I hate grocery shopping. I am serious. I’m the kind of person who will eat cereal for dinner three days in a row just to avoid going to the grocery store. Whole Foods Oakland could change that.

It is a great looking store with an interesting layout and plenty of delicious prepared foods including…gelato! Our gelato to be exact. Our ingredients list and production techniques easily met the tough quality standards to go on the shelves of Whole Foods Market.

Whole Foods Market loves local foods and so do we. Our current flavors at the Oakland store include Espresso, made with beans from Mr. Espresso, roasted in Oakland, Dark Chocolate made with chocolate from Guittard in Burlingame, pistachio made with pistachios from our favorite family farm in California’s Central Valley, and Schaffen Berger 41% made with couveture from Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker in Berkeley.

Wednesday the 26th was Whole Foods’ opening day. After the bread breaking ceremony to open the store, we spent several hours working behind their showcase introducing our gelato to a sea of customers. It was so popular we had to add an extra delivery for the following day. That sure made me happy.

We will be rotating our flavor selection to include other flavors as well as some soy flavors in the future. We will also feature some of our upcoming holiday flavors. Please stop by the little gelato showcase which is nudged between the pizza oven and the candy display.

This past weekend we spent some time at COPIA: The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts. They were celebrating Festa Italiana, an Italian fair as part of their focus of Italy this month. We rolled our cart out into their gardens and served our favorite Italian flavors including Cannoli, Savoiardi, Pistacchio, Nocciola and Fico de India. We actually sold out, on a chilly, overcast day no less!

It was fun to be around people who are passionate about food and wine. In the five years we have been making gelato people have said a lot of really nice things about our gelato but this was the first time somebody described it as, “nicely balanced flavors with a clean aftertaste.” I was surprised he didn’t swirl the gelato around in his cup.

Inside, at the Meyer Food Forum, I was doing a demonstration on making our Savoiardi gelato at home. I also talked about the difference between crafting your own gelato from scratch ingredients, like we do, vs. cans of goo and bags of powder like many other gelaterias make. The demonstration kitchen was beautiful with lots of expensive cookware and nice appliances and I felt like Emeril with the microphone, cameras and monitors. Man, I could do that everyday.

In two different sessions I talked to just over 100 people. It went well and we are invited back to do a bigger demonstration on making gelato in February. It will likely be about chocolate gelato in anticipation of our Valentine’s Day promotion when we do 22 flavors of chocolate gelato, yum! Stay tuned.

We are excited. Whole Foods Market has approached us to supply gelato for their new flagship store for the East Bay in Oakland. We told them the gelato needed to be served authentically and fresh, as opposed to pints and quarts in the freezer cabinet. They said they hadn’t even considered it there, as they were building a fresh gelato bar in their store. And they said that being from the neighborhood, they were big fans of Naia. We said we would be there with bells on.

What’s exciting about working with Whole Foods is their renewed focus on local producers and their commitment to real food, which is something we do too. Their quality standards include a list of unacceptable food ingredients which we wholeheartedly support and follow; a lot of gelato these days (even in Italy) wouldn’t. The target opening date is September 26, their address is 230 Bay Place, and we hope to see you there!

It’s back to school time, and our store on the UC Berkeley campus was greeting students Naia style, with free samples of fresh gelato. For Calapalooza we gave out just over 1,000 cups of gelato in less than an hour. Over the next two days we gave out just shy of 9,000 samples to new and returning students at Caltopia as part of Naia’s support of the ASUC booth.

While some people were just giving out pieces of paper to market their products, it was fun to interact with our guests and see the delight from sampling our gelato. Other giveaways at the show ranged from laundry bags to free checking accounts. With over 34,000 at Caltopia it’s certain that the Cal student body is back!