Dear Friends and Customers,
July is an exciting time as we watch our crops grow by leaps and bounds. Here in Dufur, we had a beautiful spring, and the first fruits of the season are rolling in! We are savoring the strawberries and anxious to begin tasting the cherries. It does my heart good to see – and taste – the bounty of the land manifesting again.
But here at Azure, as most of you know, we faced quite a blow with losing our headquarters to a disastrous fire. In addition to our main offices, our liquid repackaging operation, carob factory, and fruit packing line were all destroyed. The total loss of these three areas has directly impacted our customers. We lost all our liquids, such as oil, honey, syrup, and our packaging and labeling equipment. Our team custom-built the carob equipment, so all carob is out of stock until we can fabricate new machinery. And our fruit packing system, too, was customized for our needs. We have had to do a lot of rapid innovation to keep operating, and we have been stretched to our absolute limit trying to get everything up and running.
I wanted to update you on our progress, so you know what to expect and when. Fortunately, we quickly located another building for our liquid repackaging and carob production. Within a month, we repurposed this building to meet food safety standards, and it has been inspected and certified for kosher and organics. The next step was to get all our liquids poured, packaged, and labeled for sale. Before the fire, we had efficient equipment that made this a quick task. But since the fire, we have had to rely on pouring by hand as we wait for our supplier to build replacement equipment. This turnaround time was a couple of weeks longer than we hoped because so many products were affected. In the meantime, we had trouble tweaking our software to show what was out of stock because our system 'knew' we had the bulk product; however, it was not yet poured or packaged for sale. We apologize for the confusion and inconvenience this may have caused you as you tried to place orders. By the time we go to press with this letter, all our liquids should be available for purchase again.
Regarding our carob line, most of our equipment was custom made. We are working on getting all the molds, cooling tunnels, and packaging ready to resume our carob processing. We expect to have our carob-covered nuts and carob chips out by mid to late July, but it will take us longer to get the carob cups, truffles, and bars ready for you. We will probably consolidate our carob into two brands instead of three: Missy J's and Azure Market carob will return, while Uncommon Carob will most likely be discontinued.
As for our fruit processing, it has been difficult to source new equipment and find space, but we will do whatever it takes to get fresh fruit to our customers! We don't have a firm plan in place, but we trust that it will all work out in time for fruit harvesting. As you might imagine, making these changes during what was already a busy time has been a challenge!
As we recover, I am beyond grateful there were no injuries in the fire. As for what caused it or why it occurred, the fire marshal declared her theory. Many of you have expressed your own concerns and thoughts, and we, too, wish we had more answers. We may never know with certainty why the fire happened or what caused it, but we know how to move forward. We also know we must not dwell too long on the loss.
I want to thank the Azure customer family for standing by us through thick and thin. We have received hundreds of letters, emails, and phone calls from you! Your encouragement, loyalty, and outpouring of love and concern have been a great comfort to us. You have also responded by supporting us with increased sales, and we are grateful. I want you to know we are doing our absolute best to keep moving forward to provide for you. We hope to be running on all cylinders very soon. We are determined to overcome this setback and build back stronger than before.
In closing, we choose to look for the best in all circumstances. I have learned that we never know what the future holds, but we know that the way we frame the future is up to us. We can always choose to react in a forward-thinking and positive manner. If there's a lesson we have learned, it is that it does no good to dwell on loss but to be thankful for what is not lost and move forward the best we possibly can. We are grateful for you, each other, and the opportunity to continue living abundantly!
With Gratitude,
David Stelzer
Founder and CEO