Dear Friends, Family, and Customers,
You don’t want to blink during the month of May—in this month of rapid growth, if you miss a minute, you miss a lot! To give you an idea of what I mean, we typically begin the month with grass just 3” tall, and by the first of June we’re cutting hay! In a year when all the conditions are ideal, it’s stunning to watch the explosion of new growth, with vegetation that is strong, healthy, and young! Going into May this year on the farm, we have sufficient moisture and warmth, along with rich soil—which is just what it takes for healthy and abundant growth.
Similarly, Azure is enjoying a season of abundant growth! We have sufficient sales, team members, and customers, and this trifecta has created an opportunity to get a lot better at what we do—bring you great products at affordable prices. Our growth phase looks less like May’s lush vegetation, though, and more like a huge assortment of new Azure branded products, our very first Azure store, a new canning processing facility, a new-to-us orchard, and a couple other exciting projects we are working on. We are so grateful for the abundant growth we have seen, and for your part in that! Now about those new projects…
Canning Jars
I’m really excited to tell you about our Azure Canning Company! Quality canning jars have been difficult to find these past several years, and I feel strongly that every homesteader and gardener needs access to reliable jars to put up their own harvest. Currently, our jars are undergoing heat testing to be sure they are tough enough to meet Azure standards (we wanted to offer something a notch above what we see out there). If they pass our tests (rated for 100° heat shock, better than competitors), they are a GO! We will be introducing half gallons, regular and wide quarts, and regular pints. We added some thoughtful design elements, including an attractive Azure logo that is etched inward (most jars do the opposite, preventing your labels from attaching well). Azure Canning Company jars will feature sealing lids by none other than Superb!
Supplements Line
Although this one is going to take more time to get to the finish line, I’ve been practically bursting with excitement to give you a peak behind the curtain on another project. We are working with a doctor to develop a truly clean whole food supplements line! While there are many supplements on the market, there is a void we believe we can fill in terms of purity and trust. We are very selective about the products we carry—in every category, we supply you with the very best we can find. But especially with supplements, not all are formulated the way we would want them to be. It’s going to take time, and it’ll be costly to do it right, but our full line will exclude fillers (magnesium stearate, stearic acid, and others) and excipients. We want to confidently say that what we develop is not just the best on the market, but the best that can possibly be produced.
Why supplements? Most of you know we advocate for eating in such a way that your nutritional needs are met—I’ve always been a strong believer that food is your medicine. But I’ve seen over and over that there are many instances when supplements can successfully address health concerns, and in my opinion it's far better to go that direction than towards pharmaceuticals.
Azure Market Brand
At Azure, our core values include bringing you the very best quality foods available: healthy food from healthy soil. We will always support independent and family-owned businesses by selling a huge variety of brands. But as things have changed, we’ve discovered that, in some cases, we can have better quality control, better pricing, and more consistent inventory when we bring products under our label. And that’s exactly what we did by making our own Azure Market branded coconut products, tomatoes, condiments, bulk foods, and many others.
As much as I don’t want to bring up the white stuff in May, I think we will see a “snowball effect” from this rapid growth, and Azure will expand into new markets, bringing you more and better products into the future. With the fresh growth and abundance, dreams that once seemed impossible to achieve are within our reach!
Season by season, as we move forward with our families, our gardens, our homesteads, and our tasks, we gain competence and build on the good work we have begun. Keep in mind that the growth that happens in May eventually results in a small sapling becoming a large tree, one that blesses those around it with plenty of fruit and lots of shade. May your lives also be blessed with abundant growth and generosity extending to those around you!
Wishing you a month of abundant growth,
David Stelzer, Founder and CEO