Flathau’s Fine Foods in Petal is no stranger to international recognition and awards, as evidenced by just a few of the shop’s accolades in recent years: honors from the Best of Atlanta and the Specialty Food Trade, winning the “Best Baked” Gourmet Gold Award for its Peppermint Snaps at the ninth annual Dallas Gourmet Specialty Food Award at the World Trade Center in Dallas in 2019, and earning a sofi Award at the Fancy Food Show in New York City.
More recently, in mid-May Flathau’s Cinnamon Cayenne Shortbread Cookies placed in the Top Five for the Most Innovative Product Finalist Award at the Sweets & Snacks Expo in Indianapolis, Indiana.
“We didn’t come in first, but we were in the Top Five, so that’s still an honor for us,” said Jeff Flathau, who co-owns Flathau’s Fine Foods with his wife Heather. “It’s good, and I like the fact that they recognized that.
“We put the cayenne and the sugar together for a hot, sweet cookie. It’s really a good product, and we’re really happy with that. So we’re coming out with a line of the smaller cookies in the next couple or three years – we’ve got several recipes already tested and ready to come out, and we’re just going to roll them out slowly to where we have something new each year.”
The Sweets & Snacks Expo is held annually to connect candy and snack manufacturers with the world’s best suppliers of ingredients, packaging, machinery and more. In addition to Flathau’s, this year’s event featured exhibitors such as Hickory Harvest Foods, Las Olas Confections and Snacks, Wicked Crisps and Vidal Candies USA.
“It’s really a candy show – like M&Ms, Mars, Wrigley and all those big companies are there,” Flathau said. “They each have booths there, and they have a big presence.
“We’ve entered three or four times in the past, and we have a new product with the Cinnamon Cayenne Shortbread Cookies. It’s actually a round cookie size, instead of the traditional straws that we manufacture. There’s different categories (at the expo) – there’s candy, there’s hard candy, and there are just different items that people enter.”
For the next step, Flathau’s will soon head to the 2024 Fancy Food Show, which will be held June 23-25 in New York City.
“We entered the show, but I haven’t heard if we were a finalist,” Flathau said. “We don’t know, but hopefully we’ll have some good luck there.
“But it should be a good show in New York; it’s just all foods – any kind of gourmet, specialty foods.”
Flathau’s Fine Foods, which is located on West 2nd Avenue in Petal, specializes in items such as snaps – which come in flavors like lemon, peppermint, cinnamon and butterscotch – along with various flavors of cheese straws and several gift items.
In addition to the recent honor in Indianapolis, Flathau’s Fine Foods also has won “Best Dessert” in 2006 for its Cinnamon Snaps; two Best of Atlanta Awards for the Key Lime Snaps and Peppermint Snaps; “Best Snack” in 2006 for its Cheese Straws; and Double Honors for the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade for its Butterscotch Snaps and Raspberry snaps. The Butterscotch Snaps, Raspberry Snaps and Plain Shortbread were bestowed with sofi (specialty outstanding food innovation) Awards in New York.
“We’re proud of it,” Flathau said in a previous story. “Everybody that works here is from the area, and we have a lot of customers in the area that buy from us.
“We’re proud to represent Petal everywhere we go, and the Hattiesburg area as well. We’re proud to be from Mississippi, and we’re proud to tout that wherever we go.”
Flathau’s Fine Foods sells its products online and at more than 2,000 stores around the country, including its line of Maddy’s Sweet Shop items, which can be found in local Corner Market stores. The company even exports to Chile, Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
For more information on the shop, visit www.flathausfinefoods.com or call (601) 582-9629.
