everyone at the company headquarters was celebrating the success. "Our scones are already carried at some local stores - Whole Foods, Nugget Market, Corti Bros. and Taylor's Market - and we are in the process of finalizing some deals from the show," Finnerty said. "We talked to buyers from as far away as Alaska and the East Coast. That's what is so great about attending these big shows. For a small company like ours, it puts us in contact with buyers from all over the world." About the writer: The Bee's Gwen Schoen can be reached at (916) 321-1146 or gschoen@sacbee.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 FATCAT SCONES. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. TERMS OF USE