Stand setup at the Orange Convention Centre, Orlando, Florida

We completed our setup on the 24th making the finishing touches to the booth. Bill Bookout, chairman of the National Animal Supplements Council( NASC), dropped by after setting up his booth just three down from us. The NASC is a American organisation that we belong to and they have been enormously helpful us to comply with government organizations, such as the FDA (Food & Drugs Association), who we deal with when importing our products into the USA. Later on in this trip we will be attending the annual NASC conference which this year is located in New Orleans - it's a tough life, but someone has to do it! More of this in later blogs.

Our booth at the Globa Pet Expo

Tony took some great shots of the booth (stand) to show that we really did spend two days setting up! The first day of the show has been excellent with lots of interest shown by buyers, distributors, and individual boutique pet shops, from places as far flung as Estonia and Columbia! A company based in WA (Washington State) but we thought it meant Western Australia - no I'm joking - this is the US state located just south of the Canadian border on the west coast of the US) that spoke to us at length last year came back to say that they were still interested in distributing our products, so fingers crossed this connection may turn into a solid development.

Scoot Jnr

‘Scoot' (see photo) my trusty mobility scooter came in handy not only for me but also for Tony to go off to the far end of the conference area to collect badges etc for us - please note that ‘Scoot' has a handy cup holder for coffee and, if necessary, alcoholic beverages later in the day!

You MUST buy this!

Heather, back in the UK, asked us to find a novelty or unusual product item to put onto the Blog. Tony found a new product being exhibited at the show which seemed to consist of a sort of ‘high chair' for dogs which could be attached to your dining table so that your pets could sit up at the table for dinner. In addition the image shows that the pets seem to be involved in a game of Scrabble. These dogs must be smart because our dobermann, Yogi, couldn't even spell his own name let alone aim for a triple word score, especially whilst eating his dinner.

A doggy dinner!

Let's hope the next two days turn out well for Hilton Herbs in Orlando.

Hilary and Tony