Last night Ryan and I drove to St. Pete to drop Sadie off at my parents’ house before heading to Tampa where we spent the night because I had an early-morning wake up call for a special event!
A few months ago I was contacted by the marketing team in charge of Southern Exposure, a conference organized by the Southeast Produce Council, and asked to speak on a panel about the relationship between bloggers, produce companies and consumers.
My fellow panelists included Ricky from TastyChomps.com, Aggie from AggiesKitchen.com and Jeff Houck, a food writer and blogger for the Tampa Tribune.
We were asked all sorts of questions by audience members about a wide range of topics ranging from how brands can successfully reach out to bloggers and the benefits of social media to the world of blogging and marketing ideas.
I receive a bunch of press releases every day and only a few actually stick out to me (or even align with my blog!), so I had a lot of ideas to share and feedback to provide.
I majored in public relations in college and worked in the field for a few years, so I understand the game of mass-emailing press releases to people in hopes that someone will find your event or product interesting, but had a great time offering new ideas to the audience. I love discussing marketing (not sales!), public relations and blogging, so being on the panel was a blast!
The panel went really well and I loved speaking with a lot of the attendees and vendors afterwards.
Brunch
After the session, the panelists were invited to attend a brunch late in the morning and I was even able to bring Ryan along as my guest!
Our meal started with fresh fruit which we ate while watching the keynote speaker, Florida’s Commissioner of Agriculture, Adam Putnam.
Commissioner Putnam previously served five terms as Congressman for Florida’s 12th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives and was a great public speaker. During his keynote address, there was unfortunately a lot of unplanned noise interruptions from the overhead speaker system. I know I would’ve been flustered, but he powered through and continued speaking with a great sense of humor.
The main course of the brunch included chicken, roasted potatoes, a stuffed tomato and green beans.
I ate everything but my tomato because it was just a lil’ funky.
Dessert included a slice of chocolate cake with coffee mousse and key lime pie. Ryan and I shared the two pieces, though I ate more than he did and found myself in quite the sugar coma!
And then it was time for the expo!
Expo
I didn’t really know what to expect when we were invited to attend the expo, but once we walked inside the large room in the Tampa convention center, I was blown away.
There were produce vendors and samples everywhere! I was so pumped to talk with the vendors and learn more about produce and fun food products.
Purple sweet potatoes!
Ugli fruit, a hybrid of a grapefruit and a tangelo, was delicious!
Ryan and I took advantage of the samples and filled two green bags full of food. I am currently so stuffed I could pop. 
One of my favorite samples of the day came from Atlas’ Caramel Natural dates.
Oh my goodness, the coconut almond date rolls were fantastic. Ryan and I both loved them and left with a box that was already broken into on the car ride home.
Now I’m hoping to hang out and digest before packing in dinner. We’re spending the night at my parents’ house in St. Pete and my mom has a seafood feast planned. I cannot turn down clams and crab claws, so I’m really hoping my appetite returns soon!
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I spy chocolate covered strawberries! Between that and a seafood feast, I’d say that’s a nice weekend 🙂
A million monthly page views?? Girl you have MADE IT! Congrats 🙂
I would have loved to hear you speak – looks like a great discussion! I’ve also never seen a purple sweet potato – how neat!
Congratulations on your success! Sounds like you are having an amazing day!
Love your dress! Glad your day was so much fun… nothing like a happy belly 😉
Congrats on that opportunity! It sounds like so fun and informative… what a bonus with all of those samples!
I “ditto” what Sara said! That’s amazing!! 🙂
that is so exciting 🙂
congrats!!
and that dress is simply stunning, you look gorgeous!
It takes a certain kind of person to love talking about sales (not me!). I wish I took more marketing in college because it does seem really interesting. Kind of fun to apply it to a small-scale endeavor like a blog.
This place looks like free-sample heaven! 🙂
What an awesome event and congrats on being on such a great panel! Oh man, I haven’t had an Ugli fruit in so long, but aren’t they so yummy?
What a fantastic event! Wish I could have attended to hear you and the others speak.
Aren’t food expos fun? I have been to one before and like you, tried a bit of everything. Plus brought home lots of goodies. Yum!
What an awesome looking expo! I would have loved that! And congrats on being asked to speak at that event, so cool! You should be proud of yourself!
Ah you make me want to make something out of blog <3
Ooh, all those samples look like fun! Purple sweet potatoes?? Very cool. And I looooove medjool dates. That chocolate cake looks so rich and decadent, yum. You looked beautiful! I love that dress, and the color really suits you 🙂
Hi Julie! I have a kind of blog marketing question for you-do you have any professional photos of yourself that you submit along with your bio and articles? I noticed that you typically use the same one that’s on your blog-is that for consistency sake?
Thanks!
What a fun day!! How cool that you were invited there!? 🙂 You seriously are so humble and approachable–that’s probably why so much good stuff happens to you. GOOOO you!
Have a lovely time with the fam!
what a fun event! those purple sweet potatoes intrigue me… do you know where you can find them? do you know if they’re similar in taste and nutritional stats as normal sweet potatoes?
awesome!! food expo’s are so much fun..especially healthy food ones..love all the samples. looks like a fun day!!
Love the blue dress! Where’s it from?
I third Sana – congratulations! That is amazing!
So happy I got to meet you in person! What a fun panel and a great day! Hope our paths meet again soon. Enjoy that seafood fest at mom’s … I’m a little jealous 🙂
gorgeous dress and the food looks incredible!!
love that color on you julie! pretty dress. the food looks great!! congrats on your success!
How awesome! I love purple sweet potatoes – I take them for lunch at work (at a school) and tell the other teachers that they are my school spirit potatoes since our color is purple. 🙂
just was on shape.com and saw your peanut butter recipes on the main page! yay julie! 🙂
Congrats on being invited to speak at such a cool event! You deserve it!
What a great day and an awesome opportunity!
Your blog is the first blog that I ever came across two years ago!
Purple sweet potatoes are one of my favorites!! 🙂 I haven’t tried the Ugli fruit, but it looks just like white meat pomelo (which i love!)..I really enjoy expos..so many new and interesting things packed into one room!
Hey Julie!
I’m sitting here typing this all jitterish-ly as I try to get myself to go to settle down and go to sleep because I’m running my first half marathon tomorrow (the New Orleans Rock and Roll half)! I started reading your blog over my college winter break and was inspired to register for a half marathon. This is my first race ever and I definitely don’t consider myself to be a “runner” just like you said so I just wanted to thank you for inspiring me to go for this goal!
Looks like such a fun day! And those dates definitely do look good.
Wow sounds like a great opportunity! Congrats on being asked to speak!
What an amazing opportunity! And that expo looks sooooo fun!
Wow, thats so awesome that you got to go to that expo! It looks like it was a lot of fun. 🙂
Purple sweet potatos?? I’ve never seen those before but would love to try them! 😀
I love your dress too!!! It’s gorgeous! Where is it from?
Randomly this is nearly the exact topic i’m researching for my Masters thesis! I have to hand in my research title and proposal next week and this post just seems like a sign i’m on the right track! haha I know that sounds crazy! I find the whole blogger/brand/marketing relationship really interesting.
Beautiful blue dress too 🙂
how cool! i bet that is consuming your life right now! good luck with your thesis!
Wow, that sounds like quite fun and a great opportunity to meet new people. Not to mention, the expo part looks fantastic. I can understand why you guys would be obsessed with the date rolls, I think I need to find some for myself!
That looks like a great opportunity! How fun!
Great! You must have had a really good time, and that’s cool Ryan could share it with you!
Those dates look delish! looks like it was a fun conference, too 🙂
Congrats! What a cool thing to be asked to do…. 🙂
What a fun event! You should feel so honored to have been chosen to attend!
A purple sweet potato? Please cook some and share your thoughts!
i would love to! unfortunately they weren’t giving those away to try, but if i see one at my local grocery store, i’m all over it!
I think you may need a fashion page update! Lol. Such a gorgeous dress, where is it from??
thank you! it’s calvin klein from tjmaxx!
I also love that dress! So gorgeous on you 🙂
Congratulations! you looked so amazing in this cute little blue dress.
Boo — we were both at the Tampa Convention Center at the SAME TIME and I didn’t see you! Hope you can make it to this meetup at the end of the month 🙂
What an honor, that’s awesome!!!! I had to do the math when I saw that you have 1,000,000 monthly page views…that’s a lot of pbfingers lovin! Are you going to do a fashion post on your dress? I love it! It’s so hard to find cute dresses that can be appropriate for either day/night.
yes, i definitely will! i haven’t updated that page in foreverrr!
That looked like a blast! Did you find anything new during the expo which you think will be a new big hit??
i thought the purple sweet potatoes were awesome and loved this new brand of salad dressing made with greek yogurt that i think has HUGE potential. the company is pitching it to publix this week and if it hits the market near me, i’m definitely buying it and blogging about it!
I just saw an Ugli fruit at the grocery store and was SO curious about what it was/what it tasted like (but at $3 each, I couldn’t justify buying it)… I am glad I know now, thanks!
I’m glad the conference/expo was fun!