Edible Arrangements Under New Ownership
By EMILY RAMSEY
Managing Editor
UNIQUE TREAT: Natalie Hawkins, store manager for Edible Arrangements on Brookside and area company trainer, holds a fruit bouquet in the company’s Brookside location, at 3311 S. Peoria Ave. In May 2014, the company opened its third greater Tulsa location,
EMILY RAMSEY for GTR Newspapers
Edible Arrangements is expanding in greater Tulsa after recently coming under new franchise ownership.
“We’re excited to continue growing in the community,” says Natalie Hawkins, Brookside store manager and area company trainer. She encourages customers who may have had a negative past experience, when the company was under different ownership, to give Edible Arrangements another try.
In May 2014, the company opened its third location and the first Edible Arrangements in Owasso, at 9025 N. 121st E. Ave. Other locations are on Brookside, 3311 S. Peoria Ave., and in South Tulsa, 7731 E. 91st St.
The Owasso store has a greater emphasis on foot traffic, with its offering of a new grab-and-go concept called Edible To Go, says Hawkins. The Owasso store, because of its large size, is the only area location to feature the new option.
Edible To Go offers single-serve items such as all-natural smoothies sweetened with agave nectar instead of artificial sweeteners, yogurt parfaits, sundaes, fruit salads, fresh lemonade, and individual pieces of chocolate dipped fruit. Smoothies can be created in various combinations using fresh ingredients including kale, pineapple, chocolate and strawberry.
Still, the company remains focused on its original concept of fruit arrangements and chocolate dipped fruit, with a strong emphasis on freshness.
Fresh whole fruit arrives to the store every morning, and the fruit is cut and arranged according to orders received. For customers needing an arrangement without time to wait, stores offer a few arrangements that were made fresh that morning.
After an arrangement order is placed, it takes anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour to create.
“We have to cut the whole fruit, shape it, size it, hand dip and hand arrange it,” Hawkins says.
Bouquets, then, can be either picked up at the store or hand delivered within a 15-mile radius of store locations. In addition to Tulsa and Owasso, areas of delivery include Bixby, Jenks, Broken Arrow, Sand Springs, Sapulpa, Glenpool, Sperry and Turley.
Bouquets are always delivered on the day they were ordered to ensure freshness.
“Our delivery people have the best jobs because they get to deliver the bouquets and see the looks on people’s faces,” says Hawkins.
Themed bouquets can be ordered for a wide variety of occasions including office parties, holidays, funerals and special causes such as breast cancer awareness.
“For office parties, we encourage people to go a little bigger in size because more people than they expected always end up eating it,” she comments.
No matter the occasion, though, the right bouquet can be found, Hawkins promises. “We have a thousand different things people can choose from.”
Additionally, the company regularly runs specials on its website and offers a surprisingly rewarding Rewards program: for every three orders, customers receive one box of chocolate dipped fruit.
In addition, customers receive the satisfaction of giving something healthy and, most likely, unexpected.
“It brightens people’s day because they are usually not expecting it, and it’s different than the standard bouquet,” says Hawkins.
Updated 03-03-2015
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