Clients Give New Life to Nutty Tradition

As Ayres Associates exhibits at various trade shows across the country, one of our trademark giveaways is cashews served from a Tonka truck, as pictured below.

The addicting little salty treats have a history going back more than 30 years at our company. Back in the 1980s, one of our project managers, Fred Klingbeil, was handing out mixed nuts purchased in bulk to some of his favorite clients annually as a thank you for a year’s worth of business. He then bought Christmas tins from a Ben Franklin dime store and packaged the nuts himself. “At the time, I was the only one doing it,” said Fred, now retired. “Twelve to 15 was my limit. Ben Franklin never had more tins than that; I just bought them all.”

When Rick Satterlee, a business development specialist in our Green Bay office, joined Ayres in 1989, he noted this nutty practice and wondered if it could be “classed up” a little and implemented companywide. Shortly thereafter, we began sharing cashew treats with our clients around the country, but the dime store tins were dropped in favor of a customized wooden box with our logo engraved on a sliding lid.

We continue to share these treats with clients each fall and winter, and as we make our rounds to deliver them, we’ve noticed many of the boxes have been given a new life by our clients – keeping in line with our company’s views on the importance of sustainable design and recycling.

We’ve seen the boxes in workshops as holders of nails and screws. We’ve seen them painted and stacked as holiday decorations. We’re told elementary students love to take them to school to store crayons and pencils. We’ve sipped coffee with clients who have offered cream and sugar packets stored in our cashew boxes.

One of the most creative reuses of the boxes we’ve seen was a retired couple who had turned them into his-and-her organizers for their daily prescription medications. Now that’s thinking outside (and inside) the box.

Do you have a cashew box that you’re reusing? Please share a photo – we’d love to see what you did! To share a photo, just drop us an email at Contact@AyresAssociates.com, and we’ll post it. Or just describe your handiwork right here in a quick comment below.